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From: "Samantha" <samanthak@fastmail.fm>
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Subject: {ASSM} Sam - Part 16  (FF, MF, tort, exhib, size, viol)
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Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:10:01 -0400
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<1st attachment, "Sam - Part16.doc" begin>

Sam - Part 16

by Samantha K
(FF, MF, tort, exhib, size, viol)
[comments welcome: SamanthaK(at)fastmail.fm]

Wednesday was a dark and dreary excuse for a spring day.  When I
woke up it was overcast and so dark that it looked like the
middle of the night.  It was one of those days that just seem to
sap all the energy right out of you and make you want to stay
indoors and watch TV, read, or anything else to ignore the day
outside.

Hiding from the weather was a luxury I didn't have.  I got up and
went down to feed the dog before I had my shower and got dressed.
 He seemed depressed by the gray sky as well.  He went right to
his food without so much as a tug on my hand to come and play. 
When I peeked in on Bud, he was still asleep and looked so
peaceful that I didn't have the heart to wake him up.  I decided
to postpone playing with my brothers until I felt perkier or they
indicated a desire to fool around.  I didn't want to become a
chore for anyone.

I showered and dressed in moderately conservative clothes   a
blue blouse and a pleated skirt that came to mid-thigh.  I
considered briefly, then decided not to wear my bell pendants on
my nipple rings or any other jewelry for that matter.  I would
have toned down my makeup a bit too, but it didn't seem worth the
bother.

At breakfast, conversation was minimal.  The only bright spot was
when the phone rang as I was leaving to walk over to Neeka's to
catch a ride to school.  Mom answered it and held out a hand,
motioning for me to wait.  I assumed that it was a follow-up
after last night.  I was right.

As soon as she hung up the phone, Mom said, "That was Bob Foster.
 He said to thank you again for the help last night.  He said
that he wanted you to know that those kids' parents were very
happy to have them back safe and sound and that even though you
had made it clear that you didn't want any credit for helping out
that you made a big difference in the lives of several people
last night and he wanted you to know that."

"That was kind of him to say.  I think I may have tipped him off
that I have a softer side than I had led him to believe and he
wanted to make me feel good.  Did he say anything about Beverly
sneaking out last night?"

"No, he didn't.  Do you really think she would have gone back
there?"

"It's a possibility.  Having your 'horizons' broadened can change
people."

"Well, he did say that he had a couple of deputies out there at
sunrise to look for the man you left tied up.  He said he was
just where you left him.  They took him to the hospital to have
him examined and to get him treated for a broken jaw."

"That's good.  I guess my reputation as a bone-breaker is still
solid, too.  And I didn't even hit him that hard."

"You seem happy that you didn't hurt him too badly."

"I am.  I don't like hurting people.  I keep running into people
who are as much victims of their own situations as the people
that they victimize.  I'd much rather help than hurt.  It's just
so hard to use the right amount of force; and the stronger I get,
the harder that becomes."

"Don't forget your martial arts class this afternoon, honey.  You
said you hoped that would help you with that."

"I think it already has.  And I know now what I need to do to
keep the destruction to a minimum."

"What's that?"

"Just stay calm, cool, and collected.  But that's easier said
than done in the heat of the moment.  See you later!"  I kissed
her good bye and walked down the driveway and up the street to
the Morgan house.  Neeka was just pulling out of the garage and I
flagged her down by waving a thumb.

When I got in the car she said, "I called Beverly Pearce last
night after I got home.  Since we both thought she might try to
sneak out, I thought I would try to distract her.  Her father
didn't want to put her on the phone until I told him I was one of
the people who found her.  She picked up so quick I think she was
standing right there."

"Good thinking.  What did you tell her?"

"That she was going to be a celebrity for getting lost in the
woods overnight and having to be rescued, and that there were
going to be some boys who would want to meet her to hear her
story first-hand.  I told her that some of them might have
something that she'd be interested in, now that she has 'higher
standards'."

"You told her you'd introduce her to someone with a cock as big
as goat-man?  Damn, girl!  If you know someone like that,
introduce him to me!" I said, emphatically.

"You know I don't.  I just wanted to get her mind off her satyr
and back on someone who she could take home to meet the folks. 
I'm afraid I led her to think there was some kind of club for
girls who had been turned on to big cocks."

"Oh, way to go!  Darn, I think you're turning into the smart one
of the team."

"Don't I wish!" Neeka laughed.  "I was just doing my bit to make
sure there was a happy ending to this one.  I think too often the
victim gets forgotten after the excitement is over."

"And maybe be should start a club like that, just to keep Beverly
happy.  I like the idea.  And let's not forget the other victim,
too.  Poor Jeff just lost his girlfriend and gained a traumatic
memory that may be tough to put behind him."

"Maybe we can fix him up with someone who hasn't been
'converted'?" she suggested.

"'Converted.'  I like that.  Someone who has had a big cock
stuffed up her puss and her bells rung like Big Ben at noon has
been 'converted' all right."

"It does make us sound like a couple of Evangelists.  Maybe we
should get out there and spread the word that size most certainly
does matter."

"Hush!  There aren't enough big cocks to go around, now.  We
don't want to run up the demand and create a scarcity."

"Someone's been reading up on Economics," Neeka observed.

"Been reading up on everything I can think of," I replied.  "You
never know what might be useful, someday.  I just can't leave
things alone," I sighed.  "I have to find out everything I can
about stuff I have a question about.  Whatever did people like me
do before the Internet?  Spend their lives in libraries?"

"Yeah, what's a library?" she giggled.

"You think you're funny?  What good are they?  If they want you
to be able to read the books, they should put them online.  All
that big building for something that would fit on a single
computer?  It's archaic."

"Archaic?"

"Yeah, you know   antiquated, out of date, obsolete."

"Maybe we should put your head online."

"Ho, ho.  You're real funny.  Maybe they will someday.  Not my
head, maybe.  But someone.  How many transistors does it take to
reproduce the capacity of the brain?  It's not an idle question.
They must be getting close by now.  With current circuit
densities...maybe optical pathways...it could be done."

"Cooling would be a problem at the density level you're talking
about." Neeka observed.  I had forgotten for a moment that she
planned to go into computers as a career.  She probably knew more
about the problems involved than I did.  I was just guessing.

"That's why superconductors are so important," she went on.  "You
could run the whole thing on a double-A battery then."

"How much would it cost?"

"Millions, for the first one.  For the millionth one, who knows?
Dollar ninety-eight?"

"Yeah, who knows?  Anyway, we were talking about Jeff.  I think
he goes to Parkhurst.  He must be a year or two ahead of
George."

"Maybe George knows him.  There can't be that many boys at
Parkhurst.  It's a small school.  And all boys."

"I can read your mind, girl," I said.  We both laughed at that. 
The truth was that even though we could communicate
telepathically in a fraction of the time it would have taken to
move our mouths, we both enjoyed conversation too much to give it
up.  "Anyway, I don't think they would appreciate a visit from a
couple of horny girls at such a prestigious institution.  I think
we are the very distraction that the place was intended to
prevent."

"True.  But it's still a shame.  All those lovely, lonely boys. 
Just sitting around with nothing to do but study and think about
how much they want to get laid.  It gives me a warm feeling, you
know?"

"Yes, and a wet one, too!" I agreed.  "I can see how Jeff would
want to get Beverly off in the woods and all alone so he could
unload all that pent-up jizm into her.  He must have been having
a great time until goat-man came along."

"He didn't have too bad a time afterwards, either.  Even if we're
wrong about her teasing him, he admitted that watching her being
'converted' was a huge turn-on for him."

"Yeah," I said.  "Guys are very visual when it comes to stuff
that gets them hot.  I am too, I guess, because it certainly made
me hot as heck to see him going at her like that.  I can imagine
that even before Beverly started enjoying it; Jeff must have been
sporting the biggest boner of his life.  He said he came twice. 
I bet that was an understatement.  And he would have had to do it
without being able to touch himself.  I can't imagine the torture
that must have been.  Or maybe I can.  I know what it feels like
to be so turned on that you just pop spontaneously."  I drifted
off into a memory of how incredibly hot it was possible to get
and how the power of sexual tension alone could drive you to a
monster climax without any physical stimulation.  The memory
started to bring back the feeling of intense need and the
willingness to do whatever it took to satisfy that need.  It was
an incredibly seductive feeling and I could feel my nipples
harden and my pussy warming in response.  I could almost see the
glowing object of my desire and my knees had begun to move apart
when Neeka mercifully interrupted my reverie.  

"Maybe we can arrange for him to meet someone who is still a
virgin, or at least one by our standards, anyway?"  

For a moment, I couldn't think of someone who would be both
adventurous enough to run off into the woods with Jeff and who
was still inexperienced enough to be satisfied with his size. 
Then my eyes lit on the gear-shift knob in the console and Neeka
and I spoke together, "Angie!"

I laughed, "If she hasn't got herself all loose and everything
from humping cars.  I understand that those imports have some
pretty big shifters."

"Damn, there's a kinky hobby.  I've heard of dating a guy because
he had a cool car, but never doing it so you could fuck the car
instead of the guy!"

"I guess it qualifies as safe-sex.  The car couldn't get you
pregnant.  But if you let the guy watch you do it, I don't see
how you could keep him from insisting on sloppy-seconds."

"Hmmm.  I wonder if there is a company out there making specialty
shift-knobs for women.  There seems to be a niche market for just
about everything these days.  I think driving around with your
hand on a nice hard cock would interest a certain number of women
with cars they were looking to accessorize."

"Oh, that's good.  You'd sure shock a few people.  And valet
parking would be interesting...."

"True.  But your boyfriend would never ask to borrow your car,"
she was laughing so hard her hands shook on the steering wheel as
she turned into the school parking lot.

Neeka found a spot that suited her and backed the car in.  We got
out and both reached into the back seat for our bags.  She
grabbed a strap that happened to belong to my bag and she grunted
as she lifted it out.

"What the heck?" she said.

"It's my suit and stuff," I explained.  "Even though I didn't
need it last night, having to run back to the house to pack made
me think that there might be a time when I wouldn't have time to
do that.  I decided to see what it was like to haul it around
with me."

"Another real-world complication to the superhero business, I
guess," she said.  "Maybe I should keep mine in my trunk? 
Trailering the bike around would be too much, I suppose."

"Yes.  As much as you like that thing, it's not really suited to
keeping a secret identity or a low profile.  It's way too big and
flashy...and loud."

"But when you need to get to a crime in progress," she pointed
out, "it's the perfect thing.  Fast, maneuverable, easy to park,
and makes a great impression on the opposition."

"I can't argue with that.  And I'm sure we'll get to use it
again.  Crime doesn't seem to be cowering in the corner like I
thought it might when word of The Dragon got around.  I guess
people are going to do crimes regardless."

"Still, a good rep shouldn't hurt.  You might get lucky one day
and have some smart crook surrender before you have to break
their bones."

"That's right.  Look on the bright side.   Although I'm kind of
torn on the 'smart crook' concept.  Stupid crooks are just so
much easier to deal with."

We were almost to the grass by the building when someone came
running out of the crowd toward us.

"Well, look whose ears must be burning," I said as Angie bounced
up to us with a big grin on her face.  She wasn't letting the
gray day get her down at all.

"What, were you guys talking about me?" She asked in a chirpy
tone that should have grated, but lifted my mood instead.

"Yes, Angie, we were," Neeka told her in a lower tone that
wouldn't carry to the crowd of kids a few yards away.. 
"Actually, we were wondering if you had been straddling any more
gearshifts?"

Angie turned a bright pink and bit a knuckle.  She looked so cute
I thought she might toe the ground and twist her hips back and
forth.

"Just one," she confessed, shyly.  "My cousin's convertible. 
He's got a nice shifter that's much smaller than yours, Neeka. 
It has the most interesting shape to it, though.  I couldn't
resist trying it out."

I was actually mildly surprised that she had tried it again.  I
was shocked when she did it the first time.  I wanted to hear all
the details, but time was getting away.

"Was it good?" I asked.

"It wasn't as much fun as doing it with you guys there," she
admitted.  "But I did enjoy it.  If you know what I mean?"

"I do.  I do.  Have you told your boyfriend about your new
hobby?"

"I don't have a boyfriend right now.  I've dated a few, but they
all seem too immature."

I had said the very same thing at one point myself.  It meant
that they weren't completely out of the pig-tail pulling phase. 
They wanted to touch you, but they didn't know how to go about it
and not be rough or mean.  Most boys got over that eventually. 
But some never got the hang of treating you like a person.

"How would you like to meet an older boy from Parkhurst Academy?"
I asked.  "He's just breaking up with his girlfriend and he needs
a shoulder to lean on.  We were just saying that you would be
perfect for him."

"Wow!  I mean, sure.  I mean...why are they breaking up?"  She
seemed more curious than cautious of getting into the middle of
someone else's breakup.  It was endearingly naive of her.

"Well, she took up with someone else," Neeka explained,
carefully.  "And he saw them together.  She saw him at the same
time.  Now, they are just too uncomfortable about it to get back
together.  Which she doesn't want to do anyway.  See?"

"OK.  Just so I won't be stuck with someone who's mooning over
some other girl when he's with me."

"I think you two will hit it off fine," I told her.  "You are
just what he needs, cheerful, pretty, and fun to be around."

"Gee!  Thanks.  So, when can I meet him?"

"I'm seeing someone this weekend who can pass him your number. 
Give him until sometime next week to call, OK?"

"OK."

"And Angie?  If you really want to get his mind off his ex, show
him how much you like his car.  Know what I mean?"

"Whoa!  I don't think I could...I mean, that's too...gosh.  Just
thinking about that is making me excited!"

"Imagine what it will do to him.  If you want him to drag you
into the back seat and screw you silly, you'll do it."

"Oh, my gosh!  Oh, I hope he calls soon.  Wow!"  Angie wandered
off into the crowd in a daze, imagining a torrid night of sex
with an older boy.

"'Gosh'?" Neeka said.  "You know, I don't think I can remember
ever hearing anyone say the word 'gosh' before.  Does she do that
all the time?"

"As far as I know.  She's adorable, isn't she?  She's just the
thing for a humiliated and disillusioned boy.  She'll raise his
spirits and screw him half to death while making him think he's
God's gift to girls."

"And if she's still a virgin, it's only a technicality.  She
seems pretty excited at the idea of having a real cock to ride."



It was the end of first period when Bud caught up to me in the
hall.  He put an arm around my shoulders and leaned in to whisper
in my ear, "Tag, you're it!"

About the same time, I felt something hard press against my rear.
 I didn't need a script to know what I was being 'tagged' for.  I
had asked for this.  I had even made them promise.  And now it
was my turn to be the sperm collector for a couple of horny
boys.

The idea brightened my day immediately.  I took Bud by the hand
and led him down the steps to the basement.  He balked a bit at
going into the girl's restroom, but I dragged him along anyway.

Five minutes later, he had a bigger smile and I had a womb full
of cum.  I hadn't climaxed myself, but I was happy anyway.  I
knew they planned to do the same thing to me that they had done
to Neeka all the previous day.  I could look forward to a quickie
with one or the other of them every hour all day long.  It was a
pace that had left Neeka frazzled, but I was sure I would come
away with a monster buzz and a glow that could be seen for
miles.

After Physics, it was Jim who led me behind the auditorium stage
and bent me over a stack of scenery flats so he could pump his
big cock into me and cream all over my insides.  This time, I was
more than ready and I came, squealing like a stuck pig as he
sprayed his big load through my cervix into the pool that was
still there.  I could feel the weight of it inside me as I walked
to my Social Studies class.

At lunch, Bud and I went down to the boy's locker room, a
familiar place to me by now and one that had the advantage of a
bench for me to lie down on while Bud fucked me furiously so he
could cum and still run back and grab some lunch.  After he had
made another deposit and I had another orgasm, I lay there
enjoying the afterglow.

I must have spaced-out off for a few minutes, because suddenly
Steve was climbing on top of me.  I don't know if he was in on
it, thought I was there waiting on him, or just took advantage of
the situation, but it was such a pleasant surprise that he made
me cum even harder than either Bud or Jim had.

I had plenty of energy bars in my bag, so missing the Wednesday
mystery-meat entre in the lunchroom wasn't too much of a burden.
Steve and I got to spend some quality time together while I sat
curled up in his lap with his cock still in my pussy.  I was so
high on afterglow by this time that I was giddy and tended to
giggle at everything he said.  He seemed to enjoy it as much as I
did, because he kept hugging me and kissing me while we talked
about stuff.  I was too happy to be sad when time ran out and we
had to go on to our next class.

I tried to walk normally to my English class, but it was
difficult.  Not only was I starting to get bow-legged from having
my legs apart so much, the weight of cum in me by then was quite
noticeable and I could swear I felt it slosh around as I walked.
That, plus the ecstatic smile on my face must have tipped off
everyone about what I had been doing.  I remembered that Neeka
had also walked around all day with that 'freshly-fucked' look on
her face too.  Still, no one said anything.  They all just smiled
back and turned to whisper their assumptions to their friends.

When I came out of English and headed for the gym, I looked
around for Jim, but he was nowhere to be seen.  I was curious
about that, until I was sitting down in the narrow classroom
where we had our Health instruction.  Polly had just sat down
beside me when I grabbed her arm and shuddered as Neeka's orgasm
wracked me.  She must have missed the attention and diverted Jim
for her own purposes.  I suppose it was a kindness, because it
gave me more time to soak up the cum that felt like it had my
uterus blown up like a balloon.

"Damn, Sam!" Polly said.  "What was that?  I thought you were
going to break my leg."

I had snatched my hand away as quickly as I could to spare her
any further involuntary spasms.  A big shudder went through me,
making me vibrate like an old house in a high wind. Then it was
over and the intense surge of pleasure began to slowly ebb away.

"Oh, wow!" Polly said in a hushed, conspiratorial tone.  "Was
that what it looked like?"

"Unhunh."  I managed to say.  My whole body tingled and my broad
smile got even bigger.  If they ever make a street drug that
gives you that feeling, they'll have the whole world addicted in
no time at all.

Polly took my hand and held it in both of hers, intertwining her
fingers with mine.  "That was beautiful," she said.  "How did you
do that without...you know?"

I looked for a sideways view of the truth.  "You know it's all in
your head, right?" I asked her.  "Physical stimulation isn't
necessary.  You can cum just from thinking about it hard.  Well,
sometimes I get so hot  - I just cum."  All true; but beside the
point.  It was much simpler than telling her I was having someone
else's orgasm.

"Well," she said in that same low voice, but with a more sinister
tone, "I don't know if you're up for this, seeing as how you
just...ah...and all.  But I have something for you.  If you're
ready for it, that is."

I remembered our earlier conversation vividly.  I had been
looking forward to playing submissive to Polly's Mistress of
Pain.  I nodded eagerly and she dragged me out of the cramped
room and back into the hallway.

"Coach is in a conference with Sally Perkins," Polly told me. 
"She's trying to convince Sally to wear a bra for Gym, so she may
be in there a while.  When she gets through in there, she won't
have time to call the role.  She'll just turn off the lights and
start the film.  We'll never be missed."

Sally was one of those girls who had sprouted breasts early, but
they never filled out.  She had big boobs all right, but unlike
mine, they were anything but firm.  Where mine had no sag and
stood out proudly on my chest; hers hung down like two bags. 
They were so limp that her nipples pointed at her feet.  She was
the very image of the cow that Mrs. Reynolds had threatened to
turn me into.  Of course, Sally held the opinion that big tits
were attractive, regardless of the shape they were in, and she
always wore blouses that showed as much of them as she could get
away with.  The worst part was that she never wore a bra, which
would at least have held things up and got them pointed in the
right direction.  She even refused to wear one during gym class,
which was embarrassing for everyone because her tits flew all
over when she jumped or tumbled.  

It was her flopping around all over the place that had Coach
Simpson concerned.  Exercise was a good thing, but if you were
bigger than a B-cup, you either had to have really firm boobs or
wear a bra to do it without making things worse for yourself. 
This was the point that Coach was probably trying to get across
to Sally, who seemed ignorant of the risks or uncaring how badly
stretched her breast tissue could become or how low her tits
already hung on her.  If she didn't do something about it, they
were likely to be at her waist before she was 21.

Polly led me down the hall into a janitor's closet and pushed the
door shut behind me.  Between the shelves of supplies and the big
utility sink, there wasn't a lot of room in there.  If the
janitor's cart had been there as well, it would have been
cramped.  Since it was somewhere else at the moment, we had a
little elbow-room.

I backed up against the sink and waited to see what Polly wanted
to do to me.  She set her bag on a shelf and pulled it open. 
When she reached inside, I took off my blouse and assumed my
submissive-brace position with my hands on the edge of the sink
behind me.  I pulled my shoulders back so that my breasts stood
up as high as I could make them, making my rings and stiff
nipples stand out like small targets, which I what I assumed they
would be to Polly.

I felt myself quivering with anticipation.  The quickies I'd been
enjoying all day had conditioned me to a quick arousal followed
by a climax and I had been getting more responsive with each
episode.  I was like a racehorse at the gate, stamping and
rearing to go.

With her hand still deep in her bag, Polly turned her head to
look at me.  She eyed my heaving breasts and said, "Oh, no.  I
know you want me to play with those big tits, but I'm going to
save them for something special later.  You turn around and bend
over the sink.  I want to see your ass."

I obediently flipped around and leaned over the sink, letting my
spine drop so my small butt would stand out more.  I reached back
and rolled my short skirt up, tucking it into my waistband so my
ass would be fully exposed and available for whatever she had
planned.  I had no panties on under my skirt.

Since most of the sex-play I had experienced had centered on my
big boobs, my ass was almost virgin territory.  Aside from having
a boy grab it to have a place to hang onto while plowing me with
his cock, no one had paid it much attention.  I was excited that
Polly had chosen to start there.

I craned my neck around to try to see what Polly had brought in
her bag, but she apparently wanted it to be a surprise.

"Face forward," she said, sharply. "Don't look back here.  Keep
your nose to the wall and your tits in the sink."

I obeyed and she put her hand on my butt, making me flinch a
little at her touch.  She stroked my ass gently, using her whole
hand to cup my cheeks.

"Nice butt," she observed.  "You must lie around in the sun naked
all the time to have such an even tan all over.  My ass is chalk
white.  There is no place for me to go that my bratty little
brother wouldn't be spying on me, so I have ugly tan lines. 
There's another reason why I want to hurt you."

She slapped my butt then.  Not hard, but not gently.  The
smacking sound was loud in the small concrete room.  The quick
pain flashed through me like a struck match, igniting a fire
between my legs.  I wondered if she would hurt me bad enough to
make me cry out, and if I did, would anyone hear me?

"Get that butt up where I can see it!" she ordered.  "On your
toes!  And spread those legs!"

I did my best to comply.  I bent over so far into the deep sink
that my head was under the arched faucet and my nipples almost
brushed the steel bottom.  I moved my feet apart as far as I
could in the cramped space and I went up on tiptoe.

Polly patted my raised ass, like I was a pet who had done a trick
for her.  I became aware that both my pussy and my anus were
exposed in this position and when she slid her hand down my crack
and between my legs, I almost came right then.

She parted my labia with her finger and drew a line through my
wetness and across my asshole, finishing up with another hard
slap that made my butt-cheeks clench and my clit throb.

"Try to relax," she told me, gently stroking my butt again.

It was hard, but I stopped clenching and my cheeks separated once
more, exposing the crack of my ass again.

"What a nice asshole.  It really is just too cute for words, you
know, just like a little flower.  The color is so even and it's
not brown or pink.  You'd never know that you shit out of
there."

She put a finger right on my crinkled anus, letting it rest there
lightly, and it was all I could do not to clench up my butt
around it, trapping it.  The feeling of having her touching me in
a place that no one had ever touched before was driving me wild.
I wanted to beg her to get on with it, but I held my tongue like
a good little submissive.

"Well I'm going to have some fun with that cute asshole of yours,
Sam.  I've got something here that wants to meet that pretty
little hole.  I found this when we were cleaning out Gramma's
house when she moved into her condo.  I had never seen one before
and I had to ask what it was.  It seems that back in the days
before electricity was used for just about everything, people who
wanted fresh orange juice had to squeeze it themselves.  Even
today, people buy fresh oranges to take home.  But today they
usually use an electric juicer to get the juice out.  Back then
they used tools like this little wooden juicer.  Back then you
had to work for your OJ.  Here, take a look at it.  It's really a
clever little doohickey.  No moving parts and all manually
operated."

I raised my head up out of the sink to see what she had brought.
She held it up between two fingers so I could get a good look. 
It was an old piece of dark wood that had been carved into a nine
or ten inch-long cylinder with a wasp-waist constriction a third
of the way along it.  The long end had been made into a handle,
with a rounded end and a raised lip for your fingers to press
against while using it.  The business end had been carved into a
wide spiral that ended in a point.  Obviously you operated it by
sticking it into an orange half and twisting it to ream out the
juice and pulp.  It looked vaguely like a dildo, which was
probably why Polly had thought of using it on me, but it was a
dildo from Hell, with the two-inch wide reamer that wound into a
point.  

It struck me as just the thing you might use on someone, if you
really didn't like them and you were a really sadistic sort of
person.  I would have thought twice before letting it anywhere my
pussy.  The idea that Polly planned to put it in my tiny little
rosebud asshole made me gasp and my eyes go wide.

"Back in the sink, bitch!  You've seen enough.  You don't get to
watch the rest.  You just get to suffer while I see how much
juice I can get out of you with this."

She rubbed it down my crack so I could feel the roughness of the
wood.  It must have seen decades of use, because it had cracks
and fissures all over the surface that kept trying to catch my
skin.  She teased me with the point, bumping it over my little
hole on each pass, making me jump.  Then she put it between my
legs, spinning it in her fingers so the wide part brushed against
my pussy.

"I'm going to give you one concession," she said.  "Just one. 
I'll give you a minute to get as much pussy-juice on this thing
as you can before I shove it into your butt-hole.  If you can't
get it wet, it's going in dry, and that will hurt a lot."

I took her at her word.  My pussy was already plenty wet from all
the stimulation it had been getting.  Having Polly threaten to
skewer my asshole with the juicer made me hotter still and I was
dripping with excitement.

Polly didn't help at all.  She just held the thing still between
my legs and I had to wave my pussy all around to try to smear the
wooden tool with my lubrication.  She laughed to see me
contorting to try to transfer enough juice to make a difference.

Frustrated at my lack of success, I spread my legs as far apart
as the space allowed and pushed back on the juicer, driving the
point into my pussy and rolling my hips to try to work it far
enough into me to get it really wet.

Now it was Polly's turn to gasp at the lengths I was prepared to
go to follow her instructions.  I'm sure it put some more ideas
into her head for ways to make me suffer.  She held on tightly
while I fucked the tip of the wooden spiral, but she wouldn't
push it any further into me to get it good and sloppy.  By the
time she took it away, only the end had gotten wet.

"Good girl," she said, a tone of pride creeping past the cruelty
in her voice.  She patted my ass again and then put the point of
the juicer right on my puckered asshole.  "Now let's see how well
you did."

Polly pushed and the point pried my anus open.  At first it went
in easily, but as the point went deeper, the width of the tool
started to force my tiny hole larger and larger, until all the
slack had been forced out of it and I was stretched tight around
the end of the tool.

"This is going to hurt worse than I thought," she said.  "It's
only about a third in, and you're running out of pussy-lube here.
 You better try and relax as much as you can, because I'm afraid
this is were the going gets tough, bitch."  She pushed in on the
handle even harder than before, and she started to twist the
juicer around in my ass, like I was an orange she was grinding
the pulp out of.

The pain went from bad to intense very quickly.  It had started
as no worse than taking a hard crap, but in reverse.  Now, I was
holding onto the edge of the sink and trying not to scream from
the pain of having my asshole reamed like a ripe fruit.

I took her advice and tried my best to relax my so my hole would
be loose enough not to tear open as the rough wood was ground
through it.  It was almost impossible not to clench up and try to
force the invading tool out of me.

She turned it slowly a half-turn and I felt like I was being
ripped apart.  The spiral shape kept it from slipping back out
and acted like screw threads to help Polly drive the thing deeper
into my agonized hole.

"Unnnnngghh!" I groaned as she turned the handle some more.  The
pain was making me see stars and my hard, swollen nipples were
grinding into the bottom of the cold steel sink.

"You're doing really well," Polly praised me.  "Just a couple
more turns and I think you can plan on wearing diapers for the
rest of your life, because this little hole will never be able to
close up again!"  Her voice was raspy and rough and sounded like
she had been possessed.  She twisted the juicer again and the
stars in front of my eyes exploded into fireworks.  The pain was
indescribable and the intensity had reached the level where it
wasn't a local sensation anymore.  My whole ass felt like it was
being torn apart.

"Hang on there," Polly said.  "Just a little bit more and I think
you will be big enough to be ass-fucked by an elephant.  It's a
good thing we have all these paper towels handy, because when I'm
through with this hole you're going to need them to plug it up so
you don't leak shit all over the floor."  She twisted again
viciously and I went over the edge from pain to ecstasy.

It was one of the best climaxes I'd ever had.  The constant,
intense pain radiated from my ass right through my pussy and my
clit and set fire to every part of my body.  The janitor's closet
disappeared and I soared out into a bright world of delight.  I
wanted to let go and surrender to the feeling completely, but I
hung onto consciousness by the frailest of threads, even though I
could not remember why I would want to do such a thing.  The
scream that had been trying to escape from the back of my throat
became a song.  The awesome pain became incredible pleasure. 
Then Polly turned the handle once more and the wide part of the
juicer slid through my terribly-stretched hole.  My over-stressed
sphincter snapped shut on the narrow part of the tool, leaving
only the handle poking out.

Without the intensity of the pain from having my anus stretched
to such an absurd diameter, my climax fell quickly from the
soaring heights and I returned to Earth and the janitor's closet
with a loud huff as all the air went out of my lungs.

I was still trying to get my breath back when my cell-phone rang.
 I yanked my head out of the sink to listen in horror at the
incredibly bad timing of the call.  The trilling of the chime
seemed incongruous in the circumstance and it echoed in the small
room twice before I recovered enough to bend down and grab the
phone from my bag.  A call during school hours could only be bad
news.

Holding onto the sink with one hand, bent over with a big wooden
juicer stuffed into my ass, I pulled myself together the best I
could and flipped open the phone.

"Hello," I said.  I hadn't bothered to look at the caller-ID,
which would have given me a clue as to how professional I should
have tried to sound.  I figured that it didn't matter at the
moment, since I knew if I stopped to think about the situation, I
would never be able to stop laughing at myself.

"This is Sheriff Foster," the voice said in a very 'official'
tone.  That told me that this was official business and that he
could probably be heard by others in the room.  "I'd like to
request some assistance.  We need The Dragon."  His voice sounded
like he was trying hard to control it to keep the sound of worry
out and I knew immediately that this was a serious problem. 
Asking for The Dragon was a tip-off that he needed me in full
costume and makeup.

"Where and when?" I asked.  The less I said, the shorter the
conversation would be and the sooner I could deal with another
pressing issue   getting the juicer out of my ass.  It didn't
even occur to me that I also needed to censor my end of the
conversation for Polly's benefit.

"Highway 17, four miles south of the city limits.  Just north of
the Armory.  And as soon as possible, please.  Someone has stolen
a tank."

"Right.  On the way," I said, and flipped the phone off.  "A
tank?" I thought.  "A tank of what?"  Suddenly, the proximity to
the National Guard Armory jarred my brains into gear.  He hadn't
said "a tank".  He'd said, "a Tank".  Armor, treads, clanking,
diesel engine, big damn cannon on top. I stuffed the phone back
in my bag before turning to Polly.

"Get this thing out of me.  Right now!"  My change of attitude
and tone made Polly jump.  She grabbed hold of the handle of the
juicer and pulled.

"Harder!" I said, urgency dominating my voice.  "Pull as hard as
you can!"

Bless her, she put a knee into my butt and pulled with both
hands.  It was enough. The wooden tool hurt just as much coming
out as it did going in, but I didn't have time to enjoy it.  I
just clamped my jaw shut and tried to help her push the damn
thing out of my hole.

Slowly, gradually, I felt it come out.  I relaxed as much as I
could and was rewarded with a loud pop as it came free and my ass
slammed shut behind it.

I quickly put both hands behind me to try to gage the extent of
the damage.  Fortunately, her predictions of the total
destruction of my anus and the degree to which diapers would
figure in my future were both exaggerations.  Although it felt
awful to have a big empty hole back there, I could feel it
quickly closing up again.  A quick trance and a short command and
the only aftereffects would be an easier time on the toilet and a
tendency to view certain objects with consideration for whether
they would be fun to sit on.

When I was satisfied that my insides were likely to stay in
place, I turned to Polly and grabbed her in a big hug and kissed
her hard on the mouth.

She just had time to touch tongues with me and try to press
herself closer when I broke away.

"Polly, that was great, but I have to run now.  Something has
come up...an emergency...I have to leave school.  Please tell
Miss Albert that I'm sorry to miss her Math class and ask her to
give you the homework assignment.  Please email it to me, OK?"

"Sure, Sam.  And it was great for me, too.  I hope we can do it
again some time...."

"Count on it.  But right now I have to run.  You better wash that
thing before you use it again.  On a fruit or on me."  We laughed
and I hugged her again and dashed out the door, calling Neeka as
I went.

We both got to the car at about the same time and flung our bags
in the back seat.  I thought for a second about trying to dress
in the car, but decided to wait until we got to the house.

Neeka scratched out of the parking lot and raced home as quickly
as traffic would allow.  She pulled directly into the hidden
driveway leading to the west wing of the house and drove all the
way to the end, pulling up with her front grill threatening the
ornamental fir trees at the end of the driveway.  We piled out
and after grabbing a bag from the trunk, she unlocked the double
doors and we scrambled into the workshop that was now the
Dragon's Lair, as she insisted on calling it.

We shucked out of our clothes and were trying to get into our
crimefighting gear when she said, "A Tank?  He said a Tank?  A
Fucking Tank?  Jeez!  What the heck does he think you're going to
go about some lunatic in a Tank?"

"I don't know, and I don't think he does either.  I get the
impression he's just calling out everyone he can, hoping that
someone will be able to do something."

"A Tank.  Holy Shit."

"Yeah.  But there's some good news."

"What!?"

"I just saved a bunch of money on my car insur...."  That was a
far as I got before she hit me with the boot she had been putting
on.  It did make her quit obsessing about what we were up
against.

We dressed so fast that we had to check each other to make sure
nothing had been forgotten or put on backward or something. 
Everything seemed in order as I snapped the fanny pack around my
waist.  It had every bit of equipment that would fit crammed into
it.  Neeka pinned up her beautiful red hair and yanked her
chauffeur's cap down low on her head."

"I guess we're ready," I said.

"Not yet.  Your face."

"What about it?"

"Duh!  It's you.  You better believe the TV people will be all
over this story.  Do you want your face on the evening news?"

"Oh!  Right."  I turned on The Dragon mask.  Just for the heck of
it, I did it full-body, although no one would see anything but my
face and as little of that as I could manage.  I pulled my hood
up and over my hair, tugging it as far down over my face as far
as I could and still see.  "OK.  Let's go."

She turned up the broad collar of her jacket and put on her
sunglasses, hiding her identity as effectively as my hood and
moving make-up hid mine.  I kicked the braces under the double
doors as she prepared the motorcycle for launch.

When she cranked the engine and twisted the throttle, it fired to
life with a deep roar that sounded almost like a wild animal.  In
the workshop it could easily have been mistaken for a real
dragon.  I straddled the bike behind her and hung on tight as she
gunned it and we shot out the door.  

She had to brake and swerve sharply to avoid hitting her car;
something I hoped would make her more cautious.  My hope was
quickly dashed as she sped down the driveway and into the street
at suicidal speed.  If anything, she became more aggressive,
driving faster and cutting corners more sharply.  Finally, we
made it to the highway and she turned onto it with the bike
leaned over so low that I thought surely we were going to slide
across the asphalt.  She made it, though and once on the wider
road, she took off like a bullet with the big engine howling and
my eardrums complaining.

On this trip I kept my opinions of her driving and the discomfort
of riding the bike to myself.  She was right about this being the
best way to get somewhere in the shortest possible time, and if
the situation was anywhere as bad as the Sheriff's tone implied,
speed was what we needed right now.

Neeka threaded her way expertly, if frighteningly, through the
light afternoon traffic.  We had made good time getting home and
getting dressed and it was still well before the time for school
to let out.  This was good because there was an Elementary school
and a Middle school almost directly across from each other on
this road.  Both had been built on a tract of land that had been
foreclosed for back taxes when some big landowner died without
leaving a will, an obvious heir, or enough money in the bank to
keep the property out of the county's clutches.  I knew this
because I had been using the database Neeka had setup on my
computer to find out who the property owners were of the places
where crimes happened.  Outside of the thousands of small
residential plots, it was surprising how much land in the county
was owned by so few people.  Even more surprising was how much of
it was in the name of Reynolds.

Reaching an empty stretch of road past the schools, Neeka leaned
forward and accelerated to such a ridiculous speed that I had to
bite my tongue to keep from asking her to please slow the hell
down.  The trees beside the highway flashed by so quickly that
they became a blur.  I decided I was better off not seeing that,
and I closed my eyes and tried to get my heart to stop pounding
so hard.

The bike never had time to reach its top speed before the roar of
the engine fell off and Neeka braked and then dropped into a
lower gear.  I thought we were there and I opened my eyes again
and peeked around her shoulder.

What I saw was a pair of patrol cars blocking the road ahead. 
Their blue lights were going and they had been pulled nose to
nose with a narrow gap between to keep people from getting too
close to the action.  I expected Neeka to stop so I could produce
my ID, so I reached back for the zipper to my pack.

When I heard her suddenly race the engine to a screaming roar, I
snatched my hand back and grabbed hold just in time.  She waited
just long enough for the two deputies to dive to one side before
shooting the gap and racing on down the road.  I turned back and
waved an apology to the deputies as they rolled off the hoods of
their cars, but the waves I got in return had too few fingers in
them to be a friendly acknowledgement.  Before I turned back, I
saw one of the officers reach for his radio, and I knew that our
arrival was being announced.

Seconds later, we arrived at the scene.  One look was enough to
tell us that it was total chaos.  There was no command-post
setup, no perimeter, no nothing that gave the impression that any
order at all had been achieved.  Cars were parked everywhere,
people were running this way and that, some with guns, some with
megaphones, but most were crouching behind whatever cover they
could find and peering around it to look down the road.

I took my life in my hands and stood on the pegs to get a good
look.  When I saw what was going on, I damn near fell off the
back of the bike and I grabbed Neeka's shoulder roughly to stay
on.

About 150 yards down the road, a metal monster in tan and brown
camouflage paint was running back and forth across the carcasses
of two patrol cars, grinding them into tin-foil and smearing them
all over the road.  When it changed direction I could even hear
the roar of its engine over the noise of the bike.

I plopped down on the seat with my jaw on my chest.  This was
something way beyond anything I had thought I might be dealing
with.  A Tank, for crying out loud!  An honest to God,
armor-plated, military engine of destruction with a big damn
cannon poking out of the top of it.  I suddenly regretted my
fantasies about the Killer Robots From Space.  I especially
regretted wishing for a 'real challenge' that I could pit my
strength against.  'Be careful what you wish for' they say;
because you might get it.  Well, I was getting my wish...in
spades.

Neeka must have spotted which vehicle the Sheriff was hiding
behind because she suddenly swerved to the left and spun the
tire.  She barely gave the group of people in the way time to
make a hole before she screeched to a stop a few yards behind
Sheriff Foster's unmarked car.

Grateful not to be hurtling down the road at Ludicrous Speed any
longer, I jumped off the foot-pegs as soon as the bike came to a
stop.  Unfortunately, I hadn't been too successful at maintaining
a calm disposition and some adrenalin had managed to get into my
bloodstream unnoticed.  The result was that I shot into the air
several feet in a mostly uncontrolled leap in the general
direction of the group of uniformed men crouching next to the
Sheriff.  Trying to save something of my dignity, I tried to
twist and then curled into a ball to bring my feet down ahead of
my head.  I almost made it.  I landed next to the Sheriff, almost
on top of Lt. Grogan, in a three-point squat with one leg bent,
one straight behind me and one hand extended.  As ungraceful as
it was, I was grateful for my luck.  It would have been
humiliating to have landed on my face.

I don't know if it was my sudden entrance or my face that made
Grogan jump, but he did and right into the side of the Sheriff's
car, making a big dent in the rear door.  Under other
circumstances, it would have been laughable, but no one so much
as chuckled.  They were all far too scared to see any humor in
the moment.

I scanned the faces in the group to see if I knew everyone.  The
Sheriff and Grogan were there, of course.  Captain Ledbetter was
behind the Sheriff.  The two strangers next to Grogan were both
soldiers in their tan-camo clothes and shiny black boots.  They
both stared back at me like some giant bug had just dropped on
them and I was almost insulted until I remembered what they were
seeing and looked away to give them time to get used to being in
the presence of a huge female lizard wearing a skin-tight suit
with unusual optical properties.

"Glad you could make it," Sheriff Foster said.  He wasn't looking
straight at me, which was his way of dealing with my creepy
animated make-up.  

I could see Ledbetter's eyes over his shoulder.  They went from
startled to fear to curiosity while I watched and my poor opinion
of Ledbetter improved some at his ability to adapt to the
situation.  I nodded at him in acknowledgement and he jerked his
head in reply.  Ledbetter had apparently decided that keeping his
mouth shut in my presence was the best policy.  I hoped he would
be just as careful about keeping his mouth shut when he was out
of my presence, too, since he had just become privy to my secret
identity.

"Gentlemen," Foster said, addressing the two soldiers.  "This is
The Dragon.  She has been very helpful to us lately."  He paused
while he tried to think of a way to explain me in as few words as
necessary.  When he didn't say anything else, I supposed that he
couldn't think of a concise explanation or any at all.

I turned back to the men in camouflage, both of whom had reacted
to Foster's use of the word 'she' by checking out my boobs.  I
thought, 'what the hell' and squared my shoulders to give them a
good look so they could get it out of their system and we could
all get on with the business at hand.  I didn't realize that the
zipper of my suit had come unlatched during my entrance until I
saw it slide down my front as my posture stressed the
closely-woven fabric.

The damn zipper zoomed all the way down my chest, stopping just
before I would have had to grab my boobs to keep them from
popping out of the suit.  As it was, the tight suit curled open
to reveal every inch of my cleavage, staying closed only enough
to cover my nipples and the rings through them.

I expected some kind of comment, or at least a whistle at the
accidental exposure, but after a quick look, both soldiers
grimaced and quickly averted their eyes.  This puzzled me for a
second, until I glanced down at the large expanse of exposed
skin, with its ickily-realistic grey-green, lizard-like texture.
I decided that as long as the zipper stayed put, I would leave it
alone.  The accident had effectively solved one of my worst
problems, that people saw a girl with big boobs solely as a
sex-object.  If these two had been having any sexy thoughts about
me, they had been thoroughly squelched by seeing what was under
the form-fitting suit.

I tried to turn the smirk that leaped onto my face into a
professionally friendly smile as I said, "Pleased to meet you"
and waited for introductions.

The ranking soldier cleared his throat before trying to talk.  I
examined his insignia and decided that he was either a Major or a
Colonel, since I didn't recognize the leaf-looking thing on his
collar.  The man with him was obviously some kind of senior
sergeant, from all the stripes on his sleeve.  He looked older
than his superior, with a band of steel-gray hair showing under
his hat and a face-full of weathered skin.

"I'm Major Carson," the senior man said, his eyes darting back
and forth, finally settling on his companion.  "This is Sergeant
Major Green."  Neither man offered to shake my hand, and I didn't
press the issue.  They could adjust to me or not as long as they
did their jobs.

"I'm in command of the Armory," the Major continued, "and
Sergeant Major Green is my maintenance supervisor."  He nodded to
Green, who picked up the story.

"We were doing our quarterly maintenance on the vehicle," Green
said, trying to look me in the eyes, but having a hard time with
my face.  "It's strictly routine.  We had just buttoned her up
and were letting her idle to check the seals before we locked her
up again.  I don't know how he got into the compound, but he was
in the vehicle and had the hatches dogged down before we could
stop him."

"Ah, what type of vehicle are we talking about here?" I asked,
trying not to sound too ignorant about military equipment.

"It's an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank," Green said and I could
hear every capital letter as he spoke.  "She's close to 70 tons,
loaded.  Best speed on the road is 40 miles per hours.  Range is
250 miles, depending on conditions.  She can climb a 42 inch
vertical obstacle and cross a nine-foot trench."  He was getting
would up in his recitation of the vehicle's capabilities and I
had just remembered a word that might get some more pertinent
information out of him.

"What about armament?" I interrupted.  It was apparently the
right question, because everyone leaned over to hear the answer.

"The primary weapon of the M1A1 is the 120mm M256 smooth bore
cannon," Green recited, obviously quoting the manual as he must
have done countless times before.  "It has a coaxial 7.62mm M240
machine gun and a .50 caliber M2 cupola-mounted machine gun.  He
doesn't have ammo for either of those, though.  Unless he brought
it with him," he said, discouragingly.

"Either?  You mean he does have ammo for that cannon?" I asked.

"Well, only practice rounds," the Major explained. "No HE or AP.
We don't keep that here.  It's all been shipped back to the Depot
upstate."

Everyone relaxed somewhat.  Things weren't as bad as they could
have been.

The Sergeant Major spoiled the good news.  "That's not entirely
accurate, sir," he said in a guilty tone.  "I'm afraid he does
have a few HE rounds in his magazine.  There was a discrepancy in
the inventory and it was easier to just keep them than to get the
records corrected."

"Oh, shit!" The Major exclaimed.  This was clearly new
information to him and 'disgusted' didn't come close to
describing his tone of voice.  That about said it for all of us.
The lunatic, whoever he was, had control of a 70 ton tank and he
had ammunition for its main gun, too.  Things went back to being
about as bad as they could get.

"He can't drive and shoot at the same time," Green said,
helpfully.  "He has to stop, crawl back to the main compartment,
and load the gun first."

"Wonderful!" Grogan said, sarcastically.  "While he's moving, he
can run over anything in his path, and if he stops, he can blow
it to kingdom come!  That's just wonderful!  How the hell are we
supposed to stop something like that?  Tell me!"

Ledbetter spoke up before Grogan got rolling, "You see what he's
done to the two cars we used to setup a roadblock.  There's
nothing left but scrap!"

"The only thing that will take out a vehicle with that kind of
armor is a TOW missile," the Major said.  "But the nearest one
would have to be brought from Blanding.  That'll take hours."

"How about an air strike?" Ledbetter suggested.  "A plane could
drop a big enough bomb to take him out."

"No goddamn air strike!" Foster growled.  "Nobody is dropping any
goddamn bombs on my goddamn county!"

"I have to concur," Major Carson said.  "This area is too highly
populated to risk that.  A miss would be..." he trailed off as we
all imagined what a miss could do with schools and subdivisions
lining both sides of the road.

"Well, we've got to do something!" Grogan almost screamed.  A man
of action by nature, he was more frustrated than anyone at his
impotence in the situation.

"I agree," I said, coldly.  I looked at Sergeant Major Green.  He
looked me in the eyes, but he obviously was forcing himself to do
it.  "Are you sure he can't fire any weapons while the vehicle is
moving?"

"That's affirmative...." He paused and, bless him, I think he
almost said 'sir' to me.  "The driver's compartment is forward. 
He would have to leave the controls to go back to load, aim, and
fire the main gun or the coaxial gun.  The ma-deuce   the .50
caliber - can't be controlled from the inside.  He has to open
the main hatch to get to it   even if he brought his own ammo."

"Hell, he doesn't have to fire the damn cannon," Grogan said. 
"He can just run over anything in his path.  We know he can
flatten cars.  He's doing a hell of a job on those patrol cars. 
He can drive right through buildings." Grogan pulled a map out of
his pocket and spread it out on his lap.  He ran his finger along
the line marking the highway, tapping on the locations of the
subdivisions.  "Wood frame houses, the lot of them.  Nothing that
would even slow him down.  The only concrete and steel structures
that might be a problem for him are here...the schools.  They're
only a half-mile up the road.  He can be there in minutes."

"That's not enough time to evacuate," Sheriff Foster said.  "It's
almost time for them to let out now.  The road will be packed
with school buses and mothers coming to pick up their kids.  We
cannot let this nut get anywhere near those schools.  Not at any
price."

"He's on the move again," Ledbetter warned us.  Everyone peeked
over the top of the Sheriff's car to see.  Sure enough, the tank
had quit rolling back and forth over the remains of the roadblock
and was moving across the highway on a diagonal course for the
closest of a line of metal light poles along the side of the
road.  While we watched, he hit one squarely and knocked it to
the ground.  The tall pole went down under the tank like it was a
soda straw and the low concrete pedestal it was mounted on
crumbled under the tank treads like it was made of chalk.  While
we were watching, three gunshots rang out from behind another car
to our left.

"Cease fire!" Sheriff Foster shouted.  He picked up a megaphone
and keyed it, shouting again, "I said no shooting unless ordered.
 You can't hurt the tank, you idiot!  But your ricochets can hurt
someone else."  The deputy who had fired slunk down out of sight
and Foster sat the megaphone down again.  As soon as he did, the
tank plowed down another light pole and the turned and headed
across the road to do the same to the closest pole on the other
side.

"He's going to get bored with this soon," I said.  "Then he's
either going to drive off to crush a house or go up the road in
search of a bigger challenge.  I have to stop him now."  I guess
I was talking to myself, to get my courage up, but Major Carson
chose to respond.

"What are you going to do, go out there and scare him into coming
out of the vehicle?"  He laughed, and his laughter was tempered
with hysteria.  If someone were killed, it would be his career
that would die as well.  I could sympathize, but if he didn't
watch his mouth, he might be the first casualty of the day.  I
probably had more male hormones in me than I had ever had before
and I was getting short-tempered and aggressive because of it. 
Hell, I might have been carrying more testosterone than anyone
present, Grogan included.

I glared at Carson and he shut up and looked like he wished he
could take his ill-considered comment back.  I almost told him
off, but it had given me an idea.  "Something like that," I told
him, rising to my feet.  Behind me, I heard Neeka start the
bike.

"What ARE you going to do?" Sheriff Foster asked.

I had an idea, but it was vague and I didn't want it to be on
record if it didn't work out.  So, instead of saying, "I don't
have a fucking clue," I put my fists on my hips, squared my
shoulders and said firmly, "Whatever I have to.  Whatever it
takes."  I turned on my heel and walked purposefully back to the
bike and climbed aboard.  

"For this, I'm missing Math class," I thought, taking the
opportunity to pull the zipper back up the front of my suit and
press it closed.  Math might have been easier, but this was going
to be much more fun   if I lived through it.

"Showtime!" Neeka thought to me.  And indeed it was.  I looked up
into the sky and saw the local TV station's helicopter circle
slowly around the scene.  Whatever happened would be sure to make
the evening news, if they weren't already broadcasting it live to
the whole city.

We sped around the Sheriff's car and streaked toward the tank
that was now less than a hundred yards away.  The maniac driving
it must have seen us coming, because he changed direction just
before hitting another light pole.  The tank was powerful and
heavy, but it wasn't as maneuverable as the bike.  Neeka was able
to avoid it easily.  She braked and came up behind the tank where
she stopped and I got off.  It had been much easier than I
expected to get close.  Tanks might have good road-speed, but
they were anything but nimble in low gear.

The tank kept turning.  The driver must have been looking for us.
 It was then that I discovered something important about tanks  
no rearview mirrors.  Or at least no way for the driver to see
something that was right behind him.  I reached up and grabbed
hold of a huge metal bracket that looked like it might be used
for towing something extremely heavy behind the tank.  I used it
to climb up onto the deck and then walked up the slope of the
turret to the top.  When I reached the highest point, Neeka took
off and got out of range so she wouldn't have to keep dodging to
avoid being run over.  She drove back to where the flattened
patrol cars were and sat behind them, to try to get the tank to
backtrack instead of going on down the road toward the schools
and the houses.  It seemed to work.  Once the driver turned far
enough to see her, the tank headed right in her direction.

The view from up there was impressive.  It was a real charge to
stand on top of such a big machine while it was moving.  It felt
like the world was moving and I was standing still.  When the
tank changed gears and began to pick up speed, I decided it was
time to get to work.

The first thing I did was to pull the machine gun off its mount
next to the hatch.  I didn't see any bullets, so it may not have
been loaded.  I pitched it off the back of the tank anyway, just
to be safe.  When it hit the concrete roadway I could barely hear
the crash it made over the roar of the tank's engine.

I bent down and tried to open the hatch, but the darn thing was
made just to prevent what I was trying to do, and I had no luck
getting a good enough hold of it to pull it open.  Frustrated, I
slapped the top of the hatch with the palm of my gloved hand.  It
smarted a bit, but more importantly it made a bonging sound, like
you get when you hit things that are metal...and hollow.

I stamped my foot on the top of the tank, then I jumped up and
landed on it with both feet.  My custom-made sneakers cushioned
the impact very effectively and the sound was muffled compared
with when I had smacked it with my hand.  Slapping the tank
seemed silly anyway, but it did give me hope for my hazy plan to
stop it.  I skipped down the front of the turret, bracing myself
with one hand on the cannon barrel.  Then I jumped off in a low
arc to land about thirty feet in front of the tank.

I had a strong urge to bend over and wag my butt at the tank, but
I resisted.  It wouldn't have been professional and that
helicopter was still overhead with its big camera lens underneath
looking right at me.  Seeing me in front of him did seem to piss
off the maniac in the tank anyway.  He revved the diesel engine
and the tank lurched as he changed gears and tried to run me
over.

I ran away before he could reach me and joined Neeka at the pile
of debris that used to be two county patrol cars.

"Way to go," Neeka congratulated me.  "Now he's just trying to
kill us."

"Sarcasm duly noted.  At least we've got him turned around," I
said, and began picking through the low pile of metal looking for
something I could use.  He had really made a mess of the cars. 
They were just pieces now, and none of them too big.

"Look quicker," Neeka warned.  "Here he comes."

"Got it!"  I pulled out a cylinder of metal a few feet long with
a ball of gears on one end.  It was pretty heavy, and just what I
needed.  I picked it up and waved it back and forth like a
baseball bat, to get a feel for its balance.

"Drive shaft," Neeka identified it for me.  "And what's left of
the differential.  If you hit him with it, mind the shrapnel." 
She turned the bike and moved back down the road some more, to
get out of range and to taunt the driver of the tank into
backtracking further.

I stood my ground, holding the drive shaft in both hands.  I
thought about what he could do to some unfortunate family's house
with that machine.  I pictured it smashing through the walls and
crushing all their stuff.  I imagined it bulldozing through the
walls of a classroom full of little kids, mashing them to a
bloody pulp.  I tried to work myself into a state of fury.  I
tried to dump every bit of adrenalin I could into my bloodstream.
 I planned to use it all, to pull out all the stops and give this
every bit of strength I had.

The tank came on, roaring its challenge and clanking toward me. 
I waited for it to come to me and when it was about ten feet
away, I swung the drive shaft around and brought it down on the
front of the tank, giving it a good smack.  The weight of the
steel shaft and the force of the blow lifted me off the ground
just before my club came down on the thick armor.

The sound was incredible.  The whole tank rang like a huge bell.
As Neeka predicted, the differential shattered instantly into a
million pieces, but the shaft held together.  Even though the
metal bits flew everywhere, none of them hit me very hard, and
the suit kept those that did from tearing through.  The bruises
would be healed before I got back home again, if I managed to
avoid being ground into Dragonburger or blown into Dragon
nuggets.

I danced backward from the moving tank and raised my club again,
this time in a batter's stance so I could get more force into the
swing.  I could see a big dent on the front of the tank where I
had hit it the first time, and I aimed for the same spot once
more.  

I smashed my metal club into the front of the tank and again
there was a sound like the biggest bell in the world being hit
with the biggest hammer.  It was really impressive.  It must have
been very unpleasant for anyone inside the machine.  My hands
smarted and my ears rung, but the driver had to be in a world of
hurt, hearing that godawful sound from inside there.

Once more I hit the tank in the same spot.  This time the front
split open and I could see inside a little bit.  I had raised the
club to hit it again, when I realized that the tank had stopped
moving and was just sitting still.

"He's going for the cannon!" I thought.  Fear jolted down my
spine and I swung my club at the tank so hard that I actually
knocked it back a few inches.  That startled me.  I didn't know
how hard I had to hit a 70 ton object to get it to move, but it
must have been really, really hard.  Encouraged, I started to hit
it again, but I checked my swing when I saw the hatch on the
front deck of the tank open and a hand stick out, palm out and
fingers spread.  That hand was joined by another, then a head
appeared.  The man lurched out of the hatch and fell onto the
sloping front.  He slid down and fell to the ground like a rag
doll, landing on his back at my feet.  It was then that I saw
that blood was streaming from his ears, nose and eyes.

It was a horrible sight, and I couldn't stand to look at it.  I
dropped the badly bent and dented drive shaft and walked away. 
Beating on the tank had been a lot of fun, but seeing what had
happened to the man inside made me sick to my stomach.  I
couldn't remember any stories about superheroes that barfed at
the sight of blood and I didn't want my first public appearance
to be remembered for something like that, so I turned my head
away and tried to calm my stomach.  

Neeka brought the bike to a stop right in front of me and I
hopped on.  I'd done my job and it was time to leave.  Sticking
around would just mean more TV footage and a better chance for
someone to get a good enough look at me and figure out who I was.
 There was already an opportunity for anyone who saw Neeka and I
leaving school early and could put 2 and 2 together to identify
us.  

"Can you lose the helicopter?" I asked, doubtfully.

"I can try."

She raced back up the road the way we had come.  When we flew
past Major Carson and the Sergeant Major, I blew them a kiss,
just to be nice and to apologize for breaking their tank.

Going the other way, Neeka shot the gap in the roadblock faster
than she had before.  This time, the waves the two deputies gave
us included more fingers and one of them even looked like he was
trying to salute.  

On the way back, Neeka took us down every tree-lined street and
through every narrow alley she knew about.  We got some funny
looks from the people we passed and some of them seemed strangely
happy to see us roar past their houses, destroying the
tranquility of their neighborhood.  There even was a good bit of
pointing, smiling, and waving, and we both smiled and waved back
politely in reply.

After about a half-hour of playing tag with the helicopter, we
finally lost sight of it when we took a shortcut through the
downtown park and Neeka slowed to a normal speed   normal for her
  and went back to the main roads to get us home again.  Once out
of range of the eye in the sky, I dropped my disguise and pushed
my hood back.

When we drove through the double doors of the workshop, there was
a small crowd of people waiting for us:  Mom, Mrs. Morgan, Jim
and Bud, Sara Henderson, and Steve Wojeski.  The first four
weren't a surprise.  The Henderson sisters knew enough to be able
to recognize Neeka and me on TV, and Sara had even elected
herself President of my fan club, so she wasn't too much of a
surprise either; but seeing Steve standing there with everyone
else was something of a shock.  I had done my best to keep him as
far away from my secret life as I could, and even though I'd
confessed my secret to him after almost destroying the weight
room, I thought he hadn't really believed me.

When Neeka shut off the bike, everyone started applauding.  I had
never been applauded before, and I blushed so hard I could feel
my face get hot.

"We saw it all on TV!" Sara burbled.  She was so excited that she
was bouncing up and down.  "It was AWESOME!"

"It was pretty impressive, sis," Bud said.  "You took out a
freakin' tank!"

Neeka took off her sunglasses and her cap.  She pulled the clips
out of her hair and let it fall around her shoulders just as her
mother grabbed her and hugged her.

"Darling, that was the bravest thing I've ever seen," she told
her.  "Your father will either be so proud he will burst, or he
will be so mad he will explode!"

"Either way," Neeka said, "that sounds very messy.  Let's not
tell him, OK?"

"What?"

"Yeah," I said to everyone in the room, "please let's keep this
in the room.  The fewer people who know   the better."

"Of course, honey," Mom said, "Everyone here understands the
importance of keeping your secret."  She said it in a reassuring
way, but loud enough for everyone to hear.  Since Steve was the
only person she hadn't met before this, she must have intended it
for him.

Steve had crowded around like everyone else, but he hadn't said
anything yet.  I took one step and launched myself into his arms,
trusting him to catch me.  He did, of course.  He cradled me in
his arms and I put one of mine around his neck.

"Welcome to the family, big guy," I said.  "You knew it was me?"

"As soon as I got home, I saw it on TV," he said.  "They'll be
replaying that clip all day and all night.  Of course, as soon as
I saw you standing on top of that tank, I knew it was you.  Even
with that stuff on your face, I knew.  No other girl would have
the balls to stop and check out the view at a time like that."

I wanted to ask how many girls he knew who got into hand-to-hand
battles with heavily armored vehicles, but I kept that comment to
myself.  He was taking this marvelously well and I didn't want to
spoil things.

"Oops!  Busted for sightseeing," I said. "It's always the small
things that get you.  So, you just came on over?"

"I called Jim and told him that I knew.  He said I may as well
join the group, that we would be going out to eat later and that
he knew you would want me along."

Steve swung me around so I could see Jim, who was standing at the
back of the pack.  He grinned at me like the cat who swallowed
the canary and I wondered just how much matchmaking he had been
doing on my behalf.  Both Reynolds boys had changed a lot from
the spoiled brats they used to be.  I realized that I didn't know
how much that had been, or how little.  Maybe I had
underestimated them from the start.

"He was right about that.  Now that you know, I guess things will
be different between us, hunh?"

"You mean, you're going to quit hiding stuff from me, and I might
get to see more of you?"

"Not much left to hide.  I guess I'll have to try to work you
into my busy schedule somewhere."

"Your busy crimefighting schedule?  I wondered why it was you
kept running off and disappearing on me.  I thought you might
have another guy you were seeing, but Jim said no, that you just
had some important stuff you were doing.  Now I know what kind of
stuff he wouldn't tell me about."

I wanted to ask about how long he and Jim had been such big
buddies, but I held my tongue.  There would be time to turn over
those rocks later, if I even decided to pursue it.  

Steve put me down so Mom could give me a hug.  After that, a line
formed and I hugged everyone who had come to meet us.  After
promising to tell the whole story to everyone before we left for
dinner, Neeka and I stayed behind in the Lair (she keeps calling
it that, and I gave up trying to make her quit; now she's got me
doing it, too) while everyone else went back upstairs.

We got the doors shut, and turned the bike around, and then we
sat down on the mats to talk.

"This is going to change things," she said.  "More things,
anyway."

"Yeah.  They've got pictures now.  Everyone will know The Dragon
is real."

"No turning back now."

"We could.  We could just quit.  Let it all go.  Wait for it all
to blow over."

"You won't."

"No, I won't.  I knew this could happen.  It was inevitable, from
the first time I put on this suit.  I can't stop.  I have to go
on.  You know why."

"Because you can.  Or, more importantly, because others can't  
or won't.  Because you can't stand to see people hurt, not even
if they deserve it.  Not even if you have to hurt them yourself
to get them to stop hurting others.  'All that is needed for evil
to thrive is for those who could stop it to deny that it is their
responsibility to do so.'  I'm paraphrasing somebody.  I don't
remember the exact quote."

"It was Burke, and that's close enough.  I did a Web search on
Evil and that kept popping up.  The problem with explaining that
is I can't tell someone who is trying to thank me that I do this
because they're shirking their duty.  Now there is something
else, too."

"What?"

"I enjoy it too much to quit," I confessed shamelessly.  I was
feeling less guilty about enjoying it than I had been.

"I know.  I knew the same way Steve knew it was you.  When you
were standing on top of that tank, looking around like some kind
of tourist, you were happy.  In a situation where any sane person
would have been terrified, you were calm enough to stand there
and enjoy the moment   even check out the scenery.  You were so
happy, you had to work to get mad enough to be able to clobber
the tank.  It's not just pain you have a high threshold for, it's
action."

"Guilty as charged.  You going to stay?"

"Are you kidding?  I wouldn't miss it for the world.  I even
thought of my own nom de guerre."

"Your what?"

"That's right, you took Spanish for your foreign language
requirement.  It's French.  It means, 'war name', like a
Resistance fighter, or a member of the Foreign Legion.  I'm going
to be 'Ace'.  I think I'll have an ace of diamonds silk-screened
on the back of my jacket."

"'Ace of Diamonds'.  I like it.  Very strong, yet feminine.  And
a red card, too.  'Ace of Clubs' wouldn't work as well."

"And 'Ace of Hearts' is too romantic.  As for 'Ace of
Spades'...."

"Let's not go there."

"Let's just stick to 'Ace'."

"OK, 'Ace'.  I think we can get Mr. Morton to do your jacket for
you.  He's going to want to meet you, anyway.  And I'm going to
need a spare suit.  I hope he has enough of that fabric left.  We
can do that after school tomorrow."

"We should go see Master Li tomorrow, too.  We missed his class
today."

"Oh, crud!  And we were doing so well, too.  We wouldn't want our
new skills to get rusty," I giggled.

"I think he'll figure it out, if he watches TV."

"I wonder how many others will," I said, turning serious.

"Now that is going to be the real test, won't it?  If our covers
get blown, we, and everyone we know, are going to become
celebrities."

"I'd been thinking more in terms of 'circus freaks'."

"I hope it won't be like that.  But I don't want to find out."

"Yeah, that's what's on my mind.  If there is a hole in our
cover, or anyway we can nail it down tighter, we need to do it. 
I'm scared that the media will be turning over every rock in the
county looking for us."

"You're scared to go watch yourself on TV.  That's what you're
scared of."

"Fink!  You read my mind."

"Not this time.  I'm getting better at blocking you out when I
want.  It's more fun to talk to someone if you don't know what
they're going to say."

"Well, you're right, anyway.  What if I look like a clown?  What
if people are laughing at me?"

"Not a popsicle's chance in hell of that.  I saw Sergeant Major
Green trying not to shit his pants while answering your
questions.  He wasn't laughing.  I can't imagine what kind of
career he's had, but I don't think you'll find an awful lot of
guys with those stripes who are sissies.  Ledbetter wasn't
laughing either.  And I'll bet you anything you can name that
none of them is laughing now.  No one whose opinion counts for
anything will be anything but thoroughly impressed."

"Thanks.  I guess we better go get cleaned up and join the
party."

"C'mon," Neeka said, getting to her feet.  "I'll scrub your
back."



***



I felt a lot more confident about things when I had the dirt and
diesel fumes washed off.  We brushed our hair and while Neeka
applied her makeup, I adjusted mine to 'party' level, with more
color in more places and highlights on the parts of my body that
I planned to show.

I clipped on my new charm-chain onto my rings so that it hung in
a shallow arc between my breasts, with the tiny silver dragon I
had bought right in the middle of it.  A blue halter-dress with a
wide plunging neckline showed it off very nicely.  I even put on
the tallest pair of heels I thought I could wear without
embarrassing myself, so I would look sophisticated   and taller.
If I was going to be standing next to Steve most of the night, I
didn't want to look like a munchkin.

After seeing me all decked out, Neeka went to her room to see if
she had brought anything suitable to wear.  She came back in a
slinky form-fitting green dress and matching shoes.

"This was not in that closet before," she said.  "I don't have
anything as bold as this."

The dress had thin straps and a scoop neck cut so low that she
would fall out of it if she bent over too far.  In the back the
straps crossed to hold the top up and the middle on, but
otherwise was low enough to show a pair of dimples that normally
couldn't be seen.  A green scarf around her neck set off her red
hair perfectly.

"I don't think you need three guesses where that came from," I
said.

"There is a label in it, but it's in French and I don't recognize
the name.  Do you think I should wear this?  Isn't it too much?"

"No, take it off.  It's just too lovely.  You'll upstage me
terribly and I can't have that."

"You brat!  Just for that, I'm wearing it anyway."



We cheated and took the little elevator down to the first floor,
so the only stairs we had to negotiate were the ones down to the
family room.  When we started down, the sound of conversation and
laughter floated up the stairs to us.  When we arrived at the
bottom, there was a very gratifying silence, disrupted after a
few seconds by a long wolf-whistle from Bud.

"Sorry," he said, when several heads turned to give him a
reproachful look.  "That just popped out.  But, wow!  You two
look great!"

"You certainly do," Steve said to me, although I noticed that he
gave Neeka a thorough once-over first.  I stepped to his side and
put my arm in his, some to be stylish and affectionate, but
mostly for support.  He noticed that he wasn't looking as far
down as he was accustomed to and he made a short bow to check out
my high-heels.

"Am I tall enough?" I whispered to him as he escorted me to the
sofa.

"You are perfect at any height," he replied, and I felt a foot
taller right away.

Neeka sat down with Jim and Bud on either side of her, and I
wasn't the slightest bit jealous that she had two men to my one.
Well, maybe just a little, but I wouldn't have traded with her,
anyway.

Mom had drinks poured and she served from a tray what I was
grateful to find was ginger-ale and not something alcoholic.  She
and Mrs. Morgan had real drinks in their hands.  I could smell
the bourbon from ten feet away.

Everyone got comfortable - Jim and Bud negotiated silently for
who got to put his arm around the ravishing redhead   I
sacrificed my preferred spot on Steve's lap for a more genteel
position at his side   and Mom and Mrs. Morgan cozied up
discreetly but comfortably on the love-seat.  I noticed that the
TV was on, but with the sound turned all the way down.  The local
news was on and they were running the aerial footage of the
battle on Highway 17.

This was the first time I had seen it and I was surprised at how
close the long lens on the helicopter's camera made everything
look.  When Neeka dropped me off in back of the tank, the camera
zoomed in tight on my face and stayed there a few seconds before
pulling back quickly to a wider shot of me climbing up.  It was
amazing how effective my animated make-up looked on the TV
screen.  I looked very carefully, but still could not make out my
own features under the Dragon's moving image.

"See?" Steve said, pointing at the screen as the small figure
stood still on top of the big vehicle; looking around casually,
as though the tank were my personal tour bus.  All I needed was a
camera around my neck.  "That's when I knew it was you.  You had
me totally fooled up to that point, but one look at that and I
said, 'that's Sam'."

The part where I tried to open the hatch, then slapped and
stomped on it, looked more heroic than it felt at the time.  When
I jumped off to land far enough away so if I fell I wouldn't be
run over, the TV camera lost me and didn't pick me up again until
I was running back to the demolished patrol cars.  I looked like
I was moving a lot faster on TV than it had felt like I was when
I was doing it.  The camera jerked a couple of times while trying
to track me, so the camera operator widened the shot again and
kept it that way while I rooted through the pile, looking for
something to use as a clapper for the bell-on-treads.

The image of me hitting the tank was informative.  It clearly
showed the tank shaking under the force of each blow and jumping
back on its springs after the last one.  That explained my
impression that I had knocked it backwards.  It was still very
impressive to see me whacking away at the thing and making it
stop in its tracks.

I didn't want to watch the man come out of the driver's hatch and
fall to the ground again, but I couldn't help it.  The body
language of the small figure on the screen was clear.  It turned
away, visibly bothered by the sight.  I expected the camera to
zoom in on the tank-jacker on the ground, but it continued to
track me and then the two of us on the bike as we sped away. 
From the high angle, the kiss I blew to the men from the Armory
looked more like a salute, which really fit the situation better
and I wished I'd thought of doing that instead, especially since
the last thing you could see before the bike got too far away and
the copter started chasing it, was one of the deputies at the
road-block raising his hand to his cap palm-down as we streaked
by.

The rest of the footage was just the occasional glimpse of us
through the branches of trees and they cut that mercifully short.
 The talking head that came on after shared the screen with a
still frame of me standing on the tank   fortunately looking
better than goofy in the freeze-frame they picked   with a banner
under it saying, 'She-Dragon Stops Stolen Tank'.

"That's sexist!" I said.  "If I were a boy, they wouldn't call me
a He-Dragon!"

"You're going to have to get used to that, honey," Mom said. 
"From these pictures, they can tell just two things about you,
that you have the face of a dragon and a female figure."

"A very female figure," Bud said, laughing.  Steve smiled at me
like he had wanted to say that, but wasn't sure if it would be
rude in the present company.

The TV had gone to a screen with a 'Live' banner across the
bottom.  When I saw Sheriff Foster step up to a podium, I pointed
and said, "Turn that up please.  I'd like to hear this."

Bud raised the clicker and ran the volume up just in time to
catch the obligatory 'please hold your questions until the end'
request that would doubtless go unheeded.  When the camera
flashes subsided and the noise level dropped Sheriff Foster read
a short statement from a piece of wrinkled paper.

"By now you all will have seen the footage and heard the reports
of the remarkable events that took place just a few hours ago on
Highway 17.  A man who we are presently trying to identify broke
into the National Guard Armory compound at approximately 2:15pm
and stole an Abrams M1A1 Main Battle Tank while it was undergoing
routine maintenance.  We have ascertained that the tank was
fully-fueled and that it was carrying live ammunition for its
cannon."

A voice from off camera shouted out, "Was he a terrorist?"

The Sheriff frowned at the interruption and said, "The suspect is
currently being treated at County General Hospital.  As he is
unable as yet to answer questions, we are working to identify him
through fingerprint records.  We have no information at this time
about whether he is a terrorist or not.  He did drive the tank
through the security fence at the Armory as well as causing some
damage to the main building.  He did try to run over two officers
of the State Police who attempted to detain him.  While they were
able to escape unharmed, he did destroy their vehicles as well as
some right-of-way lights on the highway.  When it became apparent
that there was imminent danger to lives and property, the
Sheriff's Office, in conjunction with the Highway Patrol and the
National Guard, requested the assistance of an individual who has
ably assisted local law enforcement on previous occasions when
extreme circumstances have required her unique abilities and
skills.  Because of considerations of security, I am unable to
give you any information about her other than that she is known
as The Dragon and that we all owe her our heartfelt thanks for
dealing so effectively with this danger to the citizens of our
county.

"Thank you for your patience and I will now be happy to answer
any questions I can.  Yes."

"Sheriff Foster," a voice shouted, drowning out the others, "What
we saw today was nothing short of incredible.  The strength of
this Dragon person is phenomenal!  Surely you can tell us more
about her?"

"Sorry, under the agreement this office has with the Agency she
works for, I cannot give you any further information about her."

"He knows that's not true," I said.

"But it gets him off the hook for withholding the information,"
Mom said.  "Everyone will assume, just as he did, that you work
for some super-secret government agency."

After more shouted demands for details about me, the Sheriff
responded, "If there is a breach of secrecy, we might lose her
assistance in the future.  I don't want to risk that."  He
pointed to another reported, saying, "Yes   in the seersucker
coat."

"Sheriff, is it true that this maniac was driving the stolen tank
toward a school when he was stopped by this Dragon girl?"

"He was heading north in the direction of Southside Elementary
and Ringling Middle School.  Both are along that stretch of road.
 As are the Grantland and Ricefield subdivisions."

Off camera, a woman's voice could be heard shouting, "My daughter
goes to Southside!"  At that, a number of people in the room
voiced similar exclamations about their connections to the area.
It took several seconds to restore order before the next question
could be taken,

"You said The Dragon has helped with other situations in the
past.  Can you tell us about those?"

"No.  Sorry.  To do so would compromise a valuable asset that we
are not prepared to lose.  I will say that she has assisted in
several cases in a variety of ways. In each situation, she was
able to bring about a quick and satisfactory resolution. 
Although, quite frankly, I was as surprised as any of you when
she revealed for the first time that her abilities are far
greater than any of us had thought.  Now if that's all, you'll
have to excuse me...."

Sheriff Foster left the podium under a barrage of questions that
he ignored and the screen went back to the news studio, where
they started playing the tape again.  Bud muted the sound, but
left the TV on.

"'Not prepared to lose'," Mrs. Morgan quoted, "That's good to
hear.  He sounds like he's committed to keeping your identity a
secret."

"More importantly," Mom said, "he's telling the other law
enforcement people what will happen if they don't go along.  Did
you notice the part about 'in conjunction with the Highway Patrol
and the National Guard'?  He's sharing the glory with the State
people.  They probably asked most of the same questions that the
reporters did."

"You mean I might start getting calls from them, too?" I asked.

"Honey, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you get calls from the
Governor himself."

"Wow!"

"Yes, it's a good thing graduation is coming up.  You may have a
busy summer ahead of you.  Now I think we'd better leave for the
restaurant so you kids can be back by bedtime.  I think they'll
hold the table for us, but it would be rude to be late."

"We'll need to go in two cars," Steve said.  "I can take someone
in mine."

"You can take me...anytime," I quipped.

"Gladly!  Anyone else?"

Neeka wanted to come with us and Jim came along with her.  That
left Sara and Bud with Mom and Mrs. Morgan.  I wondered who would
be chaperoning whom.

"Hey, Steve!" Jim said, holding out a familiar package as we
climbed the stairs.  "I guess you can carry this tonight."

Steve took it and turned the thick pad this way and that.  "OK, I
give up," he said.  "What is it?"

"It's my booster-seat," I said.  "I sit on it when we go out so I
can sit at the table like an adult, instead of peaking over the
edge of the table with my chin in my plate."

"Oh, of course.  Sorry, Sam.  I just don't think of you as being
short."

I wanted to drag Steve down on the couch and have my way with him
right then and there.  I settled for squeezing his hand, which I
would let go of only when forced to do so.  I thought of several
possible reasons for that comment.  One, he was dumb as a post,
which I knew wasn't the case.  Two, he was making nice and paying
me a compliment.  Three, he was perfectly serious and the
difference in our heights wasn't something that he thought about
much, if at all.  Either way, it gave me a warm feeling  

"Judge me by my size, do you?" Bud squawked, in a poor but
recognizable imitation of a famous movie character.  He almost
messed up my good mood by comparing me to a short, ugly green
Muppet and he was about to recite the entire speech when I
reached out a hand and mimed choking him.  His smile turned into
an expression of stark terror when Neeka's hand tightened on his
throat from behind at the same instant as I closed my fingers on
air.

We all laughed like hyenas at Bud's reaction.  When he recovered
from being startled, he did too.  My good mood returned.  Neeka
and I had done a perfect illustration of how the speed of thought
can make a great team into an unbeatable one.  When he quit
laughing, Steve looked suitably impressed.

"I see how this works," he said.  "Four eyes, four ears, four
arms, one brain.  Who does the thinking?"

"If it's a tactical situation   me," I said, as we got into his
car.  "If we're making a plan or trying to work something out,
it's whoever has the best idea.  It just looks like we're not
discussing it, because it happens so fast."

"Also," Neeka said, "we're so in tune that whoever thinks of
something first, that's usually what we do.  We never argue. 
Well, almost never.  Sometimes Sam will want to do something that
I think is way dangerous, but since it's her skin, and she always
manages to pull it off, I would have a tough time talking her out
of it."

"Like the tank business," I added.  "I had an idea, but I didn't
know it would work until I had checked out the tank.  When I hit
it with my hand and heard the sound reverberate inside, I thought
I had a chance if I could smack it hard enough with something
heavy."

"Getting him to turn and follow us was just luck," she said.  "I
didn't really expect him to follow the bike, but when he lost
sight of Sam, I must have been his most tempting target.  Nice
car, by the way."

"It's boxy, but it's a classic," Steve said, patting the
dashboard.  "I got it used, of course.  But the resale should
still be high when I'm ready to trade up in a couple of years. 
And it runs good, too."

"You drive it very well," Neeka said, "If a little slowly.  You
need to speed up if you want to keep up with Mrs. Reynolds."

"Don't listen to her," I said.  "She thinks anything under a
hundred is poking along."

"Yes, I know.  I saw her shoot the gap between those patrol cars.
 Neeka, you can sure handle a bike."  Steve sounded genuinely
impressed and I felt a brief flash of jealousy at hearing my
boyfriend compliment another girl.

"Thanks!" Neeka replied.  "You have no idea how glad I am to hear
someone say that.  Usually all I hear is 'Oh my God!  Slow down!'
and some loud screaming from the back of the bike.  It's really
annoying."

"Careful there," I said.  "Next time, I might just take a taxi."

"Ha!" she laughed sharply, "And I'll be there a half hour before
you, telling everyone how you were too chicken to ride with me."

"Riding with you is a religious experience.  I pray every time. 
Of course, all I ever pray for is to get there in one piece."

"OK!  OK!"  Jim shouted us down before we got rolling.  I was a
little disappointed, to tell the truth.  Neeka was giving as good
as she got and that was both unusual for her and a good thing, as
far as I was concerned.

"Oh, let them go on," Steve said.  "Having them slag each other
off is better than listening to them complain about my driving."

"You drive just fine, sweetie," I told him.

"Yeah," Neeka said, giving Jim a poke in the ribs to keep him
quiet.  "If we run too late, we can always order a pizza to be
delivered at the next intersection."

  

Steve fell far enough behind Mom so that I thought for sure we
had been left behind.  It was a surprise to me when he pulled
into the parking lot at The Olive Grove.  Apparently he had known
where we were headed.  I guess that was just one more thing that
had gone on without me knowing about it.  

By chance, Steve parked the car very close to the spot where I
had taken down the guy who tried to kidnap Sheriff Foster.  I was
looking at the car parked in that spot, remembering that night
when Steve surprised me by running around and opening my door for
me.  I was briefly embarrassed at the possibility that he thought
I was waiting on him to do that.  I was certainly capable of
opening my own door and I wasn't one of those girls who get huffy
if a guy doesn't try to anticipate every little thing I want them
to do for me.  When he reached out a hand to assist me in getting
out of the car, I tried to be gracious about it and took it,
leaning on it as though I needed the help.  It cost me nothing,
but to Steve it meant his courtesy and assistance was
appreciated.  

I was learning that in a relationship, it isn't how you feel
about each other, but how you make each other feel.  Not in the
big obvious ways, like making love, or telling someone you love
them, but in little ways.  Sometimes, the small things matter the
most.  One moment of unthinking pettiness can undo ten moments of
tenderness.  Rudeness and discourtesy are corrosive.  They eat
away at relationships until they fall apart.

As soon as I stepped out of the car, I found that all my
philosophizing was beside the point.  Walking across a gravel
parking-lot in heels while trying to look sophisticated is
impossible.  I held onto Steve's arm and gratefully accepted all
the support he could provide.  We strolled casually across to the
front door and you would never have guessed that he was carrying
most of my weight.  By the time we got onto firm footing again, I
had retracted any bad things I may have made about big lunks with
bulging muscles.  They can sure come in handy when you need
them.

Once inside, I found that Connie had been reassigned from
Waitress to Hostess duty.  She was holding the door and welcoming
everyone as they came in.  I was the next to last in line and she
spared the hunk behind me only the briefest flirty smile before
she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me like I was her
long-lost sister.

"Sam!  How are you?  Oh, I'm so glad to see you!"

The 'Mr. Morton' dress I was wearing was more drape-and-hang than
cinch-to-fit.  It wasn't designed for enthusiastic hugs.  When
she let go, I had to check to see if anything had popped out.

"I'm great, Connie.  How have you been?"

"Wonderful!  I'm so glad you came tonight.  I've been wanting to
call you, but I've been so busy I just haven't had time.  After
that fantastic party and the pep talk you gave me, I was so
excited, I couldn't wait.  I checked with the college first thing
Monday and they have a summer session that will be starting in a
few weeks, so I enrolled in it.  It's remedial stuff, mostly. 
Designed for borderline students like me, I'm afraid.  But I can
use it to get my average up and get back up to speed before the
Fall semester starts."

"So if the summer session hasn't started, what have you been
doing to stay so busy for the last three days?"

"Studying!  I went back to the textbooks I didn't read before,
and I sat down to read them without thinking of them as
coursework.  It's made a world of difference!  I keep finding out
interesting things that I want to know more about.  I've been
haunting the library like Banquo's ghost."

"Like who?"

"A product of a guilty conscience.  That and a new interest in
freshman-level Shakespeare.  But nevermind that.  I'm so glad to
see you again.  Thank you for getting my head turned around.  I
feel like a new person."

"You're welcome, but you're the one doing all the work.  Is this
why you're not waiting tables?"

"Indirectly.  Uncle Sergio got mad when I was late for my shift,
but when he found out where I had been and what I had been doing,
he made me the Hostess.  It's easier and I get to leave early so
I can go home and study some more after work."

"But no tips?"

"Oh, we don't get to keep our own tips.  They go into a pot and
everyone gets a cut.  This is a family business, remember.  None
of us is going to starve."

"Well, I might, if I don't get some food pretty quick."

"Oh, I'm sorry.  You're in the back room.  It's this way.  I'm
just so glad to see you.  I had to tell you all about it.  I've
been so into my books that I even missed the excitement this
afternoon.  Did you get to see any of it?"

"You mean The Dragon and Ace fighting the stolen tank?  I missed
seeing it on TV until just a little while ago.  I must have
caught the umpteenth rerun."  The media didn't know Neeka's nom
de guerre, as she put it, but I figured it would do no harm to
drop it.  If it spread as I hoped, it would become something that
'everyone knew', but no one knew how they knew.  If anyone traced
it back to me, I could always claim to just have heard it
somewhere else.  

"I had no idea people like that even existed, never mind one
living here!  Everyone who's come in tonight has been talking
about it.  It's the most exciting thing to happen around here
that I can remember."

"Really!  Does anyone think they know who she is?"

"No!  No one has a clue about either of them.  They're just a
mysterious pair of superheroes who appeared out of nowhere and
vanished before anyone could talk to them.  We had to move
Sheriff Foster into the same private room as your party to keep
people from pestering him."

"Foster is here?"

"Yes, I hope you don't mind.  There is plenty of room.  The room
seats twenty.  He and his wife came in about forty-five minutes
ago.  They should be on their dessert by now."

"No, that's fine.  I'd like to say hello to him."

I got my chance right away.  When Connie showed us in, Sheriff
Foster was standing by his table holding his napkin in his hand
and chatting with Mom.  A cup of coffee and an untouched dish of
tiramisu sat at his place on the table.  He must have been asking
after me because Mom gestured at me and I walked right over.

"Good evening Sheriff," I said.  "How are you tonight?"

"Just fine, Sam.  Just great.  You remember the Mrs?"

"Yes.  How do you do, Mrs. Foster?"

"I'm doing very well, thank you.  It's good to see you again." 
She reached out her right hand to me and I clasped it with my
left.  She held on well beyond the brief grasp and release that
usually passes for a handshake between women in polite society. 
I got the impression she wanted to tell me something, but not
here and now.

Her slight emphasis on 'again' could have meant 'since this
afternoon' or it could have referred to our earlier encounter in
the parking lot.  I couldn't tell which.  I smiled and nodded,
trying to acknowledge whichever she meant, as well as her
familiarity.  I broke her gaze and she released my hand at that.
I turned to her husband, whose normal down-home charm seemed to
be worn thin by all the attention he must have received.  I felt
sorry for him, but he chose public service, and the public life
that went with it.  I just wanted to remain anonymous.

"I hope you don't mind us trespassing," he said.  "We just had to
get away for a bit.  The phone at home won't quit ringing and I
needed a break."

"Not a problem, Sheriff," I replied cheerfully.  "We all need our
private time and space."

"Well, rest assured I will make sure that yours is protected," he
said, in a confidential tone.  "This will die down in a few days.
 People will get over the novelty of it.  Some of them will even
understand that they shouldn't flush quail they don't intend to
shoot."

His folksiness rang a little hollow, but I got the message.  He
had said much the same thing during the press conference.  He
meant that he would try to make it clear to people that I didn't
want to be a celebrity and trying to drag me into the spotlight
would most likely lead to me having to disappear.  Neither of us
wanted that.  I wanted to go on being The Dragon, and he wanted
to be able to go on preserving and defending the peace, knowing
that if things got bad enough, he could call for the cavalry to
save the day.  I was a safety-net for him.  There were few others
in his position who had that.  It must have been a great comfort
to him to know if he had to call for help, doing so would make
him look good, not bad.  That would be very important to a
politician who relied on the public's perception of him for
re-election.

While I came to understand this only at that moment, he must have
figured it out much earlier.  I looked into his eyes, wondering
how much it meant to him and how far he would go to keep my
identity a secret.  He seemed to understand my concern and he set
his jaw and tried to put on a determined and resolute look.  He
did rather well at it.  It looked exactly like the last set of
campaign posters I had seen plastered all over town.

I stifled a grin and stuck out my hand to him.  He took it
without hesitation, even though he almost flinched when I closed
my fingers around three of his and he looked like he was thinking
that with a flick of my wrist I could probably tear his arm out
of the socket.  I squeezed gently and let go without doing
anything to intimidate him.

"Your coffee will get cold," I said.  "Please sit down and finish
your dinner."

After a couple more pleasantries, he did just that.  Mom and I
went to our own table at the far end of the room and joined
everyone else.  Steve had put my cushion down and was holding my
chair for me.  This time, with his help and the heels, I was able
to get up on it without waving my butt at everyone.

The service was impeccable, if not as entertaining as when I
coaxed Connie into letting me play with her.  The food was
excellent.  I had the Italian sampler plate   lasagna, manicotti,
and angel-hair pasta with clam sauce   and polished it off so
quickly that I had to wait for everyone else to catch up.

As I waited, I wondered what people out in the main room were
saying about our afternoon adventure.  The walls of the private
room were hardly sound-proof and I could hear the murmur of
voices on the other side.  I cocked an ear toward the wall behind
me and tried to make them out.

It was like tuning in a distant radio station.  If I focused on a
sound, it seemed to get louder and louder until I could hear it
clearly.  The first thing I heard was a man's voice saying, "No.
Never.  That's final."  The tone was harsh, but I could tell it
was Uncle Sergio's voice.  I realized that I was listening in on
a conversation he was having with someone in his office, which
must have been on the other side of the wall.  Then I heard
another voice.  It was arrogant and smug as hell, and dripping
with insincerity.

"Sergio, you know you really don't have a choice in this.  We've
tried to be as polite as possible, but you are just going to have
to accept the fact that you have new partners in this business. 
Do I need to have Mr. Jones here explain things to you in a more
personal way?  Maybe he should take it up with another member of
your family?  Your wife?  Maybe that lovely niece of yours?"

There was a long silence before Uncle Sergio said in a tone of
resignation and sadness, "No.  That won't be necessary.  I'll go
along.  What do you want?"

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?  Mr. Jones, step away from
our new partner.  He's decided to be reasonable after all."

There was another pause; then the same insincere voice went on,
"I'll give you a list of the distributors that you will use from
now on.  Also, we will expect a monthly payment from you   in
cash   of $2,000 for...insurance.  You see, we're not greedy. 
But if you ever fail to make a payment, the amount automatically
doubles from then on.  If you ever miss two payments, Mr. Jones
here will get, ah, 'intimately acquainted' with certain family
members.  Do you understand these terms?"

"Yes."

"Good.  Of course, if you should have a change of heart in the
matter, and perhaps decide to discuss the details of our
partnership with the local police, rest assured that there is no
hole deep enough or dark enough for you to hide in.  We will find
you, and we will...but there's no need to get graphic about it,
is there?  I'm sure you understand the consequences perfectly
without me spelling it out for you."

"Yes, damn you!"

I didn't wait to hear the rest.  What I had heard so far was
enough to make my blood boil.  I had to do something about this,
and quickly, before the two men got away.  I had no idea what. 
Or how.  My suit was in the dirty-clothes basket at home.  I
hadn't expected to need it again so soon and I certainly hadn't
expected to need it tonight.

I turned to Steve and whispered, "I have to go to the ladies
room.  I'll be back in a minute."

He got up quickly and pulled my chair out for me and helped me
get my feet back on the floor without jumping down from my perch.
 When I started around the table, Neeka got up to follow me.  I
stopped halfway to the door of the room and said, "No.  You stay
here.  If both of us go, it will be a dead giveaway.  We'll blow
our covers and that will be the end of it.  Just give me your
scarf."

She took it off and handed it to me, saying, "Don't be silly.  At
least I can hold the back door for you so you won't have to come
back in the front.  Just don't let anyone get a good look at you.
 That dress is going to be easy to describe.  Especially on
you."

"Yes.  Well, come on then."

I headed out the door at as quick a pace as I could manage in
those shoes.  Before it closed behind us, I saw Mom looking at us
with an expression that said she knew we were up to something.  I
wanted to wave or something, but there wasn't time.

In the back hallway, Neeka opened the restroom door to mask my
exit out the back.  There was a pay phone there she could use as
an excuse to hang around and my last glimpse was of her reaching
for the receiver.

Once outside, I dashed around the screen of bushes hiding the
dumpster and raced around to the parking lot at the side of the
restaurant.  I edged in between an SUV and a minivan to watch for
the two goons coming out the front door.  I didn't have a clue
that they looked like, but if I heard the same voice, I would be
sure.

While I waited, I tied Neeka's green scarf around my head to hide
my blonde hair.  That done, I tried to think of any other way I
could keep from being recognized.  Neeks was right about the
dress, it was bright blue and practically glowed in the bluish
light in the lot.  The shoes were impossible.  I had almost
stumbled twice getting to my hiding place.  They had to go, so I
kicked them off.

"I'll just do this barefoot," I thought.  Then another obvious
idea occurred to me.  It was so obvious that I wondered why I
hadn't thought of it before.  It solved a lot of problems and
would make identifying me as Sam Kramer almost impossible, while
anyone at all would instantly know The Dragon.

There was no one else in the lot, so I unhooked the halter from
behind my neck and let the beautiful silky blue dress slide off
me and puddle around my feet.  Since it and my shoes were the
only thing I had put on to go out, I was stark naked except for
the scarf on my head.

A moment later, I wasn't naked.  I was wearing dark green scales,
ugly yellow claws, and a face out of a monster movie.  I had been
so hung up on carrying around my fighting suit that I had ignored
the fact that my skin was the perfect disguise.  I remembered
when the soldiers had almost barfed while looking at my boobs. 
With my whole body involved in my costume, my figure would be the
last thing anyone would notice.

The only remaining item to deal with was the chain connecting my
nipple-rings.  I was trying to work the little hook on one side
when the front door opened and two men in suits walked out. 
Connie leaned out the door behind them, calling cheerily, "Thanks
for coming.  Please come again soon!"

As they crossed the concrete apron into the gravel parking lot, I
saw that neither of them wore a tie and that their coats looked
too big for them.  At first, I put it down to bad tailoring, but
then I realized that they probably had guns under their coats and
the larger size was so the bulges wouldn't show.

I picked up my dress and shoes and shadowed the two men while
crouching behind a row of cars.  One of them tugged flamboyantly
at his coat's labels and said, "Well, Mr. Jones, that's another
successful negotiation.  Our employer told us that family-run
businesses would be easy marks.  The poor saps just have too much
to lose.  They always come across."

His partner laughed and said, "Yeah, Victor   I mean Mr. King  
sure can pick 'em.  But you should have let me rough him up a
little more, just to let him know we was serious.  I can do it
without leaving marks."

"Perhaps, Mr. Jones.  We'll see.  The next place on the list is
that Chinese place a few blocks from here.  We'll make the owner
there the same proposition."

From eavesdropping on them, I figured that Smith, Jones, and King
were all fake names they had been told to use to keep nosy
parkers like me from figuring out who they were and who they
worked for.  Smith was the talker and Jones the muscle.  Victor,
aka Mr. King, must be their boss, the man who came up with the
scheme and made the list of places to hit.  I thought about
trying to track them back to their boss, but it sounded like they
were making the rounds of several places tonight and I didn't
have time or the means to tail them all over town.

The car they stopped at was a dark-colored, two-door sedan with
out-of-state plates parked in the darkest corner of the lot.  In
the pale light it looked new, but I could see that the tires were
worn almost bald.  I wondered why someone would buy a new car and
put old tires on it, then I figured out that it was an older car
that had recently been through one of those 'paint your car for
$49.95' shops.

"Probably stolen," I thought.  "I bet they swapped license plates
with another car, too."

I dropped my dress into the back of a pickup truck that didn't
look too awfully dirty and concentrated on dumping adrenalin into
my blood as fast as I could.  These were two armed, professional
crooks, and I wanted to be ready for anything.  

My shoulders shook as I felt the first burst of power flow into
me.  It made my boobs bounce and the chain tug on my rings.  I'd
forgotten about the chain with the charm in the middle.  "No time
to get it off now," I thought.  "I just hope they won't notice
it."

Another burst of power hit me and I felt my skin crawling all
over.  It felt like I was swelling up, getting too big for my
skin, but it was probably just my muscles tensing.  A sudden gust
of cool night air felt good on my bare back as my metabolism
kicked into high gear and my temperature spiked.  I stood up
straight and flexed my arms and shoulders.  I was going to enjoy
this.  These thugs had messed with the wrong restaurateur.  Uncle
Sergio had a guardian Dragon and she was about to rock and roll
on a couple of hoods who thought they could get away with
bullying and threatening honest people.  Maybe their boss would
take a hint and move his extortion racket somewhere else.

The crooks got in their car and started it up.  I stepped out of
my hiding place and walked boldly up behind the crooks as Mr.
Smith put it in reverse and started to back out.  I expected him
to stop when he saw me, but either he wasn't looking or the sight
of a five-foot tall dragon in his rear-view mirror just didn't
register.  Either way, I had to get out of the way, or I would
get run over.  I was so pumped that I took the sky route.  With a
single step run-up, I took off and jumped up on top of his roof.


Because of all the adrenalin, I went pretty high up and landed
feet-first with a loud boom, making a big dent in the roof of his
car.  He slammed on the brakes real quick then.  So quick that I
lost my balance and fell over backwards, landing on my back with
another loud boom.  My head bounced off the roof just where a
support ran across it and my eyes crossed and I saw stars.

It didn't hurt terribly much, but it stunned me and I lost
control of my animated skin and it reverted back to my normal tan
in a heartbeat.  I could tell this because I was struggling to
get up and my head and shoulders were raised and I was looking
right down my front when it happened.

"Oh, hell," I thought.  There goes my costume.  Maybe this wasn't
such a good idea after all."

A wave of dizziness hit me then and I was still sitting there
wondering if I had a concussion and trying to sit up when the two
thugs popped up on either side of me to see what had landed on
their car. 

"Holy shit!" Mr. Jones said.  "A girl!  And she's naked.  And
she's got great hooters, too."  Then, somewhat belatedly, "What
the hell is she doing on the car?"

"Never mind that, idiot!  She's going to attract attention!  Get
her down from there and put her in the back seat.  We've got to
get out of here and ditch this car."

"But I like this car!  The seats are comfortable and it's my
favorite color."

"We can't drive it with the roof mashed in like this.  It would
stand out.  And if you remember, dimwit, we boosted this out of a
garage in Birmingham.  Now get her down and let's go.  We can
find out her story later.  I confess, I'm curious.  And we
haven't gotten our ashes hauled since we left Panama City."

They talked so long that I was able to regain enough coordination
to roll to my knees and reach for Smith.  At the same time, Jones
grabbed my ankle and yanked, jerking me flat on the roof again. 
Smith either got impatient, or he saw me lunge for him, because
he reached up to grab my arm rather than wait for Jones to corral
me.  I jerked it away successfully, but his hand got tangled in
my charm-chain.

Smith grabbed the chain by reflex, but as soon as he realized
what he was holding and how it was attached, he grinned right in
my face.

"I gotcha now, Peaches.  You're coming along with us or I'll rip
those nips right off."  To make sure I knew he was serious, he
pulled on the chain, reeling me in.  I could either follow like a
dog on a lead, or be dragged by the nipples.  I crawled down as
quick as I could, but he half-dragged me anyway, just to be
mean.

Smith yanked the seat forward and shoved me roughly into the
back.  The back seat was even more cramped than the one in
Neeka's car.  It was so small that it barely qualified as a
shelf.  My knees were jammed against the seat back in front of me
and if I had been any taller, I would have had to bend my neck to
keep my head from banging against the sloping rear window.

I expected to have time to recover and take them out before they
got out of the parking lot, but Jones turned around in his
comfortable seat and shoved a pistol in my face.  The barrel
looked like the mouth of a cave and he held it steady, pointing
it right between my eyes.

I had been shot once already and survived, but that was in the
hand.  I had no illusions about my ability to recover from a
bullet to the brain.  If Jones pulled that trigger, I would be
instantly dead.  I decided to bide my time and wait.  He would
put the gun down eventually, and I would spring into action.  If
they got as far as taking me to their boss, maybe I would have an
opportunity to take them all out together.

My decision not to resist must have been clear from my face and
my posture, but Jones was taking no chances.  As the car pulled
out onto the street, he fumbled in the center console without
taking his eyes off me and pulled out a thick roll of
package-strapping tape.

"Turn around and kneel on the floor," he told me.

I followed orders.  There was so little room that I couldn't get
my feet and my knees on the floor of the car together.  I had to
straddle the hump in the floor and bend my legs so that my heels
were pressed into my butt.  I was bent awkwardly over the rear
seat with my butt stuck up in the air between the front seats. 
This put my face into the rear seat and kept me from seeing out.
With me kneeling on the floor and bent over the rear seat like
that, no one could tell I was even in the car, which was probably
the idea.  I looked back at Jones over my shoulder to see if he
was enjoying seeing the contorted position he had put me in.

He seemed to be.  He tapped the inside of my ankles with the
pistol and I moved them further apart, putting my feet alongside
my ass.  He admired the view for a bit, then he said, "Put your
hands behind your back and cross your wrists." 

I did this, too.  He bit on the end of the roll of tape and
unrolled a length with his free hand.  Then he took a switchblade
knife out of his pocket and cut the tape off the roll.  With more
dexterity than I would have expected, he wrapped the tape tightly
around my wrists with one hand.

I was trying to test the strength of the tape without being
obvious about it, when I heard him prepare another length.  This
one he wrapped around my forearms, almost at the elbows,
strapping them tightly together behind my back.  This forced my
shoulders way back and made my back arch.  My breasts jutted out
from my chest at different angles.  The chain connecting my
nipple rings was pulled taut and I could feel the rings twisting
in my flesh.  The tendons in my shoulders strained to keep my
arms from popping out of their sockets.  Even as limber as I was
after all the cheerleading and martial arts exercises I had done,
the discomfort was enough to make my eyes well up with tears.  I
blinked them away as soon as they formed.  I would not let these
two think they had made me cry.

I looked back to see Jones still holding the gun steady on me
while he unrolled a third, even longer, piece of tape and then a
fourth.  With these he strapped my ankles to my thighs,
immobilizing my legs.  I felt like was trussed up like a holiday
turkey, ready for the oven.  It all seemed too much to me, but
Jones was the expert here.  Given the ease with which he tied me
up while reaching over the seat of the car while holding a gun on
me with one hand, he must have had lots of practice at doing
this.  I began to have doubts about escaping easily.

I still tried to look over my shoulder to see if he would put the
gun away now that he had me so thoroughly strapped, but, he still
had it pointed at me.  He only relaxed enough to rest his arm on
the console between the front bucket seats.    

I thought that the large-caliber pistol was a perfect phallic
symbol for a thug like Mr. Jones, who probably couldn't achieve
satisfaction any other way.  I wondered if the gun had become his
substitute for sex.  Perhaps when he pulled the trigger that was
his climax.  Maybe the bullet represented his cum.  Then I
realized that the gun was pointing directly at my exposed pussy
and perhaps this line of reasoning wasn't the best way for me to
pass the time.

Jones seemed to read my mind.  He extended his arm, pushing the
end of the pistol between my legs.  He raised it up until the
steel slide rested between my slightly parted labia.  The raised
nub of the front sight bumped my clit and I flinched, making the
muscles in my thighs flex and my butt quiver.

This encouraged him and he started stroking me with the gun,
sliding it back and forth against my pussy, dragging the rounded
sight across my clit with each stroke.  I tried to ignore the
stimulation, but I felt my body respond automatically.  After a
few more strokes, he took the gun away and held it up to look at
it in better light.

"This one's got a real hot box on her," he observed to his
partner.  "She's already wet.  I bet she was out there doing
something wild when she fell on our car."

Smith grunted.  He was more relaxed, now that we were away from
the restaurant where he had committed extortion.  "Probably," he
said.  "I can't think why she'd be out there bare-assed like that
unless she were looking to get some pipe laid in her.  She's sure
a looker, isn't she?  I never saw tits that big on such a little
girl.  It certainly would be a crime to let this opportunity go
to waste."  He chuckled at his choice of words, but the humor
seemed to sail right over Jone's head.

"Yeah?  Maybe Mr. King will want to put her in one of his videos
with her as the star.  You think?  I bet she'd do real good in
front of the camera.  She's obviously not shy and she's got a
great body."

"That would be his decision, but I'd say that's the way to bet. 
Hey, Peaches?  You want to star in a video?"  The way he laughed
when he said it told me that there was something I needed to know
about the role I would be playing.

At first I thought about answering.  They hadn't gagged me, yet.
Pleading would probably just egg them on.  Threats of retribution
if they didn't let me go sounded awfully lame, so I didn't
bother.  Nothing I said would change their intentions one bit.  I
thought about trying to sound enthusiastic about the plan.  Sort
of reverse psychology.  But that would be even more absurd than
threatening them, so I said nothing.

"Silence is consent," Smith said, smugly.

I still didn't rise to the bait.  I didn't want to give him the
satisfaction of having provoked a reply from me.  Now it was a
point of pride for me to keep silent.

"Mr. King always knows how to get the best out of the girls in
his videos," Jones said.  He put the gun back between my legs and
resumed stroking.  "Do you want to be a video star, Peaches? 
Hmmm?" he asked, picking up his partners nickname for me.  They
hadn't even bothered asking me for my real name or anything at
all about me.  To them, I was just a toy to be played with
and...then what?  I was ahead of Jones in thinking about the
kinds of videos that could be sold on the black market for a lot
of money.  'Snuff films' they were called.  Films with no
possibility for a sequel because the star gave the role all she
had in the original.

The idea that I might die violently at the climax of an
underground porn video made me incredibly hot.  I had learned
from harsh experience that danger could turn me on so much that I
might lose whatever good judgment I possessed and willingly
participate in something that had a good chance of making me
seriously dead.  Even reminding myself of this flaw in my psyche
didn't make me immune to it.   I still couldn't get the image out
of my mind of Jones using his steel phallus to masturbate me to a
huge climax and just at the peak of my orgasm, pulling the
trigger and blowing my insides to bits.  I kept running it over
an over in my mind, getting more excited with every repetition. 
I could almost feel the bullet sear through my pussy, spinning
and tearing it's way through my womb on its way to my heart.  My
insides convulsed each time as my mind made the possibility more
and more real to my body.

As my grisly fantasy reran itself endlessly in my head, Jones
noticed that I was responding more freely and he became more
aggressive with the gun.  He ran the muzzle up and down my
dripping slit, teasing me, making me think he was going to shove
it inside me any second.  

At first, I resisted.  I was ashamed and embarrassed at having
been caught due to my own clumsy recklessness and I didn't want
to have these two hoodlums thinking they could control me so
easily.  As I got hotter and wetter, that seemed laughable.  I
was tied up in a way that kept me very effectively restrained. 
Even when my head quit spinning and I calmed down and got myself
together enough to regain control of my body, the way I was tied
up I still might not be able to get enough leverage to break free
quickly.  Even if I did get my arms free, Jones would shoot me
before I could free my legs.  At this range he could hardly miss.
 I regretted not having my bullet-resistant suit.  Skin was
useful as a disguise, but it left a lot to be desired when it
came to protection.

As the probing of the gun became more insistent and I became more
aroused, my will to resist the very seductive fantasy crumbled
until I was starting to let little sounds slip out.  Then I felt
my traitorous labia fold back like the gates of a surrendering
medieval castle.  I pushed my pussy back against the slick metal,
trying to suck the gun inside me.

"Holy shit!" Jones exclaimed.  "She's really getting off on this.
 I think she wants to be in a movie real bad."

Smith looked back in the rear-view mirror to watch me try to hump
Jones' pistol.  From my terribly cramped position, out of the
corner of my eye I could just see him leering at me.

"Looks like we found a live one, all right.  She seems positively
enthusiastic.  She can't be a pro."

"Nah, she's too tight," Jones observed.  He pressed the muzzle
against my opening, testing my resilience.  The gun stretched my
hole and after a few deliciously suspenseful seconds, it slid in
a couple of inches.

I bit my tongue to keep from moaning.  My eyes tried to roll back
in my head and my pussy took a firm grip on Jones' gun.  It
wasn't that big, but it was hard and it was right where I needed
it.

"Humpf," Jones grunted, probably surprised to find himself in a
tug-of-war.  He twisted the gun and pulled it out of me.  I felt
his breath as he leaned in to watch my hole recover from his
probing.  Then he said, "This one's a real snapper.  She's not
cherry, but she sure can't have any mileage on her."

"Well, keep her entertained until we get to the farm."

Jones knew just how to entertain a girl.  He teased me into a
near-frenzy by letting me hump the barrel of his gun; then he
moved it just out of reach to let me cool off some before he gave
it back again.  By the time we arrived, I was desperate to cum. 
If I had thought it would have done any good, I would have begged
him for it.

The car came to a stop and Jones reached back and yanked the
scarf down over my eyes as a blindfold.  This ended any hope I
might have had of seeing where we were when they took me out of
the car.  I expected them to cut the tape on my legs, but they
simply grabbed my already contorted arms like handles and carried
me between them.

When they dropped me I landed face-first in a pile of hay, so I
knew that this place had that much in common with a real farm.  I
hadn't been paying really close attention for the last part of
the ride, but it seemed to me that there hadn't been very much
traffic noise, so it was likely that we were out of town
somewhere.  Just where, I had no clue.

I could hear Smith and Jones walking around.  Their footfalls
were muffled, so I guessed that the hay under me must be all over
the floor of whatever building we were in.  It was either a barn
or a stable of some kind.  I didn't hear any animals, but I could
smell the hay and a whiff of something spicy, a strong odor that
seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it.

I heard a sound of something being dragged and then Smith said,
"I've got the lead.  Let's get the collar on her."

"OK," Jones said.  "Hey, I've got a better idea.  Look at this."

I felt hands grab me and roll me over on my back.  Someone took
hold of the ring in my left nipple and fiddled with it.  When
they let go, there was a sensation of weight, as though something
had been attached to that ring.

"Brilliant, Mr. Jones.  Very innovative."

"Thank you."

I was naturally curious about what they had done to me.  I
wiggled my eyebrows against the scarf and tossed my head.  I
found that if I strained to push my forehead up and my upper lip
down, I could just through see a tiny sliver of a gap next to my
nose.  I scanned this small view back and forth until I could
make out that they had connected the end of a thin vinyl-covered
stranded metal cable to my ring with a small brass padlock.  The
cable snaked away into the hay.  I couldn't see where.

"But let me make one minor modification," Smith said.  I felt him
undo the padlock and remove the cable.  He ran the end of the
cable through my other ring before reconnecting it to the padlock
and locking it back.

"Much more effective," Smith said, smugly.  "And much more
aesthetically pleasing, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah.  That works."

"Then I think we can give her legs back."

Jones' switchblade came out with a snick and he cut the tape
holding my legs.  When he peeled it off I tried to straighten
them out and nearly fainted from the pain.  I managed to roll to
my knees and rocked back and forth while the awful pins and
needles feeling surged through them.

To show my captors that I wasn't cowering or groveling, I got to
my feet as soon as I could manage and stood facing the last
direction I had heard their voices.  I kept my chin high. 
Keeping my shoulders back wasn't an issue, since my arms were
still bound behind me and I knew my breasts were still
prominently displayed.  The cable hanging from my rings wasn't
very heavy, or even particularly uncomfortable.  It was clearly
the simplest, cheapest way they had devised to keep the girls
they used in the videos from escaping.  From their conversation,
I gathered that the normal procedure would have been to hook it
to a collar locked around the neck, but I had come equipped for
an even easier and more entertaining set of connections.

Since humiliation seemed to be their main way of dominating and
controlling the girls they kidnapped, I decided that, whatever
they did to me, I would refuse to accept the role of victim.  If
I remained composed and collected through this, and refused to be
cowed by their threats or intimidation, I might rattle them.  By
playing my game and not theirs, I might get them to make some
mistake that would give me the opportunity to get the upper hand.
 The same approach had worked with my friend The Torturer and
while he was an amateur and these two were professionals, I hoped
that the same principles would apply.  If they didn't, I was
going to be in trouble.

While I stood patiently waiting for their next move, I tried to
refine my strategy.  They either hadn't seen or hadn't noticed my
Dragon persona; it had faded with my conscious control when I hit
my stupid head on their car.  They had kidnapped a naked girl,
but they had no clue who I was and no way to identify me without
my cooperation.  They still might try to coerce the information
out of me, and I almost wished they would try.

Switching to the Dragon now would give them more information than
I wanted them to have.  It would also tell them that I was
dangerous and they might decide to kill me right away, so that
was out.  Whatever I did, I would have to do without revealing my
secret identity.  This also meant I would have to be careful
about any displays of strength.  With all these restrictions, I
was going to have to wait until I had better options than I had
at the moment.  

I heard a rumbling noise followed by a slam, as though a big door
had been rolled open and then shut again.  There was some
shuffling by Smith and Jones before a new voice said, "What are
you two doing back so soon?  What's going on here?"

"Well," Smith said, all the smugness gone from his voice, "we hit
two of the places you told us to, and we were just leaving the
second, when Peaches here fell out of a tree and dented in the
roof of the car.  We figured we should bring her around and check
in before we did anything else."

"You did the right thing, then.  Anything not according to plan
needs my attention.  You can visit the rest of the places some
other time.  Now, where are her clothes?  Do you know who she
is?"  Mr. King's voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it.
 I resisted the temptation to try to get a peek at him under the
blindfold.

"She wasn't wearing anything when we dragged her off the car.  I
figured she was out streaking or playing some kind of sex-game or
something.  Maybe some kind of kinky club initiation.  Anyway,
nobody saw us pick her up.  We kept her head down on the way out
here and we blindfolded her like usual when we took her out of
the car so she has no idea where she is.  She hasn't said a
word."

"Peaches wants to be in a video," Jones volunteered.  "She's a
real hot one, as well as being a stone fox.  She almost came all
over the back seat on the way here."  

He seemed really into this video idea.  I wondered how many girls
they had featured in their films and had all of them been
kidnapped for the purpose?  More importantly, what had become of
them afterward?  The reminder that I might be starring in a film
that was both my debut and my farewell in the industry brought
back some of the heat that I had felt when the idea first
occurred to me.  I felt my areolas tighten, trying to shift the
cable through my rings.

Mr. King must have noticed my reaction.  He said, "Yes, I see the
idea interests her.  Very well, you can pick up where you left
off after we get your vehicle repaired.  It wouldn't do to
project the wrong image during the negotiations and that project
is a long-term one anyway.  As for the girl, if no one knows
she's here, it really doesn't matter who she was, she's ours now.
 Mr. Jones, your suggestion seems to appeal to everyone.  Your
previous selections have all been second-rate streetwalkers who
have lacked the fresh appeal of Peaches, here.  I confess, she's
easily the best we've ever had to appear in one of our little
epics and I am anxious to see how she performs on camera.  Let's
get a look at her face."

He pulled the scarf off my head and I blinked to let my eyes
adjust to the glare of the lights.  The place seemed to be very
well lit for a barn.  I wondered if this was also where they did
their filming.  The light was very white and stung my eyes.

When I could see again, I had to get a fast grip on my reactions.
 I blinked some more and tried not to give away the fact that I
had met Mr. King before.  He wouldn't recognize me, of course. 
At the time I had been disguised as an old woman.  Mr. King was
also Mr. Winslow, the owner and some-time operator of the highly
suspicious convenience store that I had visited in the bad
section of town.  

He hadn't smelled right to me then, and I had given him a
bullshit warning about the coming of the Dragon instead of
reassuring him that I was there to help.  Now, it seemed I was
quite correct to be suspicious of him.  He was obviously a real,
live bad-guy, and maybe even a major player in what passed for
organized crime in the area.  So far, I knew he was involved with
extortion and kidnapping.  I had a long list of other things that
I suspected he might be responsible for as well.

Again, it became a case of 'whose game are we playing'.  They had
their agenda and I had mine.  They had the upper hand at the
moment, but I had a secret that could put an end to all this just
as soon as I got the chance.  I decided to continue to go along
for the moment   as if I had a choice.

King/Winslow studied my face with a professional detachment.  He
brushed my hair back with his fingers to get a better look.  I
tilted my chin up as he examined my profile.  His expression
didn't change much, but I could tell he liked what he saw.  His
gaze tracked downward and he examined my boobs carefully.  He put
his hands under them and squeezed, presumably to satisfy himself
that they were real.  He took hold of my nipples and pinched
them.  Then he held them and waited.  When they responded by
becoming stiff in a matter of seconds, he smiled and twisted them
more gently, rolling them expertly between his fingers.  He might
be a scumbag, but he knew how to handle a girl in a way that made
her hot despite herself.  At least that was the effect his
handling was having on me.  Although I tried as best I could not
to let it show, I had a hard time lying below the neck.  My body
was reacting on its own, and I was finding it hard to deny that I
was enjoying it.

He seemed to find my stoic reaction to be a challenge.  He
reached behind me and squeezed my butt, working my cheeks and
dipping his fingers toward my anus.  My jaw dropped briefly as
the threat of anal penetration made me weaken and he took note of
this even though I clamped my mouth shut as soon as I realized
what had happened.

He moved down past my pussy and started stroking my thighs,
coming closer and closer to my sex with each pass.  When his
fingers brushed my still-damp labia, the sensation was too much
and I gasped, a quick one, but a tell-tale nonetheless.  He moved
on to direct contract then, sliding his fingers deliciously over
my pussy-lips, prying them apart to expose my pink.  Again, my
body betrayed me.  I quivered and my eyes closed for a moment as
the heat inside me rose to a slow boil.

"Spread your legs for me," he said.  It was said in a mild tone,
not commanding or insisting but still irresistible, and I obeyed
immediately.  I slid my feet further than shoulder-width apart,
giving him more access to my pussy.

For my reward, he briefly stroked my clit, making me bite my
tongue to keep from vocalizing the pleasure I felt.  Still, my
sharp intake of breath must have told him that I was very
sensitive there.  When he probed my opening with his middle
finger, I nearly lost control.  My eyes rolled and my mouth
opened and I felt a couple of contractions down there as my pussy
kissed his finger.

To my intense frustration, he stopped at that point.  He stepped
back and examined the juice dripping from his hand.  He took out
a handkerchief and wiped it dry with a flourish.

"Peaches will make us a lot of money," he declared, smiling at
his underlings.  "She is going to be our biggest star yet.  I
will have to notify our special customers that we have something
new for them and see if they have any requests.  In the meantime,
Mr. Jones, get the camera set-up and test it.  We'll get started
as soon as I get back."

"Should I free her arms?  She hasn't given us any trouble so
far."

King considered this.  He looked into my eyes before making up
his mind.

"No.  I think we'll leave her bound for the first few scenes. 
After that, we'll see how she does.  I'll let Roxy know we have a
new performer."  

With that, he left and Smith and Jones started hauling equipment
from another room and setting it up.  It seemed to be quite a
professional system.  The camera was an expensive-looking digital
one that connected to a DVD recorder.  They had sound equipment
too   boom mikes and everything.  There were no lights, though. 
Apparently I had been right about the ceiling lights being bright
enough.

While they were getting ready, I gradually adjusted my makeup. 
If I was going to be photographed, I wanted to look good, even if
it was some awful amateur film.  Heck, even if it was a snuff
film, I wanted to go out looking good.  At first, I didn't do too
much, thinking they were sure to notice.  I enhanced some shading
of my all-over tan and I added some blush and highlights that
would give my curves better definition.  Then I remembered that
bright lights tended to wash out skin tones, so I went a little
further than I really should have.  Heck, even if these crooks
noticed something different, they wouldn't be able to explain
it.

While I had some time to myself, I looked around.  The place was
definitely a barn.  It had big wooden beams all over and the
'room' I was in was large enough for a few horses.  It had only
three walls, with the fourth just a couple of support columns
between it and the hallway.  It looked like a row of horse stalls
with the dividing walls and doors knocked out.  

I rubbed my toe on the floor and found that it was dirt with a
couple of inches of hay over it.  The overhead lights were big
industrial-looking things that didn't belong in a place like this
at all.  The bright bluish-white light they gave off reminded me
of the grow-lights we used in the Botany lab at school to
germinate seeds and record their growth.  It was in keeping with
the idea of the place being a farm, I supposed, but what kind of
farm grew its crops indoors?

"The illegal kind, you dolt!" I thought, answering my own
question.  The spicy odor must be coming from hundreds or even
thousands of marijuana plants in other parts of the barn.  I
checked out the lofted ceiling to get an idea of how big the
place was, and I nearly whistled when I came up with a guess that
made it close to the size of a football field.  There was room
enough for a forest of dope to be grown in there.  It was no
wonder I felt comfortable in just my skin, the temperature and
humidity were quite tropical, even at this time of night.

This explained the odd status of Winslow's convenience store.  He
was selling something profitable, but it wasn't cheap beer or
stale snacks.  People looking to buy drugs wouldn't care how
run-down the place was and he would hardly need to advertise. 
Word of mouth would be sufficient for his needs.  

With one puzzle solved, I looked around for more clues.  There
were several bales of hay lying about.  Some were piled in the
corner, but a few had been arranged in a more organized group in
the middle of the floor.  These were mashed down on top, as if
someone had been rolling around on them.

"The stage setting," I thought.  With that in mind, the
arrangements of bales did seem convenient for the purpose of
sex.

The back wall of the room was heavy, rough planks.  I could see
large metal hooks and brackets had been mounted on it at what
would seem to be odd places, if you didn't know they were for
tying girls to.  I walked over and saw that they were set just
right to spread-eagle someone between.  Even the hay bales had
leather restraints beside them that were attached to bolts in the
floor.

As I walked to the wall, the cable trailed behind me for a bit,
then, as I approached its limit, I saw it rise from the floor. 
It ran over a pulley suspended from a track hanging under an
overhead steel beam that was several feet higher than my head. 
The cable ran through another pulley a few feet from the first
and then through a hole in the wall.  I thought this was odd,
until I realized that the other use for the cable was to lift and
move the large bales of hay.  The cable must be connected to a
winch of some kind in the other room.  That meant that if the
winch were turned on, I would be pulled off my feet to dangle in
the air by the rings in my nipples.  

"No wonder Smith and Jones were so proud of their little
innovation," I thought.  "Kinky devils.  If I were wearing the
collar instead...I'd be hung by the neck.  Damn!  That's probably
what they did to the other girls to break them and get them to
cooperate in the videos.  They let them hang until they gave in
and did whatever they wanted.  The choice would be between
cooperation and strangulation.  Maybe they did other things to
them while they dangled by their necks.  I take back the part
about 'kinky devils'.  These are some sick bastards."

I was facing the back wall when I heard a door open down the
hall.  A gust of air came in, carrying with it the worst stink I
had ever smelled.  It was an awful acrid odor that felt like it
was eating away the inside of my nose.  I wanted to pinch my
nostrils shut, but I couldn't with my hands tied behind me.  I
tried breathing through my mouth, but that way felt like I could
taste the stink.

Smith and Jones felt the same way I did.  Smith held a
handkerchief over his face, while Jones fanned the air with one
of the photographic reflectors.  It helped, but not a lot.

Smith took the cloth away long enough to choke out, "Hi, Roxy." 
Jones just coughed.

I looked to see who Roxy was and was startled to see someone
clumping down the hall wearing a moon-suit with an air-tank
strapped to the back.  It was one of those white, full-body
things you see Hazardous Material crews wearing at a clean-up
site.  Whoever was inside must have been wearing it so they could
work in the horrible atmosphere of the room at the end of the
hall without being asphyxiated.

"Meth!" I thought.  "They're running a methamphetamine
laboratory, too.  They've got that suit so they don't have to
vent the place and stink up the neighborhood.  This must be the
person they call the 'cook'."  

I was going strictly by what I had got off the TV news.  I had
never been personally exposed to meth, or 'crank', or any other
slang names for the drug.  The only stories I had heard at school
were about kids who got sick from taking it and had to be
hospitalized.  I had no idea the size of the problem locally, but
I knew a small amount of the stuff was worth a lot of money. 
First extortion, then kidnapping and illicit videos, now hard
drugs.  It looked like these people were into just about every
kind of crime that would turn a buck.

"What kind of warped person manufactures something that ruins
lives?" I wondered as I watched the figure in the moon-suit unzip
and unstrap.

Off came the headgear, the respirator mask, the tank of air, the
boots, and the bulky suit.  All the gear was carefully hung up in
a shallow closet close to the door to the lab and the cook shut
the closet and came down the hall to see the fresh meat that
Smith and Jones had brought in.

I was stunned.  She was incredibly beautiful.  She had the same
kind of face that Helen of Troy must have had   the classical
beauty that sculptors have been trying to reproduce in marble for
thousands of years.  Under the protective suit, she wore just a
brief top and a pair of bikini panties, both of which were soaked
with sweat and clinging to her body.

Her walk was grace in motion.  Every movement seemed
choreographed.  Her raven-haired head didn't bob as she walked,
but her full, round breasts jiggled beautifully.  They seemed to
be trying to shake off the clingy cotton cloth and I suddenly
wanted to help them get free.  They weren't as big as mine or
Mom's, but their shape was as perfect as her face.  All of her
that I could see   which was most   was perfect.

The goddess walked right past Jones, Smith, and the video camera
that Smith was pointing right at me, as though they didn't exist.
 She stopped in front of me and looked down at me from only a
couple of extra inches of height, but I would have sworn she was
on a pedestal.  

She looked me up and down, taking in the full picture of the
helpless girl before her.  Her placid expression was one of
detached curiosity, like she was a queen examining a commoner
brought before her to be judged.  I felt like I should be
kneeling or bowing.  My knees quivered and my head started to nod
before I got control and forced myself to keep eye contact.  I
braced everything that wasn't already strapped into rigidity and
tried not to look like a rube.

When she smiled at me, I almost cried.  She was even lovelier
with a smile on her face.  I fell into her smile and almost
drowned.  With a start, I discovered that I was so smitten that I
was showing it.  I gulped air and blushed with embarrassment.

Her smile twitched at one corner of her mouth when she saw me
blush.  She eased up to me along one side, so she could get as
much of her body close to mine as she could without my breasts
getting in the way.  She came to within a fraction of an inch of
touching me and I could feel the heat of her body on my naked
skin.  The unpleasant odor from down the hall had mostly gone,
and I could smell the scent of her sweat-soaked clothes.  It
seemed like exotic incense, heady and sweet.  I breathed deeply
of her, trying to experience her as fully as I could.

She put her left hand behind my back, under my bound arms.  With
this hand she steadied me, while with the other, she cupped the
lower curve of my right breast.  Her touch was feather-light as
she slowly stroked me.  Her hand never leaving my flesh, never
squeezing or poking, but sliding across my skin like a fallen
leaf blown across a still pond.

As her hand approached it, my nipple stiffened and hardened so
much that it hurt.  She saw this, and instead of touching it, she
ran her fingers all around it, teasing me.  She watched my hard
nipple and she stroked my breast from my chest out to the tip,
just like you would stroke a cock if you wanted it to shoot off
so you could watch.  With each stroke, my poor nipple became
larger and harder, looking and feeling like it was about to break
right off.

I was on an ecstatic high.  The roaring sound in my ears was my
blood rushing through my brain, bringing it my own favorite drug,
hormones and dopamine.  I was vibrating with heat and arousal and
my clit was trying to outdo my nipple to see which could get the
biggest and the hardest.

"You're very responsive," she said.  Her voice was low and husky.
 She spoke almost into my ear but the sound resonated like a
cello in a concert hall.  

"These are some unusual rings you have.  The chain is a nice
touch.  Who did the piercing for you?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out.  I couldn't
tell her the truth and I was so hot I couldn't think of a lie. 
The little dragon charm dangled in plain sight from the taut
chain, reminding me of who I was and what I was doing here.  I
tried to look apologetic.

"Cat got your tongue?  C'mon," she coaxed, putting her lips to my
ear and brushing my earlobe with them "Tell me.  Pleeeease."  

I was frozen between needing to talk and not being able to think
of a single plausible lie to explain my rings.  My stupid mouth
hung open, but nothing came out.  In a distant part of my mind, I
realized that she was just trying to break the ice, that if she
could get me to talk about this, then I would most likely answer
the next question, which would be more revealing about who I was
and was there anyone likely to be looking for me.  It would have
worked, but she asked the wrong question to start.

She took my nipple between her thumb and forefinger and as she
rolled it around, my eyes rolled back in my head and my legs
threatened to give way.  When she saw that I was about to climax
from this, she pinched and twisted, digging her nail into my
swollen nipple and shocking me back from the brink of orgasm.

My eyes flew open and got wide at the surge of pain.  My mouth
dropped open and I gulped air.  Still, I remained silent.

"Well, if you won't talk to me, then I guess you won't.  But I
think you'll change your mind in a minute."  

She waved her hand and Jones pressed the button on a control box
I hadn't seen because it had been hanging on the far side of one
of the big wooden posts.  There was a whining sound from the
other side of the wall and the cable began to disappear into it.

"If you hadn't noticed already," she said, pointing to the cable
and tracing it from the wall to where it attached to my rings,
"you are on a leash.  And it's getting shorter every second you
refuse to talk to me.  Soon, you will be standing on your toes to
keep those lovely breasts from being destroyed when you can't
stand tall enough and the winch pulls those rings out.  It's
likely to tear your nipples right off!"

I was breathing so hard I was almost hyperventilating.  I
mustered up all my limited acting ability and tried to look
scared, instead of excited, at the prospect of being hoisted into
the air by my rings.

The slack went out of the cable very quickly and I found myself
standing under the pulley, watching the last loop of cable rise
up above my head.  When the slack was all gone, Jones pressed
another control and the winch slowed to a crawl.

"Last chance," Roxy told me.  "The winch has two speeds going up,
but only one coming down.  If you wait too long to change your
mind, it might be too late to save those pretty tits, and that
would be a real shame."

I remained silent and watched the cable slowly slide through the
ring on the right side and pull my rings together and my nipples
with them.  By reflex, I rose up on tiptoe as the winch pulled my
breasts up into the air.  In a matter of seconds, I followed them
and Smith tilted the camera up to follow me, recording the moment
for posterity and lots of money from the sadists among their
clients.

My toes lost contact with the floor and I swung like a pendulum,
hanging from the rings in my nipples.  I wish I could say it was
the most exquisitely painful thing I've ever felt, but the truth
is, it was something of a letdown.  It wasn't nearly as painful
as hanging from the clamps had been.  The rings actually gave
better support because they went fairly deeply into my flesh. 
Also, they didn't pinch like the clamps.  It hurt, but it was a
nice kind of hurt.  I relaxed and let my head drop back, hanging
as limply as I could while I rose higher into the air.

"How come she ain't screaming?" Jones asked Roxy.  There was no
immediate answer.

I was curious about her reaction, but I knew they would figure it
out quickly enough and I wanted to enjoy this as long as they let
me.  I kept my eyes closed and my head back and hung like a side
of beef in a freezer.

Roxy touched my ankle.  The contact made me swing, which was
nice.  I shifted my feet to increase the swing.

"Shit!" Roxy said.  "I think she likes it!  She's doing that
herself.  Damn!  Let her down a couple of feet."

I felt Roxy turn me so I faced her.  Her face was even with my
pussy and I could feel her breath on my sex as she spread my
thighs apart to look at my clit.

"That's one of the biggest clits I've ever seen," she said, "and
she's had it skinned!"

It was all I could do not to thank her for the compliment.  I was
actually trying to think of something to say when she licked my
clit and I forgot everything except how good that felt.  She kept
licking it and kissing it and I helped by trying to hold my legs
apart so she could get her head in there.  The feeling was
awesome.  Roxy really knew her way around a clit.  She was almost
as good as Mom.  They had different techniques, but they were
both wonderful.  

I tried to stay relaxed, but she was driving me crazy.   The pain
in my breasts and the pleasure between my legs fought a running
battle all up and down my body.  I didn't care which sensation
won the war, it was all good.  Muscles were spasming all over me
 inside and out.  I knew I couldn't hold out long like this.  I
was rising to a climax like I was riding a bubble of air from the
salty depths of a hot spring, heading for the surface and a gush
high into the air.   The feelings surging through me tossed me
this way and that, and I knew I must be jerking around on the
cable like a hooked fish.

When Roxy sucked my clit into her mouth and nipped it with her
teeth, I came so hard I thought someone had electrified the cable
from which I was dangling.  It was all I could do to keep from
wrapping my legs around her head and clamping her wonderful mouth
to my pussy.  The fantastic rush of pleasure up my spine made my
back arch, pulling my hips up and yanking my clit out of Roxy's
mouth.  My hips continued to buck uncontrollably, thrusting my
big hard clit into the air as if I were trying to fuck a passing
butterfly.  My pleasure-button felt like it was a Fourth of July
firework and sparks were shooting out of it as I jabbed it into
the air again and again.

I knew I must have been screaming, because one was ringing in my
ears when I came down enough to notice.  With an effort, I closed
my mouth and opened my eyes to see an upside down room that
looked like it was moving   whether up or down I was too out of
it to tell.  After watching the room move for a bit, I figured
out that the reason I was seeing things that way was because my
head was hanging back so far.  But before I could raise it up,
something bumped my butt and then my arms and my head.  The
pulling feeling in my nipples eased off, leaving me groggy and in
a whale of an orgasmic afterglow.  

As I regained more of my senses, I felt some tension in my face.
This puzzled me, until I realized that it was because I was
grinning like a fool after that incredible climax.  I tried to
wipe the smile off my face, but it was like trying to change the
expression on a statue.

I lay there on the inclined bales of hay and tried to think of
what I was supposed to be doing, but I felt so good it was hard
to focus.  When Roxy unlocked the cable and freed me from it, I
knew there was something I wanted to do, but it seemed too much
effort to remember what it was.

When she spread my legs and attached the leather cuffs to my
ankles, I didn't bother to resist.  I didn't even bother to try
to sit up, I just lay there and accepted it as some new thing to
be experienced.  I rolled my head around to see what else was
going on.

"Did you get that?" Roxy asked Smith when she had me secured. 
"Christ!  Tell me you got that!"

"Unhunh," Smith mumbled, "Yeah, Roxy, I got it.  Jeez!  I never
saw anybody cum that hard before.  I could feel that myself."

"I felt it too," Jones said.  There was a big wet spot on his
inseam, so I knew he must have been right there with me when I
came.

"This is going to be a masterpiece!" Roxy declared.  "We're going
to make a bundle on this one.  Quick, let's move on while she's
still hot.  I'll handle the camera.  One of you, go fuck her."

"I'll   ah   have to wait a little while," Jones confessed to the
obvious.

"Me too," Smith said, sadly.  His dark suit made his emission
less noticeable.

"Well I certainly can't do it," Roxy yelled, stomping her lovely
bare foot ineffectively on the hay-covered floor.

The suggestion that I might get fucked appealed to me greatly. 
My intense orgasm had come way too soon for me and I was still at
a fever pitch of arousal.  My pussy was crying out for a nice big
cock to come and visit and I would have done anything to get it
its wish.

My arms were still bound and were wedged underneath me between
two hay bales.  The tape had loosened some, but getting free was
no longer my top priority   getting fucked was.  I thought if I
gave off some encouragement, some understanding guy would come
along and fuck me really nice.  I dug my heels in and lifted my
butt off the hay.  I wiggled my hips around in what I hoped was a
seductive way and I looked over at my three captors with a sultry
and pleading expression.

"Oh, hell!" Roxy said.  "She's starting without us.  Crap!  If I
could grow a dick, I'd fuck her myself.  You two pricks are
useless.  Keep the camera on her while I go see if those punks
are still hanging around trying to smoke all the profits."

She stormed out, leaving me to play siren to a couple of
droopy-dicked hoods, and their video camera.

The camera intrigued me.  It was a one-way window into some other
place and time, through which horny men would peer and leer and
stroke their big cocks into hard pleasure shafts and wish they
could be here with me now.  I wished the same.  In this fantasy,
I was the Princess in peril as well as the Dragon, and I needed a
Prince with a long hard sword to come and slay the fiery beast
that threatened to consume me.  The men in the room were
massaging their crotches and trying to recharge their loins more
quickly than was humanly possible for their age.  This left only
those who could see me through the eye of the camera, and it was
to them that I directed my erotic appeal.

Since my position displayed my best assets quite well, I used
them to maximum advantage.  I rolled my chest, waving my boobs
and hoping that the camera was focused well enough that my tight
areolas and large nipples would be visible.

I spread my knees and arched my back to show the camera how big
and hard my clit was and how wet my pussy had become.  If my face
conveyed anything of what I felt, my performance was a sizzler.

I was so involved with playing to the camera that I didn't hear
Roxy come back with three punk kids dressed in baggy clothes that
looked brand new.  I almost laughed at the irony of the situation
when I saw that they were the same three punks I had stripped and
chased down the street after they tried to steal an old lady's
purse.  Now they were going to have the pleasure of screwing that
'old lady'.

Roxy gave them a shove in my direction.  As they stumbled into
the open stall, I could see that their eyes were glassy and
unfocussed.  Their pupils were dilated so far that I couldn't
tell what color their eyes were.  As they fumbled out of their
clothes, I hoped that they weren't too stoned to fuck.

The punks must have caught part of my solo performance.   As they
dropped their fashionably ragged jeans, I saw that they each had
a nice hard cock for me.  None of them had impressed me overmuch
the last time I saw them naked, and they hadn't grown any in the
interval, but a hard cock is a hard cock when you're seriously
horny.  I wasn't inclined to be picky or critical of my
co-stars.

The first thing they wanted to do was feel my breasts, which was
just fine with me.  They groped them roughly, squeezing them
again and again to see my nipples bulge and to make me wriggle
and squeal when they dug their fingers into my boobs.  They
seemed fascinated by my rings and they each played with them,
flipping them up and down like doorknockers.  They giggled as the
similarity occurred to them.  I giggled along with them and
wondered if I was getting a contact-high or if I was just being
silly.  They weren't the most expert of lovers, but they had six
hands between them and if you've never been fondled by three guys
at once, I can tell you that it's quite an experience.

One of them almost poked me in the ear with his cock while
playing with my boobs.  In self-defense, I turned my head and let
it slide into my mouth.  I swirled my tongue around it before
letting it out to rest wetly on my lips while I continued to lick
it from below.

"Oh, fuck!" I heard Jones say.  "That is so hot!"

"Mmmmmm, yes!" Roxy agreed.  "You ARE getting all this, aren't
you?"

"Oh, yes!" Smith said.  I could see out of the corner of my eye
that all three of the crooks had a hand in their pants.  If I had
been Smith or Jones, I would have been watching Roxy.  She was
giving off some pretty strong waves of heat herself.  Instead,
they all three watched me and the junior-league purse-snatching
crew have a good time.

Another punk decided he wanted some of the same action as his
buddy.   He stuck his cock up from the other side, so I could
alternate licking them.  This left the third one with only one
option; he shuffled up between my anchored legs, holding his cock
and aiming it right at my sopping slit.  I gave him as much room
as I could, while trying not to block the camera with my knee.

Again, my limberness served me well.  Even with the leather
straps holding my ankles in place I was able to spread wide
enough to give the camera a good shot of him pushing the head of
his cock into me.  To improve the drama, I clenched my pussy shut
and made him work to get his cock into me.

"Damn!" the punk exclaimed, "This bitch is tight.  She must be a
virgin.  She's sure never had a real man's cock before."

I wanted to giggle when I heard him describe his prick as a "real
man's".  I could have told him a few things about relative size
and degrees of pleasure, but I kept quiet.  After all, if it gets
you off, it works.

He grabbed my hips and worked at getting his cock all the way
inside my resisting vagina.  I was so wet that it was hard to put
up a good fight, even a mock one.  Much of the grimacing and
squirming I did wasn't me pretending to be in pain from the
forced penetration, it was me trying to override my pussy's
wanting to feel that cock inside it as soon as possible. By the
time he had crammed it halfway in, I was panting heavily   and
not from exertion.  

Pretending to be a virgin at this point in the plot seemed dumb,
but I'd seen a lot of dumb stuff happen in films that the
audience was supposed to accept without question.  I decided to
blame it on the scriptwriter, and I went on playing the virgin
who wanted to resist, but who was overcome with lust and couldn't
help but contribute enthusiastically to her own gang-rape. 
Except for the part about being a virgin, it was method acting.

When his balls slapped my ass and his pubic bone ground into my
clit, I relaxed my pussy and bucked back against him, letting the
last bit of his cock inside.  To give him a thrill, I rippled my
vagina like I was rolling the steel balls, milking his cock and
sucking it deeper into me.

"Oh, Shit!  She's incredible!  Her cunt's sucking my dick.  Oh,
this is fucking great!"

I could feel his cock start to twitch inside me, threatening to
spew his juice too soon.  I clamped down around the base as tight
as I dared to put a stop to that.

His eyes got real big when he felt the pressure and he tried to
pull out, but I had a good hold on him and he wasn't going
anywhere until he made me cum.  I think he realized this, because
he looked at me with a new expression.

"OK, bitch.  You want a screwing?  You'll get one.  No mercy,
bitch.  No mercy."

Those were the very words I wanted to hear.  He leaned over and
braced his hands on the bale on either side of me.  Then he
started moving his hips in a slow rhythm, pulling out about
halfway and pushing back in.  As he reached his deepest
penetration, he raised up slightly with his hips, riding the base
of his cock onto my sensitive clit.  The extra sensation almost
made up for his mediocre size and I gasped every time he did it.

His two friends' cocks had gone from stiff to nearly-bursting
from my oral treatment.  Seeing him rape me into submission
nearly set them both off, and I eased up, only giving each of
them an occasional lick to keep them near their peak. 

The guy pounding my pussy started strong, but after a few minutes
of hard fucking, he was looking like he wasn't going to be able
to hold out very much longer.  His eyes were rolling all over,
and his mouth was hanging loosely.

I was pretty close to peaking myself.  I snuck a peak at the
camera to see if Roxy had any direction for me.

Mr. Winslow had come back at some point in the proceedings.  He
and Roxy were having a whispered conversation against the far
wall.  The blood was pounding in my ears so loudly that I could
only make out a few words from him.  "Special customer...money."
Roxy seemed to be arguing, but she became convinced at some point
in the conversation to see things his way.  She took something
from him and went back behind Smith to watch the scene.  I
couldn't see what it was, and I was too close to a really major
climax to worry about it.

From seeing Janice's cousin's film, I knew one of the main rules
in doing porn was that you should try to have everyone in a scene
cum at the same time for maximum dramatic impact.  From the
jerkiness of his thrusts, I knew the punk fucking me was ready to
pop.  He seemed to be holding on through sheer determination to
show me what a stud he was.  The two on either side of my head
would be easy.  They would cum whenever I wanted.  

It was all up to me, then.  I had to lead the way.  I gave a few
extra shakes of my breasts under the hands of my co-stars and I
arched my back and moaned like I was about to cum.  After that,
it stopped being acting.  I flicked my tongue across the
sensitive underside of the cocks above my lips and right on cue,
they started spurting all over my face and neck.  I hit my own
peak at that point, bucking wildly as though in response to the
hot streams of cum landing on my skin.

The guy between my legs pulled out or was thrown out by my
gyrations.  My eyes were closed to keep the goo out of them, but
I heard him grunt loudly and I felt his legs shaking as he
spurted his load onto my breasts.  His aim was pretty good.  He
hit both nipples and feeling his hot cum on them made it extra
nice for me.

I let go completely, letting my body undulate in its dance of
ultimate joy at being wracked by a climax that threatened to rip
my nearly disjointed arms out of their sockets.  As the scene
called for, I surrendered completely to my captors, giving up the
last bit of resistance as I cried out my ecstasy in a high
shrieking wail that was both triumphant and sad at the same time.
 At least it sounded that way to me and I hoped it would come
across on the video that way.

As my climax rolled on, the three purse-snatching dopers
collapsed into the pile of hay in the far corner of the room to
rest and recover.  They were so wasted from the stuff they had
smoked and having sex with me that they were hardly able to walk.
 I don't think they could have made it any further than that pile
of hay.  I tried not to giggle at the sight.  It would have
spoiled the scene.  I was feeling so fantastic that everything
seemed funny and wonderful to me. 

Since I was on camera all by myself, I dropped any pretense of
restraint and just let myself go.  I writhed around on the hay
bale, luxuriating in my orgasm, cooing to myself and basking in
the fixed gaze of the camera.  I really let it all out and it
seemed to prolong my climax quite nicely.  I was still going
pretty good when Roxy walked over to me.

From the way she stood on my upstage side, I knew she had
something she wanted to do to me on camera.  In my sexual haze I
thought she wanted to feel me up, so I spread my knees and raised
my hips invitingly.  I was surprised when her hand came out from
behind her back holding a dagger that looked like it should be on
the wall of some museum.  It had a thin, shiny, double-edged
blade that was well over a foot long, with an ivory handle and a
gold guard with snakes intertwined across it.  I remember it
clearly because Roxy held it right in front of my eyes, where I
could see it and appreciate the details.

When she was sure my eyes were focused on the dagger, she lowered
the long, thin blade to my lips.

"Kiss it," she commanded, and I did.  The bright blade was cool
on my lips.

She moved the dagger down my chest and touched the edge to the
swell of my right breast.  She pressed down and I felt the
razor-sharp blade try to bite into my flesh.

I froze just as still as I could as she held the dagger against
my skin.  Terror welled up in me, merging with the afterglow and
rekindling my arousal.  My breathing intensified, making my
breast rise up under the knife that was already perilously close
to cutting me.  

Then I felt something familiar in the pit of my stomach, followed
by a strong sense of veja vu.  Being tied up and abused had
brought back some of what I had felt during my visit to The
Torturer.  Now that I was once again being threatened physically,
feelings that I thought I had buried were again welling to the
surface.  Fear gripped me in its steely claw, not at what Roxy
might do but at what I might let her do once my self-destructive
streak was reawakened.

Roxy let the dagger ride for a few seconds, then she moved it up
along my breast in a shaving motion, scraping it along rather
than slicing.  She hooked her finger into my nipple-ring and
pulled firmly upward, stretching my nipple out and directly into
the path of the knife.

I watched intently as the blade slid toward my nipple.  I wanted
to look up at Roxy to see if I could tell if she was just teasing
me, of if she really intended to cut off my nipple, but I
couldn't tear my eyes from the gleaming blade.  I watched as it
negotiated the last curve and bore down on the taut pillar of
pink flesh.  

From the firm pressure she held on the knife, I began to doubt
that this was just a tease.  If she didn't ease up quickly, I was
going to watch her slice my nipple from my breast.

Just as it reached the edge of my areola, the blade slid into a
gob of cum and the slick stuff made it lose its bite.  It
abruptly slipped and instead of biting into me, it skipped past
my nipple and hit the edge of my ring with a clinking sound,
nearly taking a bit of Roxy's finger as she lost control of it. 
Startled, she let go of my ring and tipped the knife down,
letting the whitish goo slide along the blade toward the tip. 
She moved the dagger directly over my face and lowered it toward
my mouth.

Reflexively, I opened my mouth.  Roxy let the tip dangle between
my lips as the cum slid off and dropped onto my waiting tongue. 
Without thinking, I stuck my tongue up and licked the blade. 
When I realized what I had done, I looked up at Roxy to see how
she would react to this act of self-debasement.

Roxy smiled.  Reassured, I licked the other side of the blade and
then carefully closed my lips on it to suck it clean.

Still smiling, she pulled the dagger out of my mouth and let the
point rest on my lower lip.  Then she dragged it down, tracing a
path to my throat and pressing just hard enough to leave a mark
without actually cutting me.  I raised my chin slightly, moving
my head away from the knife, but exposing my throat.

Roxy declined the unintended offer.  She continued to draw a
faint pink line down my chest, between my breasts and over my
tummy, bumping through my navel until she reached my mons.  She
slowed then and lightly traced a line directly to the long hump
between, where she dragged the sharp point feather-lightly along
my swollen clit.

I was beyond terror at the implied threat.  My personal demon had
again risen up to destroy my self-control, my judgement, and my
will.  My sanity was the next to go and I felt it dissolve in the
compulsion that took over my body and my mind.  I could only feel
the intense heat of arousal at being turned into a sex-toy for a
goddess.  With my body still firmly bound, I was now twice
helpless as she threatened my sex with her knife.

Roxy played with my clit like she was fencing with a rapier,
tapping and poking it with the point of the knife.  In response
it grew even larger, swelling and standing stiffly to attention.
This seemed to please her and she continued to punish it, while
threatening at any second to split it or spear it.   

My clit became so engorged that I thought it would burst with no
encouragement from Roxy.  Each time she slapped it with the flat
of the blade, I experienced an orgasmic rush that made me shudder
and gasp.  Each time she touched it with the point, a burst of
electric fire jolted through me, the pain pushing me into an
incredibly intense climax as well as making me flinch and putting
my poor clit in even greater danger.

Any thought I might have had of resisting, of escape, or anything
else, had been driven right out of my mind.  My world had shrunk
to the hotly-throbbing bundle of nerve-endings between my legs
for as long as it was still attached to my body.

With her free hand, Roxy stroked the inside of my thighs and I
became aware that I was holding my legs open so far that my hips
were almost disjointed.  Her touch was a reward for this act of
capitulation.  

I stared down through the valley of my breasts and tilted my hips
even further back, redoubling my effort to present my clit to her
for whatever she chose to do to it.  I felt like I was lying on a
sacrificial altar, making my clit an offering to the goddess
standing above me.  I tensed my abdomen to try to make it stand
even taller for her   to make it bigger than ever.  Roxy had
complimented it before, both its size and its unhooded nakedness,
so I wanted to impress her again by showing her how magnificent
it could become.

She watched curiously as I struggled to enlarge my clit and make
it a more worthy sacrifice to the beautiful woman who had me so
completely at her mercy.  I must have been successful, because
she stayed her hand while I fought to give her a bigger target. 
I remembered how I had been able to extend it to such a huge size
that I had been able to penetrate Jolene with it and I tried
desperately to duplicate that feat.

When at last it stood as big and tall and hard and proud as I
could make it for her, Roxy's expression changed from her thin,
ethereal smile to one of wonderment as she stared at the
stunningly large organ rising up from my groin.  I saw the tip of
her tongue slip out to lick her lips, then she swung a leg over
the hay bale, straddling me.  Still holding the dagger with one
hand, she pulled the crotch of her panties aside with the other
and lowered her pussy down to let my clit slide between her labia
and into her vaginal opening.

She let her weight drive my enormous clit as deeply into her as
it would go, then she shuddered and her proud head bent forward
and her lovely eyes closed.  She sighed deeply and reached out to
rest her hand on my stomach, sliding it up to cup my breast.

Her hips jerked once and I felt her legs clench against my hips.
Her lips parted and she took a long, deep breath before rising up
off my hips, slowly letting my clit slide out of her as she
stood.

She backed away a bit and then the goddess smiled a thin, cruel
smile and placed the very point of the dagger directly on the tip
of my clit with her arm extended.  She paused and looked into my
eyes.  Her expression was different from before, now unreadable.

I looked up into her face.  I opened my mouth to plead with her,
but I couldn't think what to plead for.  Don't do it?  Do it? 
Spare my clit?  Cut me?  I was pleading with every fiber of my
being, but I didn't know for what.  Was Roxy expecting me to beg
her not to hurt me?  If I did, would she do as I asked or would
she do the opposite?  I no longer knew what I wanted.  Figuring
out what she wanted was impossible.    

She tilted her head a bit, and her eyes narrowed.  She had made
her decision without any input from me.  

I accepted my fate.  I welcomed it.  I yearned for it.  I
clenched my teeth and arched my back, holding my big, stiff clit
as still and high as I could and waited for her to accept my
offering.

Without moving her arm, Roxy flicked her fingers and the sharp
point of the dagger sliced through the thin, taut skin, cutting
open the very tip of my clit.

The awesome, overwhelming sensation was exactly what I had
expected it would feel like to have my clit explode.  Every nerve
in my body fired at once, throwing me into an uncontrolled fit of
convulsions.  I tried to scream, but nothing came out.  The
muscles in my back spasmed so hard that I thought my spine would
snap.  It threw me up off the hay bales and I bent backwards
almost double before the intense sensation faded almost as
quickly as it came, leaving me feeling as if my clit had been
turned completely inside out and all the nerves were exposed to
the air.  It was a lot like being hooked to the Electrocutor
device and I loved it.

When the surge faded, I refocused my eyes and looked down my
body, expecting to see a gory mess between my legs.  Instead, I
saw my hugely distended clit, intact but with a small stream of
blood undulating down the plump shaft from where the quivering
tip had been slit open.  As I watched, the blood stopped flowing.
 I honestly don't know if I did that not.

I felt like I had burst into flame and consumed by my own fire,
leaving only a brittle ash shell behind.  I was so numbly
stupefied that I didn't even flinch when Roxy raised the dagger
over her head and plunged it all the way through my chest and out
my back, pinning me to the bale of hay like a bug in a Biology
class project.  Then she turned and walked off camera, leaving me
to die alone.

I stared at the hilt of the dagger sticking up between my
breasts.  She had missed my heart, but it was a very near miss. 
I could see the hilt vibrate to each beat.  It looked like it
would be a slow death.  

I was numb and on fire at the same time.  Conflicting feelings
roared through me and I froze as I tried to decide what was
happening to me.  Once I was able to sort out the real sensations
from the climax-driven phantasms, I found that I could still feel
everything below my waist, so it hadn't severed my spine, even
though I had felt the point grate across my backbone in passing.
The blade transfixed me front to back almost perfectly.  A steady
stream of blood flowed from the wound and ran both ways, making a
bright red track across my stomach and curving past my collarbone
to run off my right shoulder.  The surprising thing was that the
pain wasn't too bad.  At first it was just a dull ache; but it
was building.

With a look of terror and shock that may have been my finest film
moment, I rolled my eyes back, dropped my head back onto the hay,
closed my eyes and went totally limp.  To the camera, it would
look like I had died.  In reality, I was going into a trance, a
state which would slow my perception of time and let me deal with
the damage that had been done to my body.  In seconds I had the
bleeding stopped and the repairs underway.  All that remained now
was to wait until the healing had progressed to the point where
it was safe to remove the blade.

While I waited, motionless, with the camera lingering ghoulishly
on my bloody corpse, I thought about the ingratitude Roxy had
shown in killing me so quickly.

"The bitch screwed up any chance of a sequel!" I thought.  "This
was fun!  I could have done a lot more.  I might even have got
better at acting.  Was this their idea of criticism   killing the
star?  More likely that Winslow got a 'special request' from a
customer that he thought justified wasting my career like this. 
I hope they promised him a shit-load of money for it, because
he's not going to get a chance to spend a single penny!"

To say I was pissed would be a vast understatement.  I was so mad
at having been written out of the film and the business after my
very first scene that it was a few moments before I realized that
this also meant that Roxy had   to all real intent   committed
the cold-blooded murder of an innocent girl.  Winslow told her to
do it and Smith and Jones watched it happen without lifting a
finger to stop it.  They were all guilty of conspiracy to murder,
and accessories before and after the fact.  The drug business,
the extortion, the kidnappings   these were all very bad stuff. 
Murder was a whole new ballgame.  And fucking up a promising
career in porn   something I thought I had a natural talent for
that was really going too damn far!

"How many other careers have they cut short with their damn
snuff-films?" I wondered.  "How many other young lives....?"  I
stopped.  My train of thought had just run off the end of the
track.  They obviously had done this to other girls.  More than a
few?  More than a dozen?  I had no idea.

My anger became resolve.  The resolve became steel.  The steel
flared into incandescent heat as more adrenalin than I had ever
felt before poured into my veins.  Healed or not, it was time to
act.  

I opened the eye away from the camera.  The dagger still stuck
straight up out of me.  Now there was an inch or so of blade
showing.  My healing must be slowly forcing the blade up and
out.

"Good," I thought.  "It's not hung on anything.  I just have to
speed things up a bit."

I focused on ejecting the blade.  Once my body knew what I
wanted, it happened quickly.  The blade rose steadily, tilting to
one side as it did and then fell to the ground with a soft thud.
The hole it had made closed behind it and in seconds the flesh
was healed.  No trace of the puncture remained, except for the
blood coating my torso.  Even my sliced clit felt whole again,
although it would probably be a while before it stopped throbbing
along with my heartbeat.

I turned my head and looked over at the group standing behind the
camera.  They seemed to be discussing how to best dispose of my
corpse.

"I know we buried the others out by the woods," Jones said. 
"But, have you any idea how hard it is to dig a hole deep enough
so something won't dig her up?  Shit, boss, you want her buried,
you dig the damn hole!  I say we take her to the Everglades and
give her to the gators."

"That's too far!" Winslow argued.  "You idiots will get stopped
for something and they'll find the body.  No, we need to ....
Holy shit!  Look!"

Winslow was pointing at me.  It was time.  I had only seconds
while they were still too stunned to try to reverse my
resurrection.

I levered myself to my feet.  My ankles were still bound to bolts
in the floor with the leather straps, but the tape on my arms had
stretched quite a bit from my jerking around.   I had leverage
now that I hadn't had before.  I gave a great shrug and flexed
like a bodybuilder.  The strapping tape parted with a loud snap
and I brought my arms out from behind my back.

The pain was blinding.  Being stabbed was much more pleasant than
moving my arms again after having them bound for so long.  I had
to do something to gain a few more seconds to recover, so I did
the only trick I could think of.  I became The Dragon and I
roared out my anger and my pain at the top of my lungs in a howl
that would have shattered the windows in anyplace but a big
barn.

It served.  The group of murdering scum froze into a surprised
tableau.  I kicked out with my right foot and the leather strap
parted.  I spun around to my left so I wouldn't be trying to
balance with my feet on either side of the hay bale.  I had just
jerked my left foot free when Jones came to his senses and
reached into the waistband of his slacks for his pistol.

Jones going for his gun seemed to set everyone else into motion.
Smith was first.  He lunged for the door, knocking into Winslow
and Roxy, who were slower to react.  All three of them went down
in a tangle of limbs.

I saw that there was no way to get to Jones before he could bring
the muzzle of his big gun to bear on me, so I did the only thing
I could think of, I kicked the hay bale in front of me as hard as
I could, sending it flying toward Jones.

I expected the bale to fly apart, making a hay-storm behind which
I could move without Jones being able to see me and blow large
holes in my favorite body.  The bale was either better-packed
than I expected, or had been compressed by the use it had seen. 
It stayed together as it sailed across the room, striking Jones
just above the knees, hitting him so hard that I could hear his
bones break the instant before it slammed him into the far wall.

Jones jerked the trigger as he was hit and the booming noise of
the gun followed closely on the sound of his bones snapping.  His
shot was way off target.  It went high and wide, hitting one of
the metal lights hanging from the high ceiling.  There was a
great shower of sparks and the whole fixture came crashing down,
nearly landing on the three stoners who were lethargically
reacting to the situation.

Roxy and Winslow were scrambling to their feet, with no help from
Smith, whose panicked attempts to get up seemed more laughable
than purposeful.

"Fuck me!" Winslow cried, in a voice high enough to have been
mistaken for Roxy.  He was staring at me with recognition in his
eyes.  I thought at first he had figured out my disguise from my
visit to his store, but then I remembered that everyone with a TV
must have seen the footage of the fight with the tank and that
was where he had seen me before.  

Roxy didn't appear surprised or alarmed, just annoyed that her
act of murder had been so ineffective.  She looked around on the
floor for the dagger so she could try it again.

"God, what a cold bitch!" I thought.  Any sympathy I had for her
evaporated at that moment.  That one expression explained to me
how someone that gorgeous could bring herself to cook up
addictive poison and retail it to a whole city.

With the only gun out of commission, along with its master, I
advanced on Roxy to keep her from finding her knife and using it
to make another hole in me.

Smith grabbed her from behind, comically yanking her panties to
her knees in an attempt to get to his feet.  "Fire!" He screamed,
pointing toward the pile of hay in the corner.

I looked around to see the three punks fighting a small blaze by
giggling and throwing handfuls of hay mixed with dirt onto it. 
The effect was to make a small fire into a larger one in a matter
of seconds and they found this riotously funny.

Smith finally struggled to his feet and dashed up the hall toward
the door that Roxy had come out of.

"I'll get the extinguisher!" he shouted.

"Good man," I thought, bending down to jab at a button on the
video recorder.  "First, he prevents everyone from escaping; now
he's going to put out the fire.  Maybe I'll put in a good word
for the idiot, later."

Smith was halfway to the door when Roxy's expression changed to
one of total fear.  "Nooooooooooo!" she screamed, and lunged
after Smith.  Her panties tripped her and she fell face first
into the dirty floor, smudging that lovely but deadly face.

"What's she going on about?" I wondered.  "Surely putting out the
fire is a 'good thing'.  Smith obviously knows there is a fire
extinguisher in the lab, which is a reasonable precaution, since
the whole place is full of dry stuff and combustible material
that could...oh shit."

I spent no time at all wondering if there was some way to stop
Smith or to save any of them.  I took two steps into the hall,
spotted a window high up on the end-wall of the barn and wasted
three more steps building up enough speed before I did the one
thing I hated to do, launch myself in my own crappy excuse for
the power of flight that seemed to be so common among my
fictional counterparts.  I tucked into a ball as I burst through
the window at the exact time that Smith discovered why it wasn't
a good idea to open the door of a tightly-sealed meth lab and
allow the highly volatile fumes inside to meet the flames of a
small bonfire.  The concussive force of the explosion kicked me
even further than I would otherwise have gone.  I landed a good
50 yards away, rolling and swatting to make sure that the flames
that had followed me through the window hadn't managed to set my
hair on fire.

Fortunately, they hadn't, but it was a near thing.  My ears were
ringing.  I had a few cuts from the broken glass in the window, a
couple of singed spots from the explosion, and a scraped knee
from my crappy landing on the gravel driveway, but that was all
and I dealt with it quickly.

Winslow, Roxy, Smith, Jones, and the three punks weren't so
lucky.  None of them had my strength or my speed and none of them
made it out before the lab blew up and took half the barn with
it.  I stood as close as I dared, dodging falling debris and
watching for any signs of life.  I saw and heard nothing but the
loud crackle of the fire as it found all the dust and dry hay
that the explosion kicked up into the air, following the first
detonation with a fireball that was even more fearsome for being
slow to build into a huge monster.

I backed up the driveway toward the road to get away from the
fire.  The whole barn had caught fire and the heat of the flames
was pretty intense.  I had only been standing there for a little
while when a car pulled up next to me and Neeka, Jim, and Steve
got out.

Steve came right to me and put his arm around my shoulders.  I
looked up into his face.  He looked a little queasy, and I
briefly wondered why until I remembered that I was still in
costume.  I dropped the animation and went back to the regular
me.  Steve's expression improved immediately.  

"We brought your dress," Jim said, offering it to me.  

I knew that already from Neeka, just as I knew the car was coming
to pick me up as soon as I was finished at Winslow's farm.  Just
as I knew she had drafted Steve into following me from a distance
once I left the restaurant with Smith and Jones.  It's good to
have friends who will sit out in the dark for a couple of hours,
waiting for you to get off work so they can drive you home.  It's
even better to have friends who are ready to run in and try to
save your butt if they think you might be in over your head. 
Best of all is a friend who will keep her mouth shut about the
amount of danger you might actually be in, the things you might
have to do to get out of it, and the fun you have along the way.

"You're so welcome," Neeka sent to me, "But parking on a dark
country road for a couple of hours with these two guys isn't
exactly a hardship, you know."

"Thanks, Jim," I said, hiding the DVD in the dress and handing it
to Neeka. "But I'm OK in my skin.  If I put that nice dress on, I
would just get it dirty."

"Sure.  That's fine with me."  Jim leered at me around Steve and
then had to duck a playful swat to the head from Mr. Wojeski.  It
seemed awfully well-timed to me and reminded me of a question I
had been meaning to ask.

"So, how long have you two been friends?" I blurted.

"Elementary school," Jim said.  "I was in Third Grade and a
bigger kid was beating me up on the playground.  Steve pulled him
off me and we've been friends ever since."

"Un hunh," I said.  It was worse than I thought.  I had very much
underestimated how badly I had been jobbed by those two.

"We better go before the whole world gets here," Neeka said
aloud.

"Yep.  The firetrucks are about three miles away."  That got me a
look from Steve, but no comment.  Steve was doing his 'strong
silent type' bit and I realized that it also had the effect of
keeping his feet out of his mouth.  Smart fellow, Steve.  He
knows enough to keep his mouth shut and his ears open in
situations where he may not be completely on top of what was
going on.  He probably got into the habit earlier while listening
to Neeka not tell either of them what was going on inside the
barn.  Steve held the car door for me while I got into the front
seat.

"I can hear and see better than most folks," I patiently
explained to him when he slid behind the steering wheel.  He was
still new at the role of superheroine's boyfriend and I needed to
bring him up to speed.

"That means if you whisper something to someone in the same
house, she will hear you," Neeka laughed.  "Kiss your secrets
goodbye."

"There are enough secrets around here without my bringing any
into this," Steve said.  And that was all he had to say about not
being told what was going on in the barn.

On the way back to town, we passed a convoy of firetrucks and
patrol cars headed toward the fire.  It was big enough to be seen
for miles as a bright glow on the horizon, so it wasn't
surprising that they had sent everything and everyone out to see
what was going on.

After they had all gone past us, the last patrol car braked and
turned around.  It caught up to us but after coming close enough
to read our tag, the driver fell back for a while, then flipped
on his blue lights, but not his siren.

"Oh, hell," Steve said when the lights came on.

"Relax," I told him.  "They're doing their job.  If I were them,
I'd want to know who was out here this time of night and what
they were up to.  Wouldn't you?  We might have even seen
something they need to know.  Remember, we're the Good Guys. 
Pull over here and keep your hands on the wheel."

"Right.  Sorry, officer."

Neeka went into my purse for my badge, but when the doors of the
patrol car opened, I saw it wasn't going to be necessary and she
put it away.

"Everybody hide your faces.  I'm going to have some fun."

"Oh, shit," Jim said.  "She's going to get us shot!  I know it!"

"Hush.  Be cool and let me do the talking."

We all sat with both hands in plain sight, but one in front of
our faces to ward off the powerful flashlight beams.  The deputy
on the driver's side hung back in a covering position while the
other one approached my passenger-side door and tapped on the
glass.

I hit the button to roll the window down.  When it went past my
face, I dropped my hand and turned my head to let the deputy see
The Dragon.

"Hi, Bert!" I said, cheerfully, and loudly enough for his partner
to hear as well.

Officer Rosario jerked away from the car and landed flat on his
butt, nearly rolling into the drainage ditch.

"Jesus!" He said, using the Anglo pronunciation.  "I really wish
you wouldn't do that, Sam."  He picked himself up and turned off
the flashlight out of courtesy.  "Although I'm not surprised to
find you out here.  What the hell is going on?  Or do I really
want to know?"

"You might not," I warned him.  "I sure didn't.  What you've got
out there is some people who got careless and blew up their
methamphetamine lab   and themselves with it.  There should be
seven bodies in the barn, all bad-guys."

"Dios Mio!"  His accent came back to him.

"It gets worse, Bert.  Walk out in the fields, along the edge of
the woods out there.  Look for signs of recently turned dirt. 
You might bring out some dogs to make sure you find them all."

"Uh, all what?"

"Graves, Bert.  Graves of hookers mostly.  If you can ID them,
you'll be able to close a few missing-person cases.  It'll be bad
news for a few families."

"Yeah, at least we don't get the job of breaking the news. How do
you...I mean...did you....." he trailed off.

"That's right, Bert.  You don't want to know."

"Yes, ma'am.  You folks have a good night."  The familiarity he
had started with vanished quickly as he imagined what I might
have done to get seven people incinerated.  He and Murphy walked
back to their car.

"OK, let's go, Steve," I said, letting my head drop back and
turning off my animated makeup.



Everyone was quiet until we got back to town.  Then Jim asked,
"Seven?"

I was pretty tired by then.  I ticked them off my fingers   the
three punks who had most likely been the runners and the
retailers, the muscle - Smith and Jones,  the cook   Roxy, and
Winslow   the self-styled Kingpin of the outfit.  That was seven.
 All of them, barring some very unlikely miracle, were dead.

"Seven," I said.  "I was the only one that made it out of
there."

 I tried to feel sorry for them, but I couldn't manage it.  I
might regret what they might have been, but not what happened to
them because of what they were.  In any case, it wasn't me that
decided their fate.  I didn't want to think about what I might
have done if it had been up to me.  I just wanted to get home and
get a bath and some sleep.  I'd have plenty of time to think
about this later, when I wasn't so tired.

Jim opened his mouth to ask something else, but all I heard was
an "ooof" as Neeka poked him in the ribs to shut him up.

Steve reached over and put his hand on top of mine.  He squeezed
supportively then went back to driving.  He wasn't freaked out or
anything.  He just wanted me to know that he was there for me, no
matter what I might have done.  

I wasn't sure what Jim had been about to ask, but I agreed with
Neeka that it was something that might have put me in the
position of wanting to lie to Steve, and I would really rather
not have had to do that.  Steve obviously understood that there
were things I did in my professional life that he didn't need to
know about.  He was cool with that and I loved him all the more
for respecting me that way.



When Steve dropped us off at my house, I waited by the car with
him so we could have a private moment together.  As soon as Neeka
hustled Jim inside, I said, "I wish things could have been
different tonight.  I spoiled the occasion by running off like
that.  I wanted to spend more time with you."

"Sam, I'm sorry, too.  But I want you to know that I totally
understand that when you take on a big responsibility   when you
have a job to do   you can't just turn your back on it because
it's inconvenient for you at the moment.  Shit happens.  When it
does, you have to cope with it.  I knew that this afternoon.  I
saw you deal with something that needed your special abilities
and I understood then that this was the nature of the job.  I
want you to know that I'm very proud of you and what you do."

"Darn, Steve.  If I wasn't so filthy, I'd kiss you."

"Rain check?"

"Sure!"  

There's a rule somewhere that says 'never kiss your boyfriend
with another guy's cum on your lips'.  If there wasn't then,
there is now.

I waved goodbye to Steve and I dragged my butt into the house. 
Neeka was waiting for me in the kitchen.

"You look like hell," she said.   "I don't know what he sees in
you."

I gave her a raspberry for that.

"Too tired to quip?  Poor baby.  Let's get you upstairs to bed."

She took my arm to help me, so I know I must have looked as bad
as she said.  It seemed the more adrenalin I burned; the more
exhausted I was afterward.  It made sense.  I had very high
highs.  It figured that I would have very low lows.  There was a
saying about burning the candle at both ends.  I had found a way
to ignite the whole wick at once.  It made a very bright flame,
but I could only keep it up for limited periods of time.  Maybe
with more practice I could build up a larger energy reserve.  I
thought I had been getting better at controlling the flow of
power, but when something really ticked me off   like being
murdered in cold blood   it all just poured out at once.

Mom caught up to us in the hall on the way to the elevator.  The
stairs seemed like too much trouble to me.

"Well, here you are!  Damn, honey.  You look like you've been
through Hell."

"There seems to be general agreement on that," I said.  "Careful.
 Don't get too close.  I'm covered in soot."

"You were in a fire?  There's a big one down at the old
Montgomery place a few miles south of town.  It's all over the TV
news.  Is that where you were?"

"Yeah.  Some fools blew up their drug factory and I was there
when it happened.  Crooks are so stupid.  It makes you
wonder...." I had to stop to yawn.  "It makes you wonder how they
ever get away with anything."

"You're exhausted.  Let's get you upstairs."

"Wonderful idea."

Between the two of them, they managed to haul me up to my room
and get me into the tub.  Neeka climbed in with me, since she
needed a bath, too.  While they scrubbed the soot off, Neeka told
the story of what happened after I left the table at the
restaurant.  Her version was heavy on the heroism, light on the
sex, and completely left out the part about Roxy trying to kill
me.  It sounded so much better the way she told it, that I caught
myself listening carefully to hear how it ended.

"...so she took off and flew through the window, making it out of
the building just as the whole place exploded into a big ball of
fire!"  Neeka finished, throwing her hands up dramatically to
emphasize the size of the explosion.

It was so entertaining that I wanted to applaud.  If I had been
telling it, I would have felt compelled to include the parts
about the bad landing and how I got my ass singed by the
explosion.  I liked her version much better.  I think Mom would
have preferred the sanitized version over the truth, anyway.

Something nagged at me.  There was something I had forgotten.  It
wasn't until I was almost asleep that I remembered the DVD I had
brought home.  I scrambled out of bed and peeked in my purse
while holding my breath.  If it had somehow become misplaced,
someone might find it and play it to see what was on it.  I
certainly didn't want that to happen.  Not until I had a chance
to watch it myself and see if my performance was any good.

The shiny disk was in my purse where it was supposed to be. 
Neeka had hidden it there while reaching for my badge.  I relaxed
and crawled back into bed.  It really wouldn't do at all to have
something like that get loose.  A pornographic snuff film, where
the star/victim dies and then is resurrected as The Dragon
probably needed a whole new letter rating.  There wouldn't be
enough room on the box for all the X's that would be needed to
rate this flick.  

If it had been someone else in it, I would have wanted it burned
before anyone could see it.  I hoped that any copies of Winslow's
productions that might have been stored at the farm had suffered
the same fate as Winslow himself.  It would be hard enough on the
families of his victims to learn they had been raped, tortured,
and murdered.  To think of them watching it happen was something
that turned my stomach.  In my case, it seemed to be just part of
the job.  The rape hadn't been all that objectionable, as I
recalled it.  Given my rather willing participation it only
qualified as rape by intent.  Even being stabbed right through
with a big knife hadn't been that bad.  Roxy had missed my heart
by a hair and while my knowledge of anatomy wasn't detailed
enough to say what she did hit, it didn't feel like anything
vital   or at least anything I couldn't fix quickly enough to
survive the experience.  Again, it was more the intent that
counted than the result. 

As I drifted closer to sleep, a question came to mind that I
suppose I had known would come up at some point in my new career.
 I had hoped to avoid it as long as possible, but here it was and
I had to think about it.  Given my unusual abilities and my
capacity for rapid healing, would I be justified in responding to
an attack with lethal force?  Even if that attack would certainly
have killed anyone else?  In this case, I hadn't had to make the
call.  Smith had been kind enough to take the case to a higher
court and its ruling had been swift and certain.  But the
question was certain to come up again; and probably in a
situation when I wouldn't have time to consider it thoroughly, so
I felt I had to think about it and come to some kind of agreement
with my conscience on the subject.

This problem was part of the reason I had reacted so strongly to
Neeka's handgun.  I felt I would be on firm moral ground in using
lethal force if I were in the process of saving or protecting
others.  However, it still seemed to me that using a gun was
cheating.  It reminded me of a scene in the first Indiana Jones
film, where the hero is involved in a long chase and running
battle only to be confronted by a fresh opponent wielding a great
big sword.  Indy's solution was to take out a gun and shoot him
dead on the spot, avoiding what the audience had been sure was
going to be a dramatic fight scene, whip against sword.  While a
logical and novel solution on screen, it left me feeling uneasy
about the justifiability of the act.  When Neeka had hauled out
her Magnum revolver, I argued her out of using it on logical
grounds, but what I felt was that it would be wrong to condone
the preemptive use of a lethal weapon, even by proxy, when I
already had the power to take a life in any number of other ways,
as well as being mostly immune to permanent injury myself.  Had I
let my partner pull the trigger it would have been rank
vigilantism, if not outright assassination.

People who have supernormal abilities should also have higher
standards of conduct.  I think that's only right.  It's clear
that we have greater expectations of people with abilities
greater than our own.  That's probably because it's scary to
think that someone who has these powers might have the same human
flaws and faults as the rest of us.  No one wants to find
themselves sliding down the road in a ball of ice because they
accidentally cut off Mr. Frost in traffic.  No one wants to turn
on the evening news to hear that Nuclear Girl annihilated
Cleveland because she was having a PMS day.

The only way I felt I could justify using extreme measures was
after I had exhausted all other means of resolving the situation.
 If this meant that I had to take greater risks than were
absolutely necessary, so be it.  If it meant I had to absorb a
certain amount of punishment along the way, well, sacrifices had
to be made.  If it meant I would be manhandled, threatened,
bound, tortured, raped and otherwise abused in the process, I
would just have to grin and bear it.  I decided that since the
nature of the job required me to take risks that any sane person
would run from, that increasing those risks by giving my
opponents every chance to surrender wasn't all that much more
dangerous.

And so, having slain my own mental dragon for the moment, I slid
peacefully into a deep sleep.  I don't remember if I dreamed.  





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