Crimson Flare: Blackmail

by marat

Chapter Ten

Lynn knew that Crimson Flare would be returning shortly from what would no doubt be exhausting efforts at the mansion. While she waited for the police scanner to announce that the Mitropoulos Police were on their way to break up the disturbance at the MacLeod-Slaughter Mansion, she put on some water for tea.

Thus it was with no small distress that she waited in vain for the police call. As minute piled upon minute with no evidence of actions by the police, anguish once again gripped the blonde girl as she began to pace the empty apartment. Why were the police not taking action? She had sent the warning to Crimson Flare that the police had been notified, and no doubt the masked Maiden was already preparing to wrap things up at Gouyannou’s nerve centre.

Everything depended on everyone playing his or her part. Crimson Flare couldn’t leave Maria in the control of criminals, and she wouldn’t abandon the mansion without knowing that the police were in fact on the scene. If these circumstances didn’t change soon, both the heroine and the policewoman would find themselves in great danger.

*****

Commissioner Warren walked briskly from the City Centre to her car, this early morning parked on the street rather than in her reserved space in the underground city’s parking garage. As she did so, she smiled to herself.

It was a good thing that she had come by following her awakening by Gouyannou’s phone call. She had a feeling that the neighbours might complain about what was going on at the mansion, that the capture and ultimate disposal of Crimson Flare might be so raucous as to upset those living nearby. Though truth be told, she wondered about who might have made the complaint: the neighbourhood was something less than it had been in the heyday of the MacLeods and the Slaughters, when the large, ostentatious residence had been built back in the 1920s. Most of the nearby buildings were abandoned and those that were still in use were no longer private homes, but rather apartments and institutional settings for the retired, the elderly, and the indigent.

As she started the engine, Commissioner Jeri Warren sank back into her seat. At last, Crimson Flare would cease to be a humiliation to her force. In a matter of hours, perhaps even less, Fareed Gouyannou would have removed that vigilante as a thorn in her side. At that point, she would order the police to the scene, well after the events had transpired, and the lifeless body of America’s Darling would be recovered from the scene of her final confrontation with the city’s criminal element.

As she pulled away from the curb, she headed north along New Street, driving toward the MacLeod-Slaughter mansion. She wanted to witness the event.

*****

Policewoman Maria Blakeman sobbed quietly as she stared across the ballroom. During the Gouyannou mob’s victory over Crimson Flare, she had wept and shouted, all to no avail. Now she had no tears left. Desperation gripped the bound captive as she tugged violently and vainly at the ropes that secured her wrists and arms to the chair. Neither could she move her legs, secured to that same seat, as she tried to free herself. And so she now merely sat, frustrated and furious, all of Maria’s consciousness focused on a single thought: ‘No. This can’t happen. I can’t let this happen.’

Ten meters in front of her, the unmoving form of the Champion of Women lay bound and gagged. The high gloss of the black mask and cowl covering her head, hair, and face glistened in the bright lights around the room. Behind her mask, even at a distance of many meters, Maria could see that the heroine’s eyes were closed. She lay on her right side, her chin sunk down into her chest. A rope was looped twice around her body, above and below her breasts, securing her upper arms to her torso. Behind her back, Maria had watched as a similar length of rope was used to bind her wrists. Two more pieces of rope were lashed around her legs, one at her thighs and the second around her ankles. A final indignity, a crimson-coloured ball-gag had been forced into her mouth and tied behind her head. Even at this distance, the avenger’s ragged breathing was audible.

Her boots lay one on top of the other, left over right, lashed together around the ankles. The glistening polished leather flashed their reflection of the room’s lights. They stretched across her calves like a second skin, so that the definition of the girl’s muscles was evident. Above the shiny blackness, the colourless tights that were so much a part of her heroine persona, also glistened, albeit dully, in the room’s brilliant lighting.

The crimson-and-gold sequined costume clung tightly to her body, moving minutely as the unconscious Maiden breathed. The glorious form of the Defender of Mitropoulos was now on display for the city’s underworld. And Fareed Gouyannou seemed to have determined that this would be the end of his enemy. None of those present yet knew that they would be party to the cementing of the legend of Crimson Flare into the annals of Mitropoulos crimefighting.

Gouyannou strode haughtily from a small throng of figures near the far door. His voice was soft but clear and the intense quiet in the room ensured that all who were there did not miss the accented words and phrases.

‘So. There she is,’ Gouyannou said slowly. ‘The great Crimson Flare. Terror of criminals across Mitropoulos.’ He chuckled, and it served as signal to all his minions to do likewise. ‘Freed from my power, she returned for her… friends.’ He looked across at the two captives. ‘She was free and she could have remained free. But she is a woman, and, like any woman, she was subject to the failures of her sex: sentiment; rashness; and stupidity. She returned here thinking that her strength would be enough to allow her to save her friends. And she stupidly fell into my trap, just like a woman.’

The laughter this time was much larger and went on longer. Before it died down, the gangland chieftain gave a small signal to one of his underlings, who approached his boss and the prisoner, carrying a bucket of water.

‘This Crimson Flare… this Champion of Women… has made her last mistake. She used her feminine wiles to lure many men who were friends of us here…’ There was here a muffled chorus agreement among the crowd in the ballroom.

‘…men who were friends of us here to their deaths…’ The throaty acknowledgement grew louder…

‘…and to prison…’ …and louder…

‘…and, like Ape Greystook, to a permanent place in a hospital bed!’ …and louder, until the anger seemed tangible.

‘She has used the physical strength that was given to her to overcome her female weakness and stupidity and to establish her current reputation. But is this reputation deserved?

‘She has sought to place herself in the position of a man. This… heroine… seeks to play the role that has rightfully belonged to men. This… Crimson… Flare… supplants the police… replaces the head of the family and the head of the household to protect that which is his by right.

‘While she is doing this she flaunts herself—her body—before her victims and before society. She displays her sensuality, enticing our friends and companions down the path to their destruction and moral degradation. All the while, she acts the role of the virginal angel defending both society and her virtue.

‘But we know different, don’t we?’ The crowd laughed again.

‘We’ve seen her for the whore that she is, haven’t we? This time the crowd’s agreement was vociferous and ferocious.

‘And now, we have her.’ He walked slowly around the unmoving figure on the floor. ‘And we know what to do with women who don’t know their place… women who try to be like men… don’t we?’

The shout shook the walls and terrified Maria Blakeman.

‘She will regret the day she undertook to become a… heroine.’ As he said the word, malice dripped from his lips. ‘She will regret her successes, brief as they were. She will regret the day she put on that revealing and immoral costume, a costume that should shame its wearer.

‘And she will assuredly regret coming back here.

‘We have pictures of our earlier victories over this slut, pictures revealing her true nature. Some we have taken ourselves. Here. This evening. Some, capturing earlier obscene, smutty escapades in her career, were provided to us by our friends in and out of the law enforcement community. With these as evidence, we can correct the public image of the virtuous, virginal, saviour of Mitropoulos. And with the evidence about to be provided by the Crimson Whore herself, we will provide a fuller, accurate picture for this city of its late heroine.’

The young thug patiently held the full bucket of water while Gouyannou finished his talk. The man who was master of Mitropoulos’ criminal underworld, however, was not going to so quickly surrender his control of his empire’s attentions. He gave another small gesture and the all of the contents of the vessel were thrown savagely into the face of the avenger, an action designed to only further degrade her condition.

*****

The masked Maiden gasped and coughed as she sputtered back to consciousness. As her eyes cleared, she saw, vaguely, the rows of laughing criminals who stood in front of her, and the arrogant form of Fareed Gouyannou standing over her, contemptuously gazing down at her.

She tried to move.

Gods! she thought, suddenly terrified. My wrists are bound! My strength is gone!

A hollowness chasmed in the pit of her stomach, as the heroine realised that she could barely lift her head. She was too weak!

She heard Gouyannou’s accented voice speaking to his assembled thugs…

*****

‘…this slut will pay. Here! Now! Today! And she will suffer at the hands of the very people she sought to destroy. Her defeat and humiliation will serve as a lesson to any who might follow her example. Her dead body will serve as an object lesson to the city… the city that is ours, that should be ours, and will remain ours.

‘How could we have allowed a mere woman to challenge us?’ Gouyannou asked. ‘How could she even be permitted to harbour such a thought that she might even do so? We will, today, make the penalty to anyone for thinking such things so clear that our position henceforth will be more than secure, even more than assured. We will be unassailable! And, as is appropriate, it will begin with the destruction of our enemy. Before there was a Crimson Flare, our enemies cowered before us. Now, with the destruction and humiliation of Crimson Flare… Crimson Cunt… we will reassert our supremacy.

‘Now, we will begin our auction.’ The gangland chieftain smiled down at his powerless captive. ‘Who wants to be the first to purchase a half-hour with America’s Darling?’

The shout that went up from the assembled mob was deafening. The roar that rose from dozens of throats seemed to rattle the floorboards beneath the heroine.

*****

I must get free! Crimson Flare thought, panic beginning to creep over and through her being. My claw! I must free myself with my claw!

Through weakened limbs, the avenger of Mitropoulos sought the device that had rescued her so many times before. She could feel it in her glove, and as she pressed her hand and wrist against the metal blade secreted in her crimson-coloured gauntlet, she felt it give way only slightly.

Gods! she thought again, now desperate. I’m too weak to expose the claw! No. I won’t let them defeat me in this way.

As she redoubled her efforts to unsheathe Stacy’s most important creation, the most valuable instrument in her arsenal, the bids began to fly thick and fast above her. The masked heroine was unaware of the numbers that were being tendered for a brief half-hour with the captive. Her focus remained entirely on pushing a mere half-inch of the blade forth, a scant fraction of its full length, but enough to expose the ropes that bound her to the claw’s tough metal teeth.

*****

‘$8000!’ screamed one scarred thug in the centre of the throng.

‘$9000!’ shouted another, a small man hidden by much taller hoodlums surrounding him.

‘’$10,000!’ came from still another, closer to Gouyannou.

‘$20,000!’ came a loud and shocking offer, from the back of the hall. From Bruce Sealing.

The furor disappeared. The silence in the ballroom was, almost a cliché, deafening.

‘Any more bids?’ asked the criminal boss of bosses. There was only silence.

Gouyannou thought to himself, Very impressive. He’s mastered the room. And he knows that it’s a good thing to return some of what I have given him. Maybe I will have a role for him. ‘Let’s see the colour of your money.’

Sealing came forward, walking quickly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the same cash that Gouyannou had given him earlier, for his complicity in trapping the vigilante. He peeled off the correct amount, pocketing the remainder.

There was a sprinkling of applause as Sealing walked into the centre of the floor to collect his prize.

*****

The Champion of Women strained the muscles in her hand and wrist, frantically seeking to release the claw. All her effort had thus far only bared scant millimeters of the blade. She could tell that it had yet to even touch on the loops of rope that bound her wrists. Again and again she pressed against the sheathed metal and each time there was only a little response—too small to be effective.

I must— I— must, she thought, when suddenly her concentration was shattered by someone grabbing her boots and upending the crimefighter, raising the polished leather high off the floor.

‘What—what?’ she gasped.

Bruce Sealing deftly sliced through the cords securing her ankles, and, almost disdainfully, tossed the rope aside. He did the same with the loops around her perfectly formed thighs. Then he dropped her boots to the floor again, the sound of the leather soles and heels against the wooden floor echoing throughout the ballroom. Using the toe of his shoe, he casually turned the powerless girl so that she stared up at him. ‘Get up, bitch!’

Freed from the severe hogtie, Crimson Flare breathed deeply, trying to relax. But the gag in her mouth and the taut ropes around her chest made even that usually small effort difficult.

Bruce Sealing demonstrated his impatience by sharply kicking the bound superheroine in the back of her knee. The muffled grunt that issued from the petite Champion generated still more laughter from the gathering in the ballroom.

‘GET UP, YOU SLUT!!’ Sealing shouted.

The release of tension from the hogtie offered the possibility of progress with the claw. Crimson Flare strained yet again, hoping to find at least some measure of gain in the metal implement that she saw as her saviour. But a second kick, this time in the small of her back, gave rise to the painful realisation that her weakness was not without its dangers.

She cried out in pain, and then struggled to get her legs under her. The heroine who had feared no man now feared another kick from Bruce Sealing. But the overarching weakness brought on by her bondage would not allow Crimson Flare to rise. Her body slumped on the floor, still lying on her right side, knees drawn up, arms drawn tightly behind her back, looking like to an unhinged number ‘2’. Sealing stood over her, smiling, laughing heartily. ‘What’s wrong, Crimson Flare? Do you want more?’ So saying, he kicked her a third time, and a fourth, striking any area of her no-longer-powerful body that was before him. The gangland convention assembled there collectively smiled, watching quietly and approvingly as their nemesis was brought down.

A throaty screech pierced the focused silence of the ballroom. It came from a deep reservoir of anguish and pain, as Maria Blakeman could no longer bear the continued torture of the Champion of Women.

The room was hushed, except for the ragged breathing and groans of America’s Darling, who was still struggling, and failing, to get to her feet. Maria Blakeman, her body shaking, had seen all that she could stand. At a small nod of the head from Gouyannou, the thug who had been placed behind her stepped up to the policewoman and roughly pulled the gag from her mouth. ‘Stop it…’ she said, her throat dry, ‘…please.’

Sealing stared at the bound figure in the skintight black catsuit. An idea formed in his mind, an idea that he hoped would solidify his position with his new employer.

Despite his façade of self-assurance and newly found bravado, Sealing clearly understood that he was a novice with Gouyannou’s organisation. He was under suspicion by the capos, officers in the underworld army controlled from the mind of Gouyannou. He knew that they would take the first opportunity to undermine his position, to remove him from his newly won rank that was so close to the chief. He knew that giving back some of his money would elevate him in the eyes of his chief. Now he would give back more. That, he believed, would also raise his status with the capos.

‘So, how much more for her?’

Gouyannou smiled the smile of someone who had found a vein of gold amidst a field of dross. Surely, there must be a place for this Sealing! he mused. Sealing understands what he needs to do in order to survive in a bureaucracy of enemies. There was no such thing as personal advancement in the zero-sum game that was the criminal hierarchy. If he gained, then someone else must lose. A very large personal profit meant many others had lost much. Perhaps too much for Sealing to survive. Sealing understood he had to lose something. What better to lose than the money he had just won?

‘The rest of what you earned earlier.’ There was no emotion in Gouyannou’s response.

Sealing broadened his face with a smile, reciprocating Gouyannou’s. There seemed to be a genuine understanding between the former policeman and the criminal. The handsome cop quickly walked across the short distance to the well-dressed mobster, pulling more money from his billfold. He grandly turned over his gains from the capture of Crimson Flare to the man who had earlier equally grandly paid it to him.

‘Take your prizes,’ Gouyannou said, with a flourish of his arm.

Sealing walked quickly to where Maria Blakeman was tied to the chair. Taking the blade again from his pocket, he swiftly cut the lengths of rope securing her arms and legs to the heavy seat. He grabbed her by her dark hair and lifted her to her feet.

As the full effect of the catsuit became evident to the gathered gangland minions, cheers and whistles echoed around the large bare hall. Surely Maria’s attire left nothing to the imagination. Her boots, with three-inch heels, shaped her calves nicely, and her thighs, the product of police force physical training, were round and shapely. The black spandex glimmered sensually, reinforcing her curves and crevices in the brilliant lights surrounding her. Best of all, her hips, defined by the clinging, glistening material, and the exciting shapes and shadows associated with them, gave many of those hardened thugs present some reasons to reconsider their vocational choice. As she moved slowly before Sealing, the sway of those hips excited the gangland figures surrounding them. Those straining to see Maria from the front watched with glee as the taut spandex crept up between her legs, concealing very little of her sexuality. Maria’s slim waist accentuated the curves below, and her small but well-shaped breasts jutted proudly forth. The captive had succeeded in captivating the throng of men present.

‘Wait!’ Sealing ordered the policewoman. ‘Help your friend, the… superheroine.’ The remark was intended to serve as a crushing public humiliation of Crimson Flare, who had arrived at the mansion with the intention of rescuing Maria and Tim. Now, too weak to even stand, the Defender of Mitropoulos would have to be herself rescued. As Maria bent down to help raise the heroine, cheers rose from the mob surrounding her. It was not simply the degradation of Crimson Flare that gave rise to the ovation, but also the way in which Maria’s anatomy, the catsuit concealing nothing, was well-served by the movement.

‘Please, Crimson Flare,’ Maria begged. ‘Please, get up.’

The heroine struggled weakly to her feet, still bound with the maze of ropes that secured her wrists, arms and chest, with a loop still encircling her neck and hanging ignominiously toward the floor behind her. Maria strained to support the now-powerless masked beauty, all the while consoling and whispering encouragement to her personal champion.

At the same time, mocking laughter grew in the ballroom.

‘Look at her. The Champion of Women!’ Gouyannou shouted. As Crimson Flare stumbled to her feet, he continued, ‘She doesn’t look like so much now! Sold to the highest bidder for his pleasure! When all who are willing to pay for the… pleasure… are done having our way with her, her slutty costume will be placed up for auction as well, she will be unmasked to all of us here, as well as to those who are willing to see our prize on the web, and her dead body will be left in front of City Hall for the rest of the media and for the public.’

As Sealing followed the two women toward the door at the rear of the room, the same door that led to the cells below, he spoke softly to his boss. ‘Do you want a filmed record of everything that happens?’

He was surprised by the answer. ‘We will have that in any case.’ The cells had cameras in place and operating.

The gangland chieftain continued his degradation of his captive. ‘The slut, Crimson Flare, gentlemen! Look at her! Would anyone other than a slut dress like that? For what purpose? Why would a woman publicly expose herself in that way? Parade herself in public like a common tramp, seeking to arouse desire in any man who sees her! We already know of her unnatural sexual desire. We know that women are the cause of the downfall of great men, leading them to only vile things while destroying themselves! This… Crimson Flare has done this time and again! We have even seen her debase herself already this evening. Her defeat and death will be marked by the revelation of the true nature of this depraved woman to all of the citizens of Mitropoulos. They will at last know what we here in the underworld have known for a long time. That Crimson Flare—their Champion, their Defender, their virginal heroine—is nothing more than a common slut, who will service any man in any way.’

The trio made their way through the door as Gouyannou was completing his diatribe. Crimson Flare, as she weakly shambled across the floor, leaned heavily against Maria, who now protected her friend from the degradation and disgrace that continued to be heaped upon her by Mitropoulos’ criminal element.

The pair stopped at the top of the stairwell leading to the basement, where they had all been held earlier. Maria led her charge slowly down the first step. For Crimson Flare it was exhausting, her new weakness wringing all the power from her body.

‘Let her go!’ Sealing ordered.

‘What? No!’ Maria whispered sharply.

Sealing kicked the crimson-and-gold-clad Defender of Mitropoulos squarely in the small of the back, tearing her from the arms of her protector. The Champion of Women, America’s Darling, was torn from the tender security of Maria’s grip and smashed against the wall before collapsing and then tumbling noisily to the foot of the staircase. She moaned in agony as her body came to a halt, splayed across the bottom two stairs and the floor beneath.

‘NO!!!’ Maria screamed, and raced to the bottom of the stairs. ‘N-No!’ she cried softly as tears burst forth and rolled down her face.

As she stooped over the fallen avenger, Sealing walked flamboyantly down the steps and grabbed Maria’s hair and yanked her away from the dazed figure lying on the floor. Pushing his face into hers, the rogue cop sneered, ‘Take the heroine into that first cell on the left!’

Maria struggled, alternately leading and pulling the helpless Crimson Flare to the tiny chamber Sealing had indicated. Once there, he issued another order.

‘Make sure she’s conscious!’ he spat at his captives. ‘Then set her up so that she can watch! I want her to watch, to see what I do with you! Let her be a witness to exactly how great is her failure! HA! Champion of Women! Not any more! Tonight she’s just another cunt who’s going to be part of a three-way!’

Maria patted the cheek of her friend and Champion, desperately hoping to revive her sufficiently. But not because of the order given her by the man who had just moments earlier purchased these women. Rather, at the same time she was pressing into Crimson Flare’s gloved hand a small piece of broken glass, probably left over from earlier in the evening when it was part of a larger goblet filled with whiskey. She had found the fragment under Crimson Flare’s sprawled body at the foot of the stairs. The shard was only slightly smaller than the girl’s palm and was sharp enough to draw blood from Maria’s own hand as she hid it from observation.

The policewoman felt Crimson Flare’s hand fold around the fragment of glass. She saw the heroine’s eyes reflexively stare into her own, the understanding evident. There was even a small smile of thanks edging up a corner of the masked beauty’s mouth. With this reassurance, Maria Blakeman now undertook to distract Sealing long enough to allow Crimson Flare to free herself.

She rose and immediately adopted a vastly different attitude with her captor. Maria suggestively swayed her body in front of Sealing, placing her hands on her hips as they rocked back and forth, then cupping her hands around her breasts as she slowly approached him.

Sealing, for his part, appreciated the change in tone. But he wasn’t forgetting his goal: the humiliation of Crimson Flare. He turned toward the prone body of the avenger, propped up against the wall; her arms secured behind her back, with two more ropes tautly drawn around her chest, one looping above her breasts, a second below them. ‘Watch, Crimson Flare, as I rape this woman… your friend! Watch helplessly as I show you—and her—the only thing women are good for! Your helplessness has doomed you, superslut! And she’s going to be the first to pay the price for what you have done! And you can’t do anything about it! You’re helpless! Powerless! Watch as I bring down the curtain on the career of the… Champion of Women!’ He dropped his pants and smoothly stepped out of them, pulling his already engorged prick from beneath his dark briefs.

He pushed his eight inches into the heroine’s face. He pressed it toward her mouth, which, even though it was still filled with the ball gag, she turned aside as the pre-cum trickled out and glowed dimly along her upper lip in the harsh light from above. Her disgust almost caused her to drop the vital glass fragment she held in her hand. She dared not, for she already knew that, having failed to bring her claw into play, this was her—and Maria’s—only chance in the face of the mob of vicious criminals who now held them.

‘Look at this, superbitch!’ he shouted pressing his prick against her mouth and cheek. ‘This is what’s waiting for you, Crimson Flare! When I’m finished with her, I’ll have enough left for you to enjoy! Tell me you won’t enjoy this!’ He laughed as he left a premonition of his manhood smeared across her mouth and cheek. ‘This is the beginning of the end of Crimson Flare’ He smiled.

Maria, fearing that Sealing might attack Crimson Flare while she was still bound, wrapped her arms around his torso. ‘Rape? Did you say “rape”?’ she almost whispered directly into his ear, her tongue playing around the orifice. ‘It’s only rape if it’s uninvited and met with resistance.’ She smiled as she kissed his ear lightly. ‘This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.’

Sealing’s erection hardened even more, flying to even firmer attention as Maria’s seductive hands and pursing lips played across his face and body. Expertly using her lips and tongue, Maria worked across Sealing’s face, from ear to ear, forcing him to turn his attention to her. She tenderly placed one hand around his hard organ, and she fingered the instrument itself like a tiny woodwind. ‘Don’t you like what you see?’ she asked breathily, as she pulled her face away from his. She lifted her other hand to the side of his head, sensually pressing her fingers along the lines of his face.

Releasing him from her seductive grip, Maria turned her back to the cop, her eyes asking him to lower the neatly concealed zipper that ran down her spine. Sealing reached out and, pushing aside the raven hair of his one-time colleague, he tugged the small metal tongue down the short distance to reveal her tanned, muscular back.

As soon as the zipper had stopped moving, Maria spun to face Sealing. Her tongue played along her teeth and lips as she smiled at him. She pulled the taut spandex from first one shoulder and then the other. The light in the cell glimmered off of her bronzed, smooth flesh. A little lower, and the small, perfectly formed hemispheres of her breasts were revealed. The large dark nipples begged Sealing to place his mouth over them.

He did not disappoint.

He leapt at Maria, knocking her to the hard, cold floor, sucking and kissing at her teat, which itself hardened under his ministrations. The stimulation embarrassed Maria, who cast a glance across the room at Crimson Flare. She observed that her arms were sawing steadily, but slowly, indicating that the glass was even now making its way through the ropes that had taken her strength.

Crimson Flare felt the strands of rope give way under the sharp edge of the glass. But progress was slow; too slow for the helpless heroine, as she watched Maria lure Sealing’s attention away from what she was doing only a few feet from him. She must free herself before he… before he fulfilled his intentions.

Sealing’s large hands pulled at the catsuit, yanking it down, revealing both the shapely torso and lithe arms of its owner. As the triangular tuft of deep black hair that marked her sex came into view, Sealing’s free hand clamped down on his reward, plunging underneath of the fabric, his middle finger eagerly seeking entrance into her.

As that digit began its searching, swirling motions inside of Maria, alternately stretching and curving back on itself, Sealing began to feel dampness form around it. He pressed a second digit into her, using them to broaden the way for his engorged manhood.

Surprisingly, unwillingly, only a few moments after this began, Maria began to breathe raggedly, gasping for air. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes as her partner pushed her toward an undesired rapture. Fear, combined with the stimulation that Sealing offered, the stimulation he pressed on her, led Maria closer to her explosion.

Soon he withdrew his hand, and as he did so he pulled the spandex away from his goal. Almost gently, but with remarkable speed and finesse, he drew the clinging black spandex from her legs, wrapping the shimmering material around the girl’s black leather boots. He pressed his face into the angle, his tongue now penetrating her, tasting the sweet-salty dew that was collecting at her entrance. He audibly sighed as he felt himself nearing the conquest of the first woman. He used his lips and tongue expertly, and, as he drew her into his mouth, even his teeth came into play.

Maria gasped loudly. She didn’t want to enjoy the ravishing that was about to take place, but she couldn’t control herself. The release of tension, the overwhelming fear that still dominated her mind, the expectation and exultation that at any moment Crimson Flare would put an end to her torture—her pleasure—all these things combined to release the climax raging inside her. Sealing’s tongue swept around inside her, poking and lapping at the exposed organ. In response, Maria arched her back, her whole body taut, and suddenly cried out.

In his mind, Sealing smiled at the squeal that he had elicited from the policewoman. It was, he thought, only what was expected. He had never been with a woman who could resist the agility of his particular talents.

And, having prepared the way, he pushed himself away from her sweet-smelling crotch, her honeydew glistening on his jaw. He smiled at her, but she couldn’t see him. She was, St.-Theresa-like, adrift in her own ecstasy. Knowing that Maria Blakeman was now fully his, he peeled his briefs from his hips, and settled himself on his knees so that her wonderfully glorious legs encircled them, her booted calves still encumbered with the catsuit lying behind him. Then Sealing plunged energetically into her.

She didn’t scream, but rather filled the cell with what could only be described as a harsh screech. As he thrust himself deep into her, she reciprocated and threw herself upward at him, on to him, wrapping her now-bare arms around him, her lips seeking his, her tongue eagerly searching inside his mouth.

The touch of her sweating body against his, for a long moment, sent Sealing swirling into his own reverie. His engorged prick became painful as his orgasm crested and swept him up in its pure sensuality. He moaned in a blissful agony, and before he had completed his rapturous wail, Maria Blakeman’s soulful cry joined him in an ecstatic harmony.

Each pair of arms tightened around the body of the other. The scent of their sweat mingled and drove them higher together than they had ever been. They came simultaneously, each body thrusting into the other in a ballet of emotions and physical bliss.

Sealing sank back, pulling Maria with him. Her lips held tight to his, their tongues wrapped about one another. He noticed how dry his mouth was, despite the presence of her thrusting tongue.

Maria’s ecstasy was real, but she was aware of the need to keep Sealing’s attention on her. How much time had she won for Crimson Flare? Was the heroine nearly freed? Was she even now stepping across the tiny cell to rescue her?

*****

Police Commissioner Jeri Warren stopped her car across the street from the McLeod-Slaughter mansion. All seemed quiet. A few guards patrolled in front on the main entrance, brightly lit by the newly installed lighting. Most of the windows were dark, the exceptions being the entrance hallway behind the front door and the ballroom, barely visible from where she had stopped, which threw brilliant illumination onto the patio and lawn at the side of the large house.

Through the rolled-down window on her SUV she heard only the morning sounds of a big city. Blood-red streaks crossed the sky reaching from the east and just now touching the purple heavens behind the mansion.

If I didn’t know better, she thought, someone is going to die.

She smiled and laughed at her little joke. ‘Oh… yeah, that’s right. Someone is,’ she said to herself.

She closed the window and got out of the car. Pressing her remote control, she heard the satisfying bloop! that signaled the arming of the car’s security system. Crossing the street and coming out of the shadows of the trees, she approached the main gate.

*****

Lynn Simms was in an absolute panic. It was an hour since she had called in the report that should have sent the police to the McLeod-Slaughter mansion. Yet there had not been a word on the police scanner. Something was going desperately wrong.

She had to go to the mansion herself. If Crimson Flare needed any help that she could offer, she had to be there to provide it.

End of Chapter Ten

Comments, questions, suggestions welcome: contact the author at marat1793@comcast.net