Authors: Frances Gaines Bennett
A horrible red beast was smothering her and disembowelling her simultaneously. It ripped at her insides with rapid relentless strokes. Crimson blood swirled in her eyes and her head pounded against its metal cage.
Somehow she fought her way into the air. Her eyelids seemed glued together, too heavy and sticky to open, but somehow she pried them apart. Blearily she remembered her last action before mental disconnection – the fork moving between her lips. She peered upward and was paralysed by a jolt of hell’s sheer shock.
Her husband’s distorted face loomed above hers. Gone – so thoroughly wiped away she could no longer believe its existence – was his genteel beauty. The face was raw with bestial carnality. The frightful sight gripped her attention, dissociating it from … the rest … for one moment that seemed ubiquitous.
Karen was first aware that he had chained the steel garment’s thigh pieces tight to metal rings set in the bed-frame, spreading wide her knees and exposing her genitals. And his hard naked pelvis was between, pounding her mercilessly, rending her narrow, little-used vagina wide open with his unbearably long adamantine shaft.
The hurting, burning sensations swamped her ability to understand. Yet the one perception of her wet, gooey vagina separated from the rest. She didn’t understand why. Certainly it wasn’t her fluid. Despite herself, she often found his physical presence breathtaking, particularly – or, perhaps, even – the few disturbing times she’d seen him naked. Then she’d lubricated. The present, though, was far too horrifying.
His chest pressed against her ribcage, preventing adequate breath. When she tried to expand her lungs, desperately gasping with lack of oxygen and pain, she discovered he’d also chained the steel cage around her head at the throat. She couldn’t lift any part of her head or chest from the bed. She could only look up into the crazed, almost slavering face. His breath was laboured and hot. Truly she expected him to drip saliva from his gaping mouth to sear her flesh.
She tried to somehow protect herself from his onslaught – to find a way to make it less agonizing, less frightening. But she didn’t know how. She fought to squelch the cries that would have surged from her lips. He smiled fiendishly down upon her and his lust, his fever, his breath, increased in intensity until he seemed a demon in man’s flesh. In fear she watched his control utterly abandon him, felt his chest heave against hers …
… and then he was out of her vagina and between her breasts. She couldn’t feel the hardness against her, nor really see it. Her head’s movement was utterly restricted not only by its silver cage but by the chains locking it to the bed frame. When she lowered her eyes she saw just the round head’s single orifice, like a swollen eye amid purple flesh so engorged – the thought layered on her swirling overwhelm – it seemed to strain to explosion point.
The organ lay on the metal strip between her velvety breasts, at first. He jerked it upward, his big hands simultaneously kneading her breasts together like lumps of insensate bread dough, trapping his penis between. His long body was almost folded in half above her, back curved, knees crushing her arms, eyes absent – an animal spasmed by rutting need.
More horrible were his guttural grunts as his penis rubbed her skin raw, bruisingly thrust against her throat and chin, only stopped from causing real damage by the steel cage … then the animal howls accompanied by terrifying, out-of-control convulsions above her. Hot sticky expulsions stung her chin, dribbling cloyingly into her mouth, nostrils and eyes. She gagged and her chest heaved in time to his own pitching, keening breaths.
Without warning came silence as abysmally ear-splitting as the chaos before. And then, more ghastly than anything before, was Michael’s transformation. His beautiful face appeared to shatter apart, to collapse in on itself. Abruptly she was drowning, in a deluge of tears pouring from his limpid eyes.
His hard pectorals concussed in distorted seizures and incomprehensible sounds escaped him. They were words, she realized. In tones so broken-hearted her own heart ruptured and opened to him, he repeated, over and over, “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! Please, please forgive me!”
At last, she was finally making discernable progress! Michael acknowledged a distinct zephyr of content, pleasure and, his brows and penis twitched simultaneously, arousal as the fingers of his left hand brushed the table’s rich linen drapes on their way to caress the dials of Smith’s radically customized electrostim unit.
Yes! With satisfaction so exquisite it was erotic, he smiled into her lovely fragile – and apprehensive – eyes then took a leisurely survey. He’d managed to almost completely destroy that gross shell to expose the delicate grace underneath. Thus, he could now look at her without revulsion.
His gaze made its way down her tender diminishing curves, enjoying the collar bones’ increasing definition, the narrowing of the beautifully shaped upper arms. The firm but pendant mammaries and the attenuated waist and thighs were almost visible under the dress’ softly embracing fabric. Almost there!
Michael’s eyes traced the intricate metal fabrications running from head to feet and once again lauded the phenomenal luck that seemed his perpetual birthright. Despite the unequivocal certainty regarding Doud’s company, he never postulated acquiring a resource of Smith’s multifaceted usefulness.
The headpiece proved constantly fascinating. Smith had explained that the volume of soft brain tissue generated operational uncertainty only ameliorated by direct experimentation on individual subjects. The pathway chosen by each electrical application was not predictable and, to add complication, unique between subjects. Even results from impulses applied directly to one isolated neural locus were only predictable as to general functionality (i.e. vision, speech, muscular, etc.), not specific occurrences (e.g. which visual memory is triggered). In other words, you had to shock each “victim” repeatedly at each particular point on the skull to know with certainty each current’s path and precise effect. The obsessively meticulous Smith had spent a week mapping Karen’s cranial pathways.
Michael frowned ever so slightly. Smith had assured him he’d used the minimum current required. The wear and tear on his wife was unfortunate but necessary. The thought lingered for no more than thirty seconds.
Really Michael wanted her naked to better admire the elegantly flat, flexible steel bands, connectors and probes wrapping around and into her body to affect every critical function. To do so, however, was counter to her etiquette training program. So he contented himself by envisioning the remarkable low-profile components – ethereal contacts dispersed at key points on her feet’s pads, her ankle, knee and hip joints; the space-age filament wands inserted into vagina and anus; and for some undefined reason his favourite, the fiendish waist cinch constructed of gossamer steel “bones” set in a corset of silky NASA designed fabric simultaneously stretchy and unyielding.
“Now eat before the delicious food gets cold.” Austerely he observed the fear then apathy chasing each other across her face, and her fingers’ palsy when the fork moved upward. Truly he regretted this had all been so difficult – for both of them – but every objective had a price and this one – he knew she agreed with him – was worth it. His long fingers caressed a dial. One moment. Two. He smiled kindly, as at a child. Then his fingers moved, her wide-open eyes emptied and the fork fell from her hand.
For several moments he continued his passive appraisal … until the desire to see the whole of the apparatus became too great. He moved to the back of her chair, bent her forward and lowered the dress’ long zipper. Gently, so gently, he lifted the weightless wool off her shoulders, tugging when the tight sleeves snagged her arms, dropped it to her waist and returned her torso to the chair back. He too returned to his chair.
Appreciatively he examined the fine steel web and her opalescent skin between. Such beautiful breasts – like luscious teardrops charged with archetypal femaleness! Once again he thrilled to his good fortune, to his incontestable intuition. She was so close! Almost perfect.
His evaluation continued its sweep. Perhaps half a stone more. And she really was a little too tall but he’d live with it if he must.
His eyes went to the upper half of the cinch’s fabric, visible over the lowered dress. Like a thunderbolt, his cock was rock, achingly hard, so hard his balls screamed their need from loins to chest. His need was agonizing, blinding, ripping away his control.
He lifted her insubstantial body from the chair, barely feeling its weight. Restraining himself from tossing her, he instead laid her onto the bed. He worked to pull her dress over her high heels. When it caught on itself, he tore it off her. The chains attached to D-rings affixed to the bed frame had never been used but were ready, hidden under the long luxurious coverlet. Frantically he stripped her of panties, leaving garter belt, stockings and heels, spread her knees and chained her there, at waist and at throat. Then he tore off his own clothes, needing to be naked against the metal.
That she was still unconscious and not ready gave him a moment’s pause. With bulging eyes and saliva-filled mouth, he stared down at the inner thighs’ thin, luminous skin, at the strands of metal penetrating pristine vagina and anus. Each new stimulus flailed against his cock, rendering it more stone-like, and against his spirit, decimating his disintegrating control.
A large, viscous glob of his saliva fell to the coverlet in a spreading stain. Like a ravenous dog, need drove him. He must lap at her delectable meat! Stripped of all reason he fell upon her. His dripping mouth buried itself in her sweet cunt, her sweet ass, licking, slobbering, even gnawing with perfect straight white teeth. But his mind knew none of it. Only the animalistic id, his beast, tasted her sex, tasted her flesh and found them delicious.
Only when he sank his teeth into her thigh’s white meat, tantalizingly exposed between the silver bands and cream garters, was the beast’s hunger subdued … but not sated.
He lifted up and once again fixed on the mucilaginous hole. His aching rod pulsed blue with blood and pent up jism, demanding satisfaction. Of its own volition, it forced its way inside her tight, almost virginal vagina, rubbing against the metal probe. Its exultation rang in his ears and throughout his being. “So good!” and then “Ours! No one else’s!” It had an immediate impulse to cum but resisted, he felt its unaccustomed control. “Not enough! More!”
His own mouth’s slime worked as lubricant, easing the passage. Still he felt the tissue tear. Yet the damage only served to further inflame the organ. It penetrated her vulnerable warmth, ramming its bulging head against the cervix’ delicate mound, then withdrew almost completely into the cool air – interminable, ecstatic sensation. The kneading strokes, the impact, the temperature changes engendered profound, celestial bliss that they – id, ego and the Michael that was separate alike – wished would last forever … until the beast began its screams for release.
Then the ego took charge and a thread of rationality emerged. “No birth control! Not ready for impregnation!”
But the id’s shrill continued. “Release! Release! Release!” …
… until the ego could no longer bear it. It offered a solution, “Between the breasts!” and the id took it. The next instant his organ was enveloped in the two wonderfully pliable cushions and soft, milky warmth filled his hands.
It was then Michael saw she was conscious. All three consciousnesses looked down on her and observed her pain, her degradation and, amid it all, her struggle to submit to their will. All were enthralled and, yes, enflamed by the creature beneath them. The fury of their beats increased. Unrecognized sounds rushed from them. And in one giant eruption of release that surged through every one of their cells they covered her head in semen.
Suddenly there was only Michael and the remaining “he” was alone, cruelly, loathsomely alone … and so wretchedly empty. Blackness devoid of life loomed up around him. He tried to push it away but it moved inexorably closer in an apocalyptic tide. In desperation he implored it, pleaded with it, “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! Please, please forgive me!”
At his centre was one small bright life spark inscribed in his own steel, “This must never happen again!”
The plan had not taken long to formulate. She’d begun with the question “What will give me the most chance of saving Karen and beating,” her nose wrinkled in distaste, “that man?” It seemed an impossible task. He was so rich and powerful. The best she could do, Delia thought, was to learn his game, wait for an opportunity … and become strong.
Fortunately the
U.S.
business schools. So into the venerable classical, columned Vincent Hall she went.
That taken care of she focused on “strong”. Symbolically, she cut her gold streaked brown hair into spikes and dyed it black. She ran and pumped iron in the University’s well-equipped gym. It made her hard and strong but, she soon realized, didn’t help her fight.
She began to research – talking to people about locally available techniques and instructors and trying a few of the suggestions. At the end, the consensus said a small Shotokan dojo over an Indian restaurant on the seedier Western edge of the University had no equal in intensity and brutality.
The restaurant was a dingy hole in the wall with great, if not necessarily germ-free, food. A plain door recessed above a single concrete stair sat unobtrusively alongside the restaurant’s gaudy painted glass. Taped to the door was a small laminated rectangle bearing the words “Karate, 2
nd
Floor”. Her stomach growled at the spicy smells as she climbed the worn but clean stairs and knocked on the dojo door.
“Enter.” The voice was deep and mellifluous.
The single large room was bright with clear fall sunlight. The light reflected from gleaming mirrored walls and immaculately polished hardwood floors. Something she guessed was a shrine, though she’d never before seen one, sat against the far wall – a two foot high golden Buddha surrounded by flowers, flags and bronze objects she didn’t recognize. To its left, six heavy punching bags were chained to the high exposed ceiling.
From behind an old, square, dark wood desk nestled in the opposite corner, a black man in bare feet, white pants and a white jacket held together by what was obviously a black belt came to meet her. Delia restrained a gasp. He moved his awesome height – probably 6’4” – and spectacular, sleek muscles, evident even under the thick cloth, toward her with fluid grace and silence so profound her senses had an instant of asynchronism.
She held out her hand to him. He hesitated but then gripped it firmly in a hand twice its size. And all the while he looked calmly but piercingly down on her out of a strikingly handsome face and deep, dark, disturbing brown eyes.
Delia had heard that humility was a Shotokan watchword. This man did not seem to her humble. Not that he seemed proud. What he really seemed was frightening with a recognizable dose of paternalism.
He smiled, showing gleaming white teeth with long canines. “Like a big cat,” she thought.
“How can I help you?”
His lush voice rippled her skin like a warm wind. She felt heat rise into her cheeks. She steeled her spine and hardened her eyes. “I hear your classes are the hardest in
Minneapolis
. I want to learn to fight.”
“Why?” His smile was infuriating, asserting his power and taunting her to react.
And she so wanted to – to punch him in the stomach, kick him in the nuts or, at the very least, scream at him. But she didn’t. She extinguished her anger and met his irritating, gorgeous gaze, smile for smile. She shrugged and unaccountably told him the truth. “I need to protect a friend from someone very strong,” her smile became as hard as his, “and I want to win.”
Almost but not quite imperceptibly, his demeanour changed. She peered into his eyes and wondered if she was reading him correctly. He seemed way too pointedly, predatorily male and, this surprised her even more, not quite nice. Then the hypnotic voice. “My name is Jones but you will call me Sensei.” He lifted her hand and squeezed a little too hard. “You will be in my special class.”
Shit! It was cold! Even in the closed van the pre-dawn chill penetrated her bones, contracting muscles already tensed in preparation for the agonizing run. She pulled her sweatshirt hood tighter around her face and discreetly pressed closer to the hooded figure next to her.
Seven people huddled together on the stripped down van’s bare benches. One more, a slim blond girl – the only other female – with a rather plain face and a spectacular body honed by years as Sensei’s assistant (and some said lover) drove. Sensei sat in the front passenger seat, a stopwatch and clipboard in his lap.
Delia – and she was certain the six men agreed – wondered for the hundredth time why she put herself through this. She tried not to look at the dark trees whipping forbiddingly in what she knew was a freezing wind along the steep incline down 22
nd
into the Mississippi River gorge. Another minute and the van slowed and stopped in the long empty parking lot. She sighed. They were, of course, the first in the park.
‘Time to go.” Sensei shooed them from the van’s meagre warmth onto the grey pavement.
A hundred feet away below the flat brownish bank, the big river grumbled and slapped at its opaque expanse, visible only as unbroken darkness in the spectral morn. As she’d done three times a week under darkness’ cloak, Delia bowed to the river, told “the old man” she loved him and asked his blessing. She didn’t completely understand why the river moved her so. When she looked at its vast strength and potency she saw the benevolent Father whose long arms nourished the country from the stark Canadian border to the fertile
Everyone except Sensei stood stretching or stomping feet and waving arms against the cold. Sensei had slipped into the van’s driver’s seat. His dark skin shone in the faint overhead lamplight as he peered at his stopwatch. Delia saw his arm lower and heard the faint click. “Go!”
They all took off, racing out the parking lot entrance toward the
nd
Avenue
Over the hill’s top the ground levelled significantly. Scattered early morning lights outlined
When she finally stopped panting next to the van, everyone else was inside and Sensei was back in the front passenger seat waiting for her, his cruel smile gleaming bright. He gave the stopwatch a final click. “Eight minutes twenty two seconds. You’re improving.” He pulled the door closed with a bang. “Now sprints.” They drove back down to the gorge.
After fifteen minutes of thirty second sprints up the onerous incline with sixty second rests in-between – she was again, of course, last to the top – they returned to the dojo.
Half an hour of squat kicks on the polished floor that made her quads and gluts scream in agony and they began the real workout. The others were all brown belts, except the girl who wore a black belt – far along in their training. Initially, Delia’d found the movements awkward. She was still much slower than anyone else in the class. But she’d worked hard and was almost ready for testing on the first kata, an elaborate series of movements that defined the first level.
After half an hour of kata practice, Sensei ordered kumite – sparring with a partner. The others, who were fairly well matched, paired off. So if she was lucky, she sparred with the assistant. If she was unlucky she got Sensei … a painful but excellent workout with probably a bruise or two. This morning Sensei stood before her.
Delia could not believe his speed. She could see him move but was never fast enough to touch him – not his hand nor any part of his body – unless he allowed it. If he attacked she would be on her back on the floor before she blinked. And he was merciless, coming on ceaselessly, pushing her relentlessly. She knew he took pleasure in standing triumphantly over her after he’d dumped her onto inflexible bones.
Only once, in fury and humiliation as she lay below him, had she tried street fighting techniques – to grab his balls, a manoeuvre she knew he’d sanction if, and it was a big if, she was successful. Her eyes had processed his movement even while her body hadn’t been fast enough. He’d almost broken her wrist.