Crimson Flare: Blackmail

by marat

 

Chapter Nine

 

Fareed Gouyannou glared at the bound figures before him. Tim Westbrook lay on the polished floor of the ballroom, curled into an unmoving ball. He had been carried up from the cell below and unceremoniously dumped there. Since then, he had been silent. What Gouyannou saw of his face told him that the policeman would likely not recover.

 

That would be fine.

 

But Maria Blakeman was most assuredly conscious—conscious and aware of what was happening. She stared fixedly, defiantly, at the ganglord. Her bound wrists lay against her hips—hips and thighs shown to glorious advantage by the skintight black catsuit her wore. Her head held high, she was unafraid. Was it a bluff? the short paunchy man wondered. Or police training? Or—and this thought frightened him—did she know something, something he didn’t know?

 

What Maria knew was that she had only two options. Her session below in the cell with Tim had told her that Gouyannou intended to establish his credentials as the crime kingpin in Mitropoulos tonight. What little Tim was able to communicate—he had fallen into and out of consciousness, and speaking in any case was difficult given the beating he had taken—was enough for her to conclude that the criminals gathered here tonight had come at Fareed’s behest; that they were here to witness his triumph over Crimson Flare and her humbling at his hands; and—here she could only draw conclusions based on little things Tim had witnessed and heard—that his mastery of the City was being aided from within the Police Department.

 

Therefore… on the one hand, she could adopt a position of weakness, plead with Gouyannou for her life and Tim’s; bargain to stay alive; appear willing to do anything he said. While this would be designed to buy time, of course, time for Crimson Flare to return, Gouyannou was unlikely to show mercy.

 

The alternative, the attitude she had chosen to adopt, would be silent defiance. Silence would leave open the question of just how much she knew was going on. Defiance would imply a position of strength, though from what that strength arose was not at all clear. Silence also would allow Gouyannou’s imagination to fill in the blanks. And imagination, Blakeman knew, would likely be much worse than reality.

 

She saw that the ganglord’s henchmen were now scattered around the hall, and they were likely placed around the entire mansion. Only Crimson Flare could be the object of all these preparations.

 

She would remain silent, no matter what Gouyannou and his thugs would do to her. She must buy time!

 

*                             *                       *

 

Karen lay on the bed, now freed from the ropes. Her mask and cowl had been removed; her belt with her baton lay on the floor beside the bed; but the famed costume of Crimson Flare was still in place. It clung tightly to her form; the heroine’s breathing had slowed and showed as the petite, perfect mounds of her breasts rhythmically rose and fell. Perspiration had been wiped from her face, but the moistness on her arms still shone in the bright lights on the bedroom.

 

Lynn sat on the edge of the bed, hovering. She gently stroked Karen’s face. The lithe blonde wanted to coo softly, like a mother calming a child, but she instead remained silent.

 

‘What happened?’

 

‘You fainted.’ Lynn whispered. ‘What do you remember?’

 

‘Give me a minute.’ The girl paused as she tried to recollect something from only a few minutes earlier. ‘I think… I think I felt… violently ill.’

 

Lynn just listened.

 

‘It was like my insides were tying themselves in knots. It was painful. Then the whole room began to spin, and…

 

‘You didn’t feel… weak?’

 

‘Yes, I did… but… I don’t know… it wasn’t like my strength was gone. It was more like… I was sick. That kind of debilitating. I was… dizzy… like… vertigo. And I felt like… like…

 

‘Like what?’

 

‘Like…’ she paused, embarrassed, ‘like I should run as fast as I could for the bathroom!’

 

Lynn smiled and turned her head. She needed to keep the moment serious. Then she looked down at her friend. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t… shouldn’t go…’

 

Karen sat upright. Her vigor surprised both of the women. ‘I have to go! Really!’ She added, ‘I feel all right now.’

 

‘You… you can’t. We have to figure out what happened to you. We have to be prepared…. You have to be prepared!’

 

‘And what about…?’

 

Karen stood up. Lynn noticed that there was none of the unsteadiness that had gripped the Champion only minutes earlier. Lynn watched silently as Karen replaced the cowl and mask and pulled on her gloves. There was no doubt in her mind that Crimson Flare had truly been restored.

 

‘You have no idea how I feel.’ Karen smiled broadly as she pulled her belt and baton into place on her hips.

 

‘You have no idea how you look,’ Lynn replied, ‘but…’

 

‘No buts! I’m ready to go.’ Her whole body shuddered, as if a bolt of strength had shot up her spine. Behind her shining black mask, Crimson Flare’s green eyes sparkled. The Defender of Mitropoulos smiled broadly.

 

Without a backward glance, Crimson Flare pushed open the door and raced out.

 

Lynn stood in the empty apartment. She was silent for a moment.

 

Then she turned toward the next room where Ted’s body lay.

 

*                    *                    *

 

As Crimson Flare sped through the streets of Mitropoulos, she realised that it was true. There were no residual effects of whatever it was that had gripped her when she had been bound. In fact, she felt stronger than ever.

 

There were so many things about her body—her strength and her Powers—that she did not understand. She had been a virgin until her capture and rape by the Normans. Chan believed that her virginity contributed to her strength and power, and by taking it away, she would be disarmed.

 

He was wrong.

 

Then he attempted to control her through drugs.

 

Again he was wrong.

 

Brayfield had tried to search her mind for an understanding of the source and nature of her superpowers. He, too, had wanted to control them… and her.

 

He had failed, too.

 

In the last few hours, Fareed Gouyannou had attempted a variation on the drug habit to achieve the same thing. The dependence on drugs had not taken hold, and now, following a monumental orgasm, she felt better and cleaner than she had for months.

 

No one could control her powers.

 

Except her.

 

Even though she had no idea where they had come from—they had always been there, as she had explained to Stacy and Lynn—and she had no idea why they fell away under the circumstances that they did, any attempt by an outsider to control her had resulted in tragedy. Tragedy for Chan and the Normans and Dr. Brayfield.

 

Now it was Fareed Gouyannou’s turn.

 

She sped into the low hills where the ganglord had set up his festival, leaping obstacles; fairly flying back to what she was certain was a trap for her. But she must rescue Maria.

 

*                    *                    *

 

The McLeod-Slaughter Mansion had taken on a very different aspect since Crimson Flare had left a few hours ago. When she had flown the place, leaving Fareed Gouyannou at the peak of his power, it was brightly lit, a holiday mood filled the place, with partiers speaking drunkenly and laughing loudly.

 

Now it had the look of a fortress.

 

In the large ballroom on the first floor, Fareed Gouyannou paced back and forth, smiling at the firepower that had been amassed as a welcome for the return of the Defender of Mitropoulos. But still, he felt uneasy. The initiative remained with Crimson Flare. She would make the choices about where and when to attack. That was not acceptable.

 

She must be forced to attack, if possible at a place of his choosing. That way, he would have all of the advantages.

 

He paused for only a moment as he considered what he could do…

 

He looked at Maria Blakeman. His eyes drifted to a few of his henchmen who stood casually nearby, and he saw that their stares kept returning to the catsuited figure of the young policewoman.

 

Gouyannou pulled a communicator from his pocket. ‘Stevens!’ he said sharply.

 

‘Yes, sir!’ quickly came the reply.

 

‘Focus all of my resources on the library! Crimson Flare will be going there.’

 

Yes, sir!’

 

Upstairs, Stevens began shepherding his men away from the rear of the house and toward the grand staircase leading to the foyer. Many of these men moved slowly, walking unevenly along the hallways, thanks to heavy drinking earlier. Even if the heroine entered the house via a second-floor window, according to Stevens’ instructions, she would still seek to make her way to the library off the foyer downstairs.

 

Then he ran down the twenty steps to the polished marble floor that served as the entrance to the mansion and began pulling his crew toward the single door that opened on the library. Again, he noticed the sluggishness of these armed thugs as they complied, not altogether willingly, with his orders.

 

If it came to a battle, many of these gunmen would be of little use.

 

In the ballroom, Gouyannou made a small signal to another of his capos. Maria Blakeman’s arms were seized, and she was dragged toward the entrance of the ballroom, as the thugs obediently followed their master. Maria resisted and watched sadly as Tim Westbrook’s unmoving form receded from her view.

 

The crime lord led the way into the library. He flicked the wall switch, and the dim ceiling light flickered on.

 

Empty floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls of the dusty, unused chamber. Two large overstuffed chairs sat near the single window. The lawn visible through the tall window was well-lit, thanks to the spotlights that still illuminated the house’s façade. The cover of a small grove of trees was many yards distant. A large, heavy oaken table filled the centre of the room. Any other bric-a-brac that might have marked the previous owner’s interests had been removed.

 

The pudgy criminal chieftain looked around the room. Yes, he thought, this will do fine!

 

‘Put her there!’ he ordered, pointing at the table.

 

Maria’s eyes suddenly widened as she realised Gouyannou’s intent. She stiffened, dug her heels into the well-worn carpeting, and tried to twist and pull herself free. But the two men who held her were strong, and her cuffed wrists did not allow her to use her police training.

 

Maria heard the men straining to control the catsuited wildcat, and she smelled their vile, alcohol-laden breath on her face. She twisted her body violently… if she could just get one arm, one wrist, free…

 

The two thugs smashed their captive onto the table, stunning her.

 

‘Gouyannou’s face was all serious now. ‘You may have your way with her, gentlemen. But make sure that she is extremely loud in her resistance. Do not try to silence her!’

 

*                    *                    *

 

Two of Gouyannou’s lieutenants held the policewoman’s arms. She tried to kick one of them with the sharp heel of her boot, but struck only a glancing blow. He shouted more in surprise than in pain, and in retaliation he yanked upward on her arm.

 

A third man, this one a little more hung over than his fellows, stepped between them, behind the writhing girl, and slowly pulled down the zipper on her catsuit. As the tanned flesh of her shoulders and back were exposed, he smiled and stopped to admire.

 

‘This is one sexy bitch!’ he said loudly, his speech still slurred.

 

‘You’ll get your turn!’ one of the others replied impatiently.

 

He continued to pull at the metal fastener. When it reached the small of her back, he reached his other hand out to caress drunkenly the smooth, flawless skin.

 

Maria reacted immediately to his touch. ‘Get your hands off me!’ she yelped.

 

The thug smiled broadly, showing rows of yellowing teeth. ‘We have to teach this little lady some manners,’ he said. ‘We should teach her to respect us!’

 

He pulled the zipper to the base of her spine, and then dipped his hand inside the shiny leather, gripping the policewoman’s perfectly round cheek.

 

This time, Maria was more successful in her counterattack. With all the force she could muster, she brought her foot up behind her, directly between the offender’s legs. His eyes went wide and he howled loudly in pain. The thug dropped to the floor like a stone, slowly curling into a fetal ball.

 

‘You cunt!’ one of the men holding Maria shouted. He dropped his grip on her arm, turned the girl and sent his fist viciously at her jaw.

 

Her head spun wildly on her shoulders and her body was torn from the grip of the other of Gouyannou’s lieutenants. Blindly, she stumbled across the open floor, finally stopping when her hips struck the large table.

 

Another of the thugs quickly walked up behind her and drove his fist into her now-exposed back.

 

The shock of the kidney punch curved Maria’s body into a shiny black arc. She stood on the very tips of her toes, her body curved aesthetically into a bow. The cry that emerged from her throat was high-pitched and very short, cut off when she crumpled to the floor.

 

Gouyannou’s men now encircled the quivering policewoman, some smiling, some laughing softly. The lieutenant who had been floored stumbled to his feet and moved directly over the helpless woman. As he kicked her—hard—in the midriff, he shouted, Cunt!’

 

Maria tightened herself into a ball, but he did not attack her further. Rather, he and one other thug roughly seized her arms and yanked her to her feet. The other capos stepped in front of the trapped beauty and smiled.

 

‘You will learn respect, bitch!’ one said. ‘But Mr. Gouyannou says you have to be loud.’

 

‘So you wanted to join the police, eh? Did you study this at the police academy?’ He roughly tore the shiny material from her shoulders and arms. ‘You’re not gonna stop us from doing what we want!’

 

Maria tried to focus her mind on Crimson Flare. Crimson Flare, who was, she knew, coming to rescue her—coming now! The Darling of Mitropoulos, who was the reason she had become a policewoman, would have to rescue her from these violent maniacs.

 

*                       *                       *          

 

One of the capos stood directly in front of the naked policewoman. Maria retained her defiant aspect, but she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She was sweating profusely; her throat was as dry as sandpaper. And when she looked into the man’s eyes, she saw only his lust.

 

He was evidently trying to smile, but his scarred face could only produce a loathsome sneer. His nose had been broken, probably several times, and the trenches left by the wounds of battles he had fought for Gouyannou ripped the landscape of his countenance. Evidently high-ranking in the Gouyannou organisation, this thug was to be the first.

 

Maria was not bound now, for there were a half-a-dozen others standing in the shadows around the room, hard men who would ensure that any resistance she offered would be futile. They were likely not needed in any case because her body still ached from the pounding that Gouyannou’s thugs had administered.

 

‘The boss wants you to scream, girlie!’

 

He roughly grabbed her hair and viciously yanked her head to the side.

 

She screamed.

 

He led her across the room to the table, still holding her by the hair. He bent her body backwards over the smooth, polished surface, where he could admire the tautness of her muscles and the smooth, flawless flesh. However, he didn’t admire her body for long.

 

He released her for but a moment, while he quickly removed his pants and briefs. As he stood before her again, he licked his lips in anticipation. Maria felt him lift her easily, and drop her onto her back. The polished oak was cold.

 

He slipped onto the table and knelt between the girl’s spread legs. ‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ he whispered harshly. ‘But you aren’t!’

 

He reached forward and thrust his meaty fist deep into her dark hair to savagely wrench the girl’s head. Again, she cried out. ‘That’s good,’ the thug said softly, ‘keep doing that.’ He yanked again.

 

His organ stiffened. On his knees, the thug’s body loomed above the much smaller woman; one hand was wrapped in her hair; he moved the other to her shoulder, so that thumb and index finger could feel the softness of her neck. That strange softness stimulated him still more. Most of the women he had known had not felt like this.

 

He looked at the eyes of the captive girl and he saw fear. That was good. But, as he looked deeper, he saw something else.

 

Hate. That was good, too.

 

He pulled on her hair again; she yelped again. This time he pinched his thumb and forefinger on her soft and vulnerable throat.

 

She screeched.

 

He smiled.

 

The fear and hate only stimulated him more. He felt his prick harden as the first tears of pain flickered in her eyes. He rose up from his elbows and rested on his knees alone; he released her hair, and enclosed her breast within his grasp. His hand ripped at the mammary like it was a claw and then he clamped his grip tightly on it.

 

She screamed in pain.

 

He hardened even more.

 

The thug pressed his knee forward, against her sex. Panic appeared for the first time in Maria’s eyes; her breathing became quick and harsh. Good! he thought.

 

He squeezed the huge fist he had clamped on the round, petite breast of the policewoman, squeezed as hard as he could. She shrieked in agony. ‘NOOOH!’ she wailed.

 

He felt as if his sack would burst.

 

Releasing her breast, the thug grabbed the woman like she was a child’s doll. She felt herself lifted almost bodily from the table. Too weak to resist the big man who now controlled her, Maria’s dazzling form was moved to the other end of the table, where she was slammed bodily into the platform. The policewoman could not resist as her chest and shoulders crashed into the polished oak. Then, before she realised it, the thug had lifted her perfectly curved ass, exposing her sex.

 

The men scattered around the library watched with awe. A few now felt themselves begin to respond to the policewoman’s dazzling body.

 

Then the capo thrust himself deep into his captive. Again, the girl screeched her pain.

 

                                                            *                       *                       *

 

A half dozen of Gouyannou’s lieutenants watched silently—many of them smiling--from the shadows around the library. Each knew he would have his turn with this prisoner. All of them gazed admiringly at her body, a body that seemed flawless: silken skin stretched tautly over powerful muscles; the curves of her body emitting a promise of a rapturous joining; gloriously beautiful features—her eyes so dark as to be almost black, lips shaped perfectly for kissing, pouting—and screaming; the perfectly round mounds of her breasts; a flat stomach and round hips inviting any man who was a Man to plunge deeply into her; and her sex, hidden from all who watched, the prize awaiting them all.

 

And now, into this spectacle of female perfection and the male’s blind animal impulse, came a soundtrack. So odd, and yet so perfect to accompany the raptures of these upper-echelon gang lords and the degradation of the policewoman.

 

Gouyannou piped the glorious sounds of Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass throughout the mansion.

 

*                       *                       *

 

The capo pressed his prick deep into the captive policewoman. He gazed down on the silken flesh of her back, curving smoothly away from him. Focused on the Woman, the soundtrack provided by Gouyannou made no impression on this thug. He watched as she slowly—painfully, almost—pushed herself up from the table. He smiled inwardly as she twisted her body, trying to pull her head around so that she could look at him. To what end? he thought briefly—very briefly. What would she do? What could she do? Would she fight him? Would she arrest him?

 

After all, she was only a Woman.

 

The thug returned to his pleasure. He felt the explosion swelling within him. He gritted his teeth as he resisted. No, this must not be like so many others. This one must last.

 

Gouyannou had ordered that she must scream.

 

He must make her scream.

 

*                       *                       *

 

Maria twisted her neck and head so that she looked back at Gouyannou’s man who was mounted behind her. The pain of his entry had not subsided, but had become a part of the universe of pain that embraced her, a universe that existed in bizarre counterpoint to the music she heard, only occasionally, wafting about the room. She saw his teeth gritted and his brown eyes wide and blazing, like they were on fire. His scarred face had become a mask worthy of a horror film by Rick Baker. His powerful hands held her, pulling her to him, driving him even deeper into her.

 

She was crying now. No longer able to make out any details in the room, she turned and pulled her head inward, dropping her shoulders to the table. The pain of his penetration reached up her spine, spread outward from her sex, until it embraced her whole body.

 

Suddenly, the thug’s meaty fist grabbed her hair from behind and he viciously yanked her head upward. He reached at her chest and clamped the other paw onto one of her perfect breasts, crushing it with all his strength, his fingernails eating into the soft flesh.

 

Her scream was loud and long. As it ended, Maria felt his heavy, hot breath on her back. He continued to mash her breast with one hand, but the other now moved from her hair to her throat, as his fingers played over her chin and probed her lips.

 

He thrust again, driving his manhood just a little deeper into her dry, resisting sex. His breath caught, as he swallowed, almost gagging on the approaching ecstasy. Another low scream rumbled in her throat. Weakly, Maria reached up, trying with one hand to pull his fingers from her mouth.

 

She knew that she was too weak to resist. Too weak to pull his hand from her breast; too weak to free her mouth from the other hand; too weak to even wriggle her captive body free from him. Even with her police training, Maria could not escape this moment.

 

The thug thrust again, banging his hips against her ass, making her whole body shudder. Tears welled up in Maria’s eyes, and then rolled down her face.

 

No!

 

He hammered her again, driving his prick inward and upward, pushing himself to fulfillment.

 

No!

 

Again he drove deeper into her. He was rock-hard now.

 

‘NOOOHH’ she screamed, loud and long.

 

His body exploded with rapture.

 

‘GOD! NO! NO!’  she shouted. Again and again, she screamed, ‘No! No! No!’

 

*                       *                       *

 

Outside the McLeod-Slaughter mansion, Mitropoulos’ greatest Defender, Crimson Flare, stood in the trees across the road. She heard the policewoman’s screams that were accompanied by Gounod’s masterful music. Her eyes hardened as she realised that her friend was being used as bait—bait to draw in the heroine, to make her take a rash action… to allow Gouyannou and his criminal enterprise to capture her… and doom the city to his control.

 

She winced as Maria screamed again.

 

She began to move.

 

*                       *                       *

 

Her rapist was exultant. His whole body seemed to be lifted by what probably passed for a smile on that scored face. When he finally came, it was like an explosion. He looked up to the high ceiling of the library and released a guttural roar, as his pent-up passion rushed from him; his manhood likewise burst from him as his rock-hard prick finally responded to the powerful sensations that had gripped it from its sensitive tip to his base, held firmly in the dry and unyielding canal of his victim; and Maria Blakeman cried out her pain and humiliation.

 

As he pulled himself from her, his cock rapidly declined to flaccidity.

 

When he released his grip on Maria’s hips, they did not fall to the tabletop, but rather they stood still, remaining high, supported on her knees. In this posture, this captive, humbled Woman was made further laughable at the hands of the gang of toughs.

 

The capo slowly regained his senses and he slipped from the table, breathing heavily. Already, another gang boss had stepped forward from the shadows, rushing his partner from center stage. ‘It’s my turn,’ he said.

 

As the second brute pulled off his pants and boxers, it was hard not to notice that he was already hard. His cock was huge, and from the shadowed walls around the library’s open space a murmur arose.

 

‘It looks like he’s hiding a rabbit in his package!’ And harsh laughter flowed around the room.

 

He heartily slapped the elevated rear of the whimpering policewoman as he settled in behind her.

 

The perfect curvature of Maria’s hips and the smooth musculature of her thighs hovered before him, and he felt the tip of his prick tingle. Oh, no, he thought to himself. Oh, no. I can’t cum all over her back. I can’t let loose until…

 

He felt his body shudder.

 

Oh, god! No!

 

With a huge mental effort he regained control over his body, but the struggle showed in the tenseness that gripped him from his shoulders and neck all the way to his toes, which arched backward and upward.

 

He unceremoniously grabbed Maria, pulling her--hard--to him. Maria groaned loudly, but her groan became a shriek as he plunged his huge prick into her.

 

Her eyes widened as the pain was renewed. Inside her, she felt a shock race up her spine. Behind her, the well-endowed ganglord began to saw his prick, slowly, inside her aching pussy. Involuntarily, her moisture began to wrap around the massive cock, easing its motion, alleviating some of her agony.

 

But, even as the physical torture diminished, the indignity of being raped before an audience of Gouyannou’s capos remained before her eyes.

 

The criminal who now ravished her whooooped! like a cowboy riding a bronco and he again loudly slapped her hip. He moved wildly up-and-down behind Maria, pulling her hips with him, adding a comic element to the policewoman’s tragedy.

 

*                       *                       *

 

Crimson Flare climbed easily onto the roof of the McLeod-Slaughter mansion. As she did so, she realised that she had never felt so fit, so strong. It was this level of strength, these reserves of power that Stacy had imagined for her. Stacy, whose hand could be seen in every element of Crimson Flare—her costume, her actions and activities, her goals—had dreamed of Karen as a powerful Superheroine, who would free Mitropoulos from the grip of the gangs and serve as a role model for all its citizens, particularly its Women. Stacy had dedicated the fortune she had inherited from her parents to create Crimson Flare. She had died trying to preserve that work. Now the moment she had dreamed of had arrived: The destruction of the gangs.

 

She pulled the baton from its holster and, with a smooth whip of her wrist, felt it extend to its full length.

At that same moment, she heard Maria scream again. This time, the cry was weaker.

She stepped as quietly as she could across the roof, toward the large skylight above the foyer.

 

End of Chapter Nine

 

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