Max was in a dark room. He couldn’t tell what size it was, he couldn’t tell what was out there in the darkness. Only that he was sitting, sitting in a chair. The darkness vibrated, strange sounds, thumps, distant voices echoing somewhere in its far corners. But somehow, he wasn’t afraid.

How had he gotten here? He had been... on a journey? He’d been having the most wonderful dream... a dream about power, freedom, invincibility. Impunity. Pleasure. The power to do anything, to satisfy any desire. He’d been dreaming... dreaming about being a god.

The dream had ended with an agonizing jolt, and now he was here. Where was here?

"Hello?" he called out, tentatively. "Is anyone there?"

A bright shaft of light penetrated the darkness. A spotlight! A spotlight, on a stage. He was in a cabaret! There was a clinking of glasses, the tinkling of a piano in the background, it was playing "Satin Doll." He could see now there were other tables, tables with people, people he couldn’t make out... though the closest ones, he saw, squinting, all seemed to look somehow like... like him.

Yes, they all did look like him, suspiciously so, it must be a trick of the dim light. And they all had a female partner with them, each one a winsome, full-lipped girl with brown hair and big hazel eyes, busty and lovely and very very young, not a day over eighteen, each one wearing a black cocktail dress. There was a murmur of conversation from each table, anticipation of the show, chatter about world events, exchanges of views on art... at one table the girl, who looked the same as the girls at all the other tables, posed the question "Is beauty truth or is truth beauty?" And her partner, who looked much like him, just gave a debonair laugh.

There came a deliberate clip... clop... clip... clop... clip... clop... of hard shoes on the stage. A figure was coming to the edge of the spotlight, a female figure, visible only as a hint of shining golden hair above an hourglass shadow. There was a buzz of excitement from the crowd, and Max found himself taking in his breath, waiting to see who it could be. He felt a hand grip his – it was his female companion, looking like the others, and she leaned in close to his ear and whispered something, but instead of sounds out of her mouth there came luminescent letters, drifting and floating on the air in front of him, that said: "Shpx zr yvxr n juber, qnqql, v ybir lbhe pbpx."

"I don’t understand," he whispered back. "Let’s just watch the show."

As he turned back to the stage, the piano had launched into a raunchy stripper’s vamp, and the figure at the edge of the spotlight stepped into it. He gasped: it was Summerset O’Neale! Summerset O’Neale, the Number One Foxx, and here she was wearing nothing but black stiletto heels, swaying her petite hourglass frame ever so slowly to the music, her long mane of hair shining white-gold in the spotlight, her awe-inspiring double D’s thrust proudly out in front of her, big pink nipples puffily erect, the blonde tufted fuzz of her pussy just visible at the junction of her legs, the muscles of her flat belly, her athletic thighs and calves rippling sinuously with each motion, her finely-chiseled face as serious as ever, her compelling blue eyes locked directly on him, looking right into him. She looked glorious, almost barbaric, like some primal Nordic warrior princess, like she’d stepped out of a Frank Frazetta painting, and he was suddenly aware that he had a painful erection tenting his pants, his blood was pounding at his temples, it was all he could do to restrain himself from vaulting onto the stage and grabbing her and...

"I want you, Max," came her extraordinary voice, gentle and husky, somehow commanding and innocent and firm and tender and forceful and vulnerable all at once, echoing from the dark cabaret all around them, and though her lips didn’t move he knew that it was her speaking, it was her. "I want you so bad, Max. So bad. Do you want me?"

He tried to speak, his throat was dry, he couldn’t get the words out.

She went into an arresting, sinuous crouch, spreading her legs, revealing a heart-thumping flash of her tight pink pussy lips, then waggling her hips sexily as she straightened up again and sauntered toward the edge of the stage, clip, clop, her eyes never leaving him, never wavering, her breasts rising, falling, rising, falling. "Do you want me, Max? Say that you want me, Max."

He finally rasped, hoarsely, "Of course I want you, Summer. I’ve always wanted you. I’ve always... wanted to..."

"Wanted to what, Max?" Strange that her mouth didn’t move, but that seemed a minor detail as her hands reached up and cupped those wondrously full breasts, rubbing them, mashing them together. "Wanted to slide your big, hard cock between these, Max? Wanted to fuck my tits and my hot, wet mouth, Max?" And her mouth did open then, her sinuous pink tongue flickering out over first one engorged nipple, then the other, circling around it, stiffening it, sucking it in. First one, then the other. One, then the other, licking, sucking, coating her beautiful breasts in her own spit, leaving them glistening, heaving, wet.

He felt as though the top of his head might come off. "Yes," he eventually managed, weakly. "Yes..."

"You can do that, Max. You can have me, Max. But you have to turn me on. Do you know what turns me on, Max?"

He swallowed and shook his head.

"Satellite digital interface codes, Max. Interface codes make me hot, Max. Don’t you want to make me hot, Max?"

He smiled. Summerset had always had the strangest obsessions, but girls... girls would be girls... he numbly recited all the access codes he could think of as he watch her rub her fat tits, pulling the nipples out slowly, pinching them, slapping them playfully, punishing her own tits. He heard the sound of her breathy moans susurrating through the darkness around him, saw her body writhing more and more sensually on the stage with every passcode, the slaps on her tits getting harder, louder, so that he felt a sense of desperate inadequacy when he couldn’t remember any more.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." came her long, throaty moan when he was finished, her eyes again boring into him, unwavering, a sheen of sweat covering her firm, supple flesh, her breasts pink, rising and falling heavily, out of time with her words but that didn’t matter. "That was nice, Max. That was so nice. But do you know what would be even nicer, Max?"

He shook his head, dumbly.

She threw her arms up suddenly over her head, did a sinuous, teasing belly-dancer’s gyration once, twice, three times, four, winding until her back was to him, her full, ripe, jiggling ass thrusting out at him, her asshole just visible in its dark cleft and the lips of her snatch peeping out below as she looked back at him over her shoulder, her eyes smouldering. "It would be so nice to have your hot cock in my ass, Max. I’ve always wanted to take your fat dick in my ass, Max. Don’t you want to give it to me, Max? Haven’t you always wanted to give it to me, Max?" She ran a hand over her glistening ass-flesh and slapped it playfully.

He nodded, in a trance. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "Yes, I want that... Yes..."

"Then make me give it up to you, Max. Tell me all about our imminent mission goals and our undercover assets, Max. Tell me all about them and make me give you my hot, tight ass, Max. Our imminent mission goals and undercover assets make me so hot, Max."

"But... but you already know all that..."

"Tell me again, Max. Tell me again and you can take my tight ass any time you want, Max."

He hesitated in bewilderment for a moment... and then saw that she was bringing a finger up to her lips, licking it sensually, and bringing it down to play with the rim of her asshole, and he found himself reciting the information woodenly, barely hearing the words coming out of his mouth, all his attention on that playful finger as it started to dip in and out, in and out of that tight, beautiful ass, her hips starting to gyrate, her legs starting to spread, her moans sounding louder and louder and louder around him as he went on, her pussy lips visible now, parting slightly, glistening with arousal, fat droplets of her juice starting to slide down her inner thighs. The erection in his pants was agonizing, he didn’t dare touch it, he feared it would burst... but he didn’t want those wonderful moans, that delicious play to stop... after telling her everything he could think to say about their mission goals, Foxx undercover missions and tools and techniques, the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches, current status of and plans for the Kitts, plans for future recruitment, he stuttered to a halt...

By which point she was writhing and wriggling on all fours on the stage, in complete abandon, her full, curvy rump thrust up and her legs wide, her pussy obviously sopping, her clit visibly hard, her asshole wide open and she was thrusting three fingers in and out, in and out, over and over. "MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-MMMMMMmmmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm that was wonderful, Max," came the breathy voice from around him again. "You are so going to have my ass, Max. Now tell me, what would you do for my cunt, Max? What would you do to slam-fuck my tight, wet pussy, Max? Would you like to do that, Max?" With effortless agility she had wriggled around onto her back, was looking steadily at him from between widely-splayed legs, one hand gently rubbing at a plainly engorged clit as juices ran down from her slot, the other pulling and tugging at a massive tit.

"What do you want?" he all but gasped. "Anything. ANYTHING."

"Pretend I’ve just taken down Vladimir Popov and his gang," she said. "Tell me what you’d say, Max. I love the sound of your voice, Max. The sound of your voice makes my cunt so wet, Max, I’d have no choice but to fuck you if you pretended to talk to me like we’re on a conference call after I’ve just taken down Vladimir Popov and his gang."

Oh thank God, an easy one, he thought with relief, and he delivered the patter from a typical phone call with the girls, it rolling easily off his tongue as he watched her frig herself, then finger herself, first one finger, then two, then three, her hips circling languidly as he heard her moans of ecstasy around him, watched her pussy get wetter and wetter, its hot juices dripping down into her tight asshole, until he thought for certain he would faint.

At last he came to the end.

"OOOHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhOHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh so good, Max," she said, still writhing, still watching him but seemingly unable to stop playing with her dripping cunt. "Now are you ready to fuck me, Max? Are you ready to fuck me hard, Max? Are you ready to pound me like a little slut, Max?" She slid four fingers into her snatch, three knuckles deep into it as the words breathed around him.

He nodded desperately, his throat suddenly dry.

"That’s good, Max. I really want to fuck you, Max, damn I’m so ready for it. Before I come down from this stage and take you inside all my holes, Max, I just need you to tell me one more thing. Tell me about any auxiliary lines of communication no wait we need to know about shut the fuck up I said tell me about I’m just saying look, will you fucking shut it mmmmmmmmmmm yeahhhhhhh sorry about that, Max, baby, tell me about any auxiliary lines of communication Operation Freedom has with Washington, Max. I love to hear you talk about auxiliary lines of communication, Max. Tell me all about it and you can have my all my holes, Max."

"Wait..." Max said, bewildered, his erection wilting, still stuck at the part where her speech had broken down. "Wait, what?"

The piano music in the back was stumbling, the piano player had segued bizarrely into "Chopsticks." He looked around him in confusion, and the other tables weren’t full of debonair couples any more. They were all full of frozen tableaux of him, his pants open, his cock out, his dinner date now cowering before him in various positions, at one table being forced to fellate him with his loaded gun to her head, at another being fucked brutally in her squirting snatch, at another splayed out in front of him while he crouched over her like a Satyr with his dick buried deep in her ass, her hands bound behind her with what looked like the shreds of her cocktail dress, her pussy running liquid like a fountain, like a garden hose that had been left on, her face humiliated and bewildered and horrified and disbelieving. Mewling sounds of pain and fear and horrific ecstasy and cries of "please mister please!" came from the darkness all around him. The floor was wet. The wetness was rising.

"What the fuck? What the fuck?" he shouted. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Come on, Max, don’t you want, come on, just tell me about, baby, come on, oh fuck it we’ve lost him, that’ll have to do for now, just e-mail the script to Caliente," came Summerset’s husky tones one last time, and then they were gone, along with the goddess on the stage, and the music and the light were gone, and all that was left were the horrible mewling sounds of feminine distress and the rising liquid, liquid up to his knees, and oh God it was piss it was piss and it was up to his waist and he was floundering, looking for an exit, his feet slipping, his sense of direction gone and it was up to his chest and he heard voices screaming "please mister don’t!" and it was up to his chin and he was going to drown in it to drown in it he was going to fucking drown—

* * * * *

Max Fawkes started awake in a strange bed, gasping and choking, fully expecting to find his lungs filling with horrific fluid.

He took a few breaths to steady himself, looked around him, finding what looked to be a well-appointed, well-lit guest room, decorated in warm russet tones. He was on a round bed, spacious, with what he discovered were satin sheets – and he discovered, much to his displeasure, that someone had taken the liberty of dressing him in white pajamas.

He looked outside the window. A sunny day, big shade trees nearby, the sound of water. There was freshly-mown grass on the air, he was on some kind of estate. Maybe just outside Island City proper.

Okayokayokay, time to assess. Max shook his head, vigorously, trying to get the cobwebs out. Think Max, think! Assess! What the fuck happened last night? Where are you? How did you get here? Who has you?

Apart from the fact that it was nothing good, it was hard to piece the night together. His last clear memory was coming out of work, heading toward his car... he remembered vividly the sensation of being watched, and then there’d been some kind of incident, an altercation, and then...

His mind wanted to flinch away from what came next, but he closed his eyes, concentrated, disciplined his breathing. We don’t have the luxury of flinching, brain, if we’re as screwed as I think we are.

There was... a girl. The girl, he remembered her vividly from the dream, the girl in the black dress. What was it about her?

"Weaponized pheromones!" He’d thought those words. She’d approached him close. He remembered thinking she was a plant... and maybe she had been. But it was hard to believe she’d signed up for what she’d gotten. Max repressed a rising sense of horror and nausea as he recalled the violent tableaux from his dream, the girl being tied up, coerced, fucked, raped, humiliated. Those things weren’t imagination, he realized. They were real. He had done those things. He had done those things to her, after one whiff of some powerful pheromone that’d been somehow planted on her.

He’d been dreaming... dreaming about being a god. The sheer vicious, rutting joy of it was still something his conscious mind shied away from. Toward the end, he’d lost even any internal mental or ethical distance from the acts. He’d revelled in it with his whole being. He’d been completely lost in it. Then...

Agony. Nothing. Blankness.

Then... then a weird dream. A gloriously but disturbingly naked Summerset O’Neale trying to pump him for information, crudely and salaciously trading parts of her body for things she already knew. Maybe not a dream, he suddenly realized, maybe some kind of interrogation. She had talked in her own voice in the dream, but they hadn’t been her own words, more like the way low-rent thugs might imagine a woman trying to go about seduction, thugs who’d never had to be seduced. But I bloody well responded to it, didn’t I? The thought horrified him further; he’d undergone interrogation by enemies before, even been waterboarded in Southeast Asia once (and Florida twice), but that was nothing compared to this. This had been so... so psychically intimate. Such a... violation.

He remembered the noises echoing in the dark room in the dream... some of them had sounded like vehicle-on-a-road sounds. Maybe they’d had him on the road, had had him hooked up to some kind of bizarre machine in transit, a machine somehow built to interrogate his unconscious mind. And probably minutes after his encounter with the girl in the parking garage... that would be where they’d acquired him. So maybe that was why the basic imagery his subconscious had furnished was so disturbingly sexual; he was already primed by the pheromones he’d encountered minutes earlier.

But the more important thing was that their machinery was advanced enough to work on the open road, and deliver the results it had. That was a frankly scary prospect. What kind of technology would it take to do that? Who had it? He’d thought he had been cautious, prudent, had covered all the angles, but if whomever they were up against really could do such a thing, he’d badly underestimated them. Perhaps fatally. Perhaps he was too many moves behind, by now, to make it right... but that way lay panic, and he didn’t have time for panic.

Think! Assess! What else could he remember from the dream? A word... somewhere toward the end, a word, a name...

The name rang a bell. There’d been a man, years ago, rumoured to work for the Castro regime, with that name. Ramon Caliente? No, no, something else... something else... Esteban Caliente? Closer... closer...

Gustavo Caliente. The Company had a file on him going back years, as much a figure of legend as known fact. A man who, if a tenth of his reputation was accurate, put all of Operation Freedom’s high-priced disguise experts together in the shade. The Man With A Thousand Faces. The supposedly dead but apparently very much alive Gustavo Caliente...

... who had plainly been the one shadowing him all those weeks. Who had clearly been hired to impersonate him.

As that piece fell into place, Max was galvanized into action. Operation Freedom is compromised from top to bottom! Everyone who works for it is in mortal danger! The Foxxes! Mosley! And the Kitts, dear God, the Kitts! He looked around frantically, trying to assess the clothing situation, find anything he could use for a weapon. I’ve got to get to them! Got to get word to them!

That was when he noticed a desk over in the corner of the room. On it had been laid out some light summer clothing, a shirt and shorts, and sandals. And a note:

"B."? he wondered after reading it. His mouth thinned, and he put the note down, quickly throwing on the clothes, trying to calm the sense of boiling urgency in his gut. "Pleasant and enlightening." Somehow the note’s writer managed to make that phrase sound vaguely threatening. Well, they want to talk, it looks like I don’t have much of a choice right now. At any rate I might learn something I can use.

He knocked on the door. An enormous, shaven-headed thug opened it, a man as black as night and at least seven feet tall, clad in a black suit.

"Take me to your leader," said Max. "... You know, I’ve always wanted to say that?"

The man quirked his mouth sourly. "Come with me."

* * * * *

The Sands Estate had been a well-known playground for the rich and famous in the State of New Amsterdam for some time, a massive colonial-style home dominating its own little island in Suetonia Bay. It was a respectable, old-money home... or had been once. Either it had passed from old money to new, Max reflected, or the latest generation of old money had gone completely around the bend.

The old mansion, where he’d been housed and was now led out from, was set well back from the island’s shores in a grove of massive oaks. To all outward signs it was virtually deserted, though that might not mean much; certainly he could see glimpses of shadows, armed shapes on its roof, which he doubted had been the case in its heyday.

But the waterfront building he was headed for was plainly new on the island, and alien to the colonial architecture that had preceded it. It looked like nothing less than a miniature sporting dome, its design smooth and aerodynamic, like something that had been flown in from a cheap themepark. Its entryway was flanked by shaven-headed human tanks cut from the same cloth and wearing the same uniform as the one escorting Max, one Indian-looking, the other white and goateed. A whole rainbow of skinheads, how charming, he thought to himself.

Inside, it was as though he’d stepped into some kind of perverted sporting arena, a place Caligula might have built if he’d lived in the twenty-first century.

It was shaped like half of a real boxing arena, with bleachers in a semicircle around a ring at the building’s east side. The crowd was all male but didn’t have a criminal look; there was more a sense of the college frat boy about the proceedings than anything else, with an admixture of leathery-tanned, grinning dudes who might well have been porn workers, or maybe just low-tier actors.

The entertainment was something else again. At the entryway, the first thing they encountered were a pair of tight-bodied teen girls with pony tails, wearing stiletto heels and cigarette-girl style vending trays and ball gags... and nothing else. The vending trays were up at chest level, and on them were the girls’ pert C-cup breasts, with a sign fluttering on the front of the trays that said SPANK THESE TITS $5. Each girl had an ample wad of bills already stuffed under each very red breast, and tears of humiliation running down her cheeks; as he watched, a goon came by and collected from each girl, giving her tits a little whack of encouragement from which they each flinched, whimpering.

Looking around the concourse around the outside of the bleachers, Max could see several similar-styled perverse carnival entertainments studding the dome’s outer perimeter. To his left, there was a young girl shackled, suspended from an overhead beam, her limbs spread-eagled and her mouth and snatch at crotch-level, a sign next to her saying $20 SUCK $40 FUCK; her swollen pussy and asshole were facing him and he could see spunk dripping out of both, puddling beneath her, and in fact a man was walking up to the goon running the station right now, handing him a bill and positioning himself at the girl’s mouth with a big grin. To his right, there was something that looked like a mechanical bull ride at first glance... until you noticed the huge dildoes sticking up from it. A goon stood next to it with three young naked teens in front of him, their arms tied behind their backs and a sign beside them reading MAKE A BITCH RIDE: PUSSY $8 ASS $12.

A busy-looking waitress swept by with a tray of drinks over her head, clearly headed into the stands; she was wearing a pink "sexy waitress" uniform that had clearly been altered, with the breast cups removed to show off her pert little titties, and the skirt cut high to reveal her taut ass and sweet, shaven young snatch. There were hand prints clearly visible on her ass and something leaking out of her pussy and dripping down her thighs, either her own juices or someone else’s.

Good God, Max thought, looking around him, appalled... but he had to admit to a certain stiffening in his cock. This is some truly sick shit.

"What do you think?" asked his escort, smirking.

"Doesn’t matter what I think," Max replied shortly. "Let’s not keep your boss waiting."

As they walked toward the ring, he could see that instead of a boxing ring, it was actually five large rubber tubs. There was a goon standing behind each one, patient as a stone, but no sign of any occupants yet... and there was an enormous banner hanging over the ring that read MIXED OIL WRESTLING: CHALLENGE THE FOXXXES!

Max suppressed an inwarn groan. Bit of a cheap and tawdry way to make the point, he thought. Is this supposed to impress me?

They ascended into the western stands, eventually arriving at what looked to be a VIP booth at the top. It was a platform with a small table at the front, and a group of four of the naked-titted, bare-snatched waitresses waiting at the back, seemingly on call. There was a large man standing a little back from the table as well, by all appearances just another interchangeable shaven-pated thug. But the woman at the table riveted Max’s attention immediately.

It wasn’t just because she was virtually the only clothed woman in the room, although this was true. As she stood to greet him, he realized that she was every bit as striking as any of the Foxxes, her tall, slender (one might say "slinky") form topping six feet, her pouty-lipped Scandinavian beauty and ice-coloured gray eyes bringing a sense of presence that kept the gaze from wandering – at first – to her long, long, lusciously long bare legs. She was wearing a simple, elegant but devastatingly brief blue summer dress, pearls and demure pumps, her platinum-blonde hair tied back from her face.

"Welcome, Mr. Fawkes," she said in a mellow, throaty contralto that might in other people have been considered warm. But Max had met many a sadist, torturer and assassin in his life, and had seen none with colder, creepier eyes than hers. He felt his hair stand immediately on end. "I’m so glad you could join us."

"Please, call me Max," he said, adopting an airily confident tone. "The pleasure’s mine, Ms..."

"You can call her The Boss," said the escort at his elbow sharply, but the woman stilled him with a cool look and then gave him a dismissing nod. He turned promptly on his heel and left.

"Ah, The Boss," Max said in recognition. "B."

She gestured graciously to a seat, which he took as she reseated herself. "I didn’t want to be too familiar in my little note," she said. "But the truth is that if there are two people who needn’t stand on formality in this room, it’s you and I. You can call me Siouxsie."

He felt his eyebrows quirk upward, remembering the alias Siouxsie Sexcrime from his researches. He remembered discounting it as too cartoonish, something no real crime boss would call themselves. "I see. And is the surname what I think it is?"

She gave a detached smile, looking down at the crowd. "It is. I’ll explain that in a moment. Oh, forgive me," she said, gesturing to the thug standing behind them, "this is a long-time associate of mine, Mr. Jimmy Beam."

Max looked over and reached out his hand. After a moment, the man shook it with clear reluctance. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Fawkes."

"Likewise."

"Mister Beam, I think we’re pretty close to showtime," she said. "If you wouldn’t mind checking on the talent?"

"Of course, Boss." Beam nodded smartly and headed down from the booth.

"So, that’s your second-in-command?" Max asked curiously.

She snorted derisively. "Hardly. In many ways Jimmy is the most annoying sort, a waterboy who fancies himself a general." She shrugged. "But he’s handy in a fight and lacking in compunction. And smarter than the average, though I’ll grant you that isn’t saying much. Those are employable virtues in my line of work. Our line of work."

"Well, I do appreciate your candor," said Max, letting the "our" go. "Anyway, this place is... really something. How many people does it seat?"

Siouxsie smiled, seemingly lost in a reverie, and he realized that she was watching one of the waitresses a few rows down being taken across a patron’s lap and spanked, her high squeals just audible at their distance, her pert buttocks wriggling and jiggling sexily as a man’s rough hand slashed down across them. At first he didn’t think she’d heard his question, but then she said, "It’s not exactly the classiest addition to the Estate’s colonial theme, I know. But the carnival spirit does have its uses, and it’s not like we could run a place like this in Island City. Seats about four hundred, to answer your question, and I think we’ll have a full house today."

"Is this a regular event for you?"

"A first-time event for any venue, actually, although the participants don’t know it yet," she said enigmatically, another small smile crossing her lips, this one truly chilling. "At any rate," she went on, her expression clearing, "we ought to get the obvious business out of the way first. I trust I don’t need to tell you that until we’ve reached an agreement, you won’t be allowed to leave the Estate or contact your confederates in Operation Freedom."

"A predictable request," he said, "given that my doing so would scuttle your Gustavo Caliente operation."

If he’d been hoping to surprise her with his knowledge of Caliente’s involvement, no dice. She shook her head mildly. "I suppose I’d prefer that didn’t happen, true, but by this time tomorrow the operation will have already yielded enough information that I could come at the Foxxes in other ways, if I really wanted to," she said candidly. "I’m actually keeping you here for your protection."

"Really."

"Don’t sound so skeptical." Siouxsie looked over at him levelly. "You may not believe me yet, but I mean it when I say that there will be no lies between you and I. Not ever."

He couldn’t think of a response to this bizarre pronouncement, so he left the next move up to her.

"Yes, your protection," she went on as she turned her eyes back to the crowd. "You do realize that you’re now a rapist?"

He clamped down hard on a surge of white rage, said tightly: "And whose fault is that?"

"We’ll come to that presently, but understand I mean no judgment by the term. As you’ve probably gathered, after all, I’m a rapist myself. However, if you leave this Estate without our protection, you’ll quickly discover that you are one in the eyes of the law."

"So it’s to be blackmail, then," he gritted.

"Consider it a simple restraint, to keep you from doing anything stupid. For what it’s worth, we’ve removed the girl from the equation and scrubbed your DNA from the scene, so the conclusive proof that it was you is gone. The parkade’s security tapes probably wouldn’t imprison you – just land you in court, lose you family, friends, career, reputation, that sort of thing."

His blood went cold with horror at the casual mention of "removing the girl from the equation." He had no doubt about what that meant. She’s dead. That poor girl is dead because of me. That horrible night was the last of her life. "You didn’t... You didn’t have to kill her, Siouxsie."

The woman looked over at him in surprise. "A Company man, sentimental about murder? That’s something of a first. But I just said I removed her from the equation, not that I’ve killed her. You’ll find I’m a ‘waste not’ sort of girl."

Oh, so she’s just been shipped off to die in an offshore brothel somewhere. That’s so much better. But there was no use belabouring the point; Siouxsie was clearly not a creature of conscience. "Whatever you say. So, what sort of ‘arrangement’ do you have in mind?"

She paused for a moment, then answered with a question. "Tell me what you feel... what you honestly feel... about your experience in the parkade last night."

He answered without hesitation. "Horror. Guilt. Shame. Rage. Hatred of the people who did that thing to the both of us, that girl and I."

Siouxsie shook her head. "No, that’s what you think it is proper to feel. I said what you honestly feel. In your guts. In your bones. In the essence of your being."

People who had been aimlessly wandering around, he noticed, were starting to file back to their seats. He was going to leave her question unanswered, but for some reason found himself saying, detachedly: "Hunger. Yearning. Joy. Exultation. In a way it was like... Godhood."

"I know just what you mean. And the substance we used to achieve that effect: what do you think its properties are? What do you think it does?"

"My guess was some kind of weaponized pheromone," he said. "Probably with added agents to manipulate the brain’s speech centres, produce euphoria, alter the subject’s ethical perceptions."

Siouxsie chuckled ruefully. "That’s a lot of fancy tricks for one drug!" She shook her head again. "No, Max, my colleagues and I are an impressive bunch, but not that impressive. Our compound, Alethex, does make some use of pheromones to transmit the effect, and there are ways of enhancing that transmission – your paramour last night was actually wearing a pheromone-enhancing agent that we’d given her, telling her it was perfume – but the drug itself only does one thing, for anyone who comes in contact with it."

"And what is that?"

"Honesty, Max. It gives the gift of honesty."

He snorted.

"And if you’re honest, part of you already knows I’m telling you the truth," she insisted. "People have two selves, Max. A self which they learn to project for the sake of society, and an instinctive self, a biological self, a true self. And usually they create the first in order to repress and cage and push away the second. Submissives often try to tell themselves they are dominants, dominants often try to convince themselves that they can submit. People often try to pretend to be above the flesh, or to be more interested in it than they really are. What Alethex does is reveal those lies, and reverse the repressions that underpin them. The more intense the repression, the more profound the reaction."

He wanted to snort contemptuously again... but found he couldn’t. "If that’s true, that would mean..."

"It means that nobody manipulated your speech centres, Max. You did and said what you wanted to, what you truly wanted to. Last night was the most honest you’ve ever been, you and that girl both. That’s why we both know it’s the most alive you’ve ever felt."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" he jumped up from his seat, found himself suddenly raging. "She was screaming, crying, begging for it to stop! Was that not honesty?"

She shrugged. "At first. But submission has paradoxical delights, that’s its nature. Fear, shame, humiliation heighten the pleasure. Submissives cling to them with all their strength."

"Very convenient," he muttered, looking away. "Very convenient. Look, if this Alethex is so fucking great, why don’t you use it on yourself?"

Siouxsie simply looked at him and smiled, and slowly realization dawned.

"Ahhhh, you have used it on yourself. That’s why you are... the way you are."

"I was the first to test the formula," she said. "Five years ago. I was once like you, Max, needing to believe that I was good and moral and decent and just. Like you, I denied my appetites, even as I gravitated to them. But the truth is that there are some of us who go beyond mere dominance or submissiveness, prudishness or promiscuity. There are some of us whose true selves are best described as ravening beasts, with fangs and claws. People like me, Max. People like you."

"I’m nothing like you," he spat, turning away again. "Nothing like you."

"I said there wouldn’t be any lies between us," she told him. "Not that the truth would be easy. It wasn’t easy for me, either, but I eventually chose honesty; it’s why I chose the name you asked me about earlier. The name I had before it is irrelevant, it’s tissue in the wind. I am Siouxsie Sexcrime. I always have been. I always will be. I’ve made my peace with that." She got up, walking over behind where he stood, and with odd, easy intimacy put her arms around him, like an old lover. "Do you really think I stayed to fight your Operation Freedom and cage your Foxxes because I need to? I could have moved to another city. Another state. Another country. There are a dozen different places I could relocate with less expense and far less risk than what I’m doing right now. I stayed because when I discovered who you were, when I learned your history, Max, I... recognized you. Don’t you see? I stayed because I’ve never before had an equal, and neither have you. I stayed because I want to learn your true name."

Max wanted to throw off her arms, but... he didn’t. "And the Foxxes?"

"They’ll learn your true name, too, Max. You’re their destined master, it’s why they’re drawn to you, and you to them. That’s the arrangement I have in mind."

This time he did throw her embrace off, stalking away from her, whirling to confront her. "You’re insane. You’re not ‘honest,’ Siouxsie, you’re insane."

She shrugged. "I don’t expect you to embrace the truth right away, of course. But we can have more of those conversations another day. In the meantime," she said, walking back over to the table, "I propose an experiment. I propose that every fiber of your being wants to feel again the power, the truth, you felt last night." She pulled a small green pill from an unseen pocket, and placed it on the table. "I propose that you dip your toes in the Lake of Truth one more time, and see if this time the water doesn’t feel a little warmer. And if after that you choose to turn me away... then that I will accept."

Max looked at her suspiciously. "What do you mean, ‘accept’?"

"I mean, Max, that if you aren’t interested in exploring the truth of your nature after today, I’ll leave Island City for good. I’ll call off Operation Foxx Hunt. You can retire poor Gustavo, and you can go ahead and dismember the Colombians and the Italians without interference from me, if it makes you happy."

He shook his head. "Too good to be true."

"I should really point out that if I had some other aim than what I’m telling you now, the easiest option for me would have been to kill you last night. Now," she held up the pill. "Don’t you want to taste Alethex again, just once, before you make up your mind?"

He looked at the pill. Of course he wanted it. But he said: "Rape is always about power. Not sex, not love, not anything good."

"A silly adage, I’ve always thought. Rape is about power. Sex is about power. Love is about power. Notions of good and evil are about power. All things are about power. But more than anything else, truth is about power. Will you turn your back on the chance to know the truth?"

After a moment, he said: "For the chance to get rid of you, I’ll do it. For the Foxxes, I’ll do it." He walked over to her, took the pill, chewed it, swallowed it.

She nodded, smiling. "Fair enough. Now come, let’s watch. The entertainment’s about to begin." She snapped her fingers at one of the waitresses.

* * * * *

In fact, the Mixed Oil Wrestling "Foxxxes Challenge" had been a regular event for some time, though not in the state of New Amsterdam. It had first been conceived in Las Vegas a few months after the Foxxes’ first big public debut, as a fairly innocuous (if not very highbrow) event at which young men would line up to engage in a bit of lubed-up playwrestling with a woman dressed up as one of the Foxxes, who would toy with him a bit before "pinning" him by sitting on his face. The understood rules of these events were a) no rough stuff, and b) the Foxxxes always won. The event had since sprung up offshoots across the country, even into Canada, and had acquired a reputation as a relatively fun and safe gig as sex industry jobs went.

The group of girls who’d arrived to play The Foxxx Force Five on that particular day at The Sands Estate had come mainly from the Midwest, save the California girls playing "Keiko" and "Summerset." It had to admitted that some of them were stretches as lookalikes for their respective Foxxes: Kandi ("Summerset") was a skinny, trashy peroxide-blonde stripper with big fake tits, Gene ("Keiko") a petite busty surfer-tanned Korean, Jani ("Mylene") an equally petite and tiny-titted eighteen-year-old (at least she had light brown hair), Maria ("Satin") a sweet-faced Latina nineteen-year-old (who did match the real Foxx in the curvy-ass department), with Kendra the closest match to her "Raven," differing mainly in being an inch taller and a cup size larger. Anyway, enthusiasts generally agreed that exact matches didn’t matter that much – men on the day would generally suspend disbelief for the peculiar pleasure of getting thigh-locked by a "Foxxx."

There’d been several pleasant surprises when they arrived, brought chatting and joking in on the same bus from Robert Baker International in Island City. The first was that the dressing room was in a real colonial mansion, not some crappy back corner of the Estate’s mini-stadium. The second was that the Sands promoters had put out food and drinks for them – decent food and drinks, for once – and there was an attentive staff around who seemed particularly concerned that they get well-hydrated. The third... well, the third wasn’t a great surprise, apparently they were all expected to wear the signature scent of the event’s sponsor, some crap they’d never heard of called Alethesse, but at least it meant swag, so that was something.

But the fourth and best surprise of all was when an hour prior to the show, the Estate’s owner – a really elegant blonde woman who even in her casual summery dress looked like a movie star – showed up to offer them a deal: if they’d let her add discretionary stipulations to the matches ("You know, for the sake of drama," she said, "like, ‘red-headed men can only use their left hand’ or something like that, just to take advantage of the drama of the moment"), she’d pay them each an extra two grand! She’d even brought re-written contracts with her!

Jani had voiced some uncertainty – "don’t these contracts basically let her make up any new rule at all, any time she wants?" – but the others quickly shushed her. Two grand was two grand! "Besides, it’s not like the woman’s a crazy person or something," Kandi added, "just look at this great house!"

The five were all suited up in their black thong one-piece swimsuits – meant to sexily echo the black operational jumpsuits of the real Five – by the time the "promoter" Jimmy Beam arrived to collect them. Afterwards, they’d have various different recollections of when they became aware that something wasn’t right. One would remember a weird, sad, sympathetic look in Beam’s eyes; another would remember seeing armed men patrolling the roof of the building they were leaving; another would remember the sinister vibe of the seemingly ubiquitous skinhead bruisers to be found all over the grounds. But all of them would remember the alarm bells that went off when they took their first step into The Sands' Mini-Dome.

* * * * *

The stands were full, the crowd in a jubilant and oversexed and slightly drunken mood, by the time the Foxxx Force Five oil wrestlers arrived. Yet another anonymous shaven-pated goon – One of the few talkative models? Max wondered abstractly – was working in the role of announcer, and brought a Michael Buffer-esque brio to the work as he announced each of the girls by their character names.

"Our first contender is the brains of Foxxx Force Five, and one of the bust... errrr, that is best..." [strained laughter from the crowd] "markswomen in the woooorllld... please welcome... Summerset... the Number One Foxxx O’NEEEEAAAALLE!"

Each of the girls came bouncing and jiggling up to her assigned tub, smiling brightly and waving jauntily, but Max noticed they all had frozen expressions, that terror or a premonition of terror was clearly readable in their eyes. They could see that they were the only women other than Siouxsie in the Dome who had their breasts and pussies covered, however minimally, could see the vicious "entertainments" their host had been working the crowd up with prior to their arrival, the spunk-soiled dangling girls, the abused waitresses scampering through the crowd to offer drinks or food or themselves, the naked and ball-gagged breast-spanking vendors tottering blearily around in their stillettos, the "Make a Bitch Ride" girls squealing brokenly as they were plopped on their massive mechanized dildo-bulls – ass-first or snatch-first as chosen by the customer. The effect of those entertainments, Max realized, would have been quite deliberate; it was meant to inure the crowd to cruel debauchery and viciousness, to make sure nobody balked at what was coming. And they’d been at it all day.

Siouxsie had a BlackBerry perched on the table between them, and had said to Max, "I’d like you to feel part of the fun. When you feel like adding a stipulation, just type it in and hit this button here. The announcer will get it and work in into the next round of matches."

"Thanks, I’ll pass," Max said, but she just shrugged.

Soon, all the Five were assembled; and there was already a long lineup of would-be contenders standing in front of the tubs, clad in swimming trunks and waiting for their chance at a Foxxx. The announcer said: "Today’s is a very special contest! By contractual agreement of the Foxxxes themselves, all matches today will be subject to Siouxsie’s Rules! Let’s hear it for our lovely hostess!" Siouxsie lifted a glass of champagne in acknowledgment to the crowd; there was much cheering and stamping from the bleachers, and the Five applauded too, but with the same frozen expressions. "Miss Siouxsie can apply stipulations of any kind before the beginning of any round of matches! The sky is the limit! Per Miss Siouxsie’s instructions, stipulations will be cumulative!" More cheering and stamping and coarse whistling; this time the Foxxxes were not applauding along. The petite "Mylene" was looking distinctly uncertain, as though she wanted to bolt... but there were shaven-headed human tanks at all the exits, and any such actions would be a breach of contract. Siouxsie, Max was quite sure, wouldn’t permit any of them to escape.

"Alright, Foxxxes! Take your places!" The Foxxxes climbed into their oiled rubber tubs – "Summerset" in One, "Keiko" in Two, "Mylene" in Three, "Satin" in Four and "Raven" in Five – and as was traditional at these events, started out in jaunty Foxx Force Five fighting stances. Siouxsie began tapping away at the Blackberry. "Challengers! Take your places!" Five men climbed into the tubs across from them, one of them a little drunkenly. "And... ready! And... set! And... wait... stipulation! Miss Siouxsie has a stipulation for this round!" There was a spasm of cheering; the announcer waited for it to die down before continuing. "In this round, and all future rounds unless otherwise announced, any male contestant who pins his Foxxx for the three-count will receive his choice of a free drink... or a free shot at one of our breast-spanking vendors! Remember, you must pin your Foxxx to win these benefits!"

Dismay was clearly written on the Foxxxes’ faces: at one stroke, Siouxsie had removed the most basic "the Foxxx always wins" rule of the game! But there was nothing they could do and they shakily resumed their fighting postures as the announcer counted them into the round again. "Aaaand... go!"

Five pairs of bodies closed in on each other... the aggression with which the men went in was instantly noticeable.

As Max watched, he could see that only "Summerset" was able to put up any kind of a real fight against her contender – who was clearly drunk – successfully pushing him back, tackling his legs and then rolling around in the oil in a quest for the thigh-lock.

The other girls, too slow off the mark, their minds perhaps befuddled by the bizarre situation they now found themselves in, were quickly taken down by their challengers, some of whom looked to have actual amateur wrestling skills... and then he noticed something strange about their behaviour as they got in close. He saw "Mylene" desperately trying to fight free of her challenger and heard her let out a squeal as he yanked her back... he was grinding his crotch obscenely against her, whispering something in her ear, his hands were roaming over her oiled, glistening, thong-suited body! Similar things were happening to "Raven" and "Keiko" and "Satin," whose challengers were each taking advantage of the proximity to fondle their tits and asses and rub up obscenely against them!

Finally "Summerset" pinned her drunken contender in classic Mixed Oil Wrestling style, straddling his shoulders and sitting on his face for the three-count. "A win for Summerset O’Neale! The Number One Foxxx shows us how it’s done!" cried the announcer as "Summerset" bounced to her feet, grinning and waving. But her smile vanished when she saw what was happening in the other tubs.

"Raven"’s challenger also remembered the classic Mixed Oil Wrestling style of victory, it appeared, and he employed it, sliding up her body to nastily rub his turgid swim-suited junk all over her face as he pinned down her shoulders for the three count while has hands insolently fondled her tits under her bikini. "Raven goes down! Better luck next time for the Real McCoy!" The challenger looked like he wanted to stay longer, but finally broke off at a loud whimper from the Foxxx and a warning shout from the tub’s bouncer / referee.

"Mylene"’s challenger had her helpless as a kitten, her glistening thighs splayed erotically either side of his torso, holding her by the throat and playfully pinning her for the two-count before letting her up again. Each time he let her up he’d whisper something in her ear that sent clearly visible shudders through her young body, and would grind his crotch obscenely against her pussy mound, running his free hand at will all over her taut, well-oiled ass. Finally, the seventh time he repeated the process the tub’s referee had had enough – "Look, make a decision, man!" – and he pinned her, blew her a sinister kiss and climbed out of the tub, making a beeline for the nearest breast-spanking vendor. "Sexy Mylene goes down to sexy defeat! Will she rise again?"

"Keiko" and "Satin" were likewise completely outclassed by their opponents, and found their arms twisted into painful twin hammerlocks, their tits and asses amply, playfully and humiliatingly fondled and spanked, their pussy mounds stroked and molested through their thongs before their challengers finally decided to put them out of the misery and pin them. "Keiko is down... aaaaand Satin is down! Tough round for the Foxxxes! Let’s see if they can bounce back in Round Two!"

* * * * *

As the first round came to a close, it suddenly occurred to Max why four of the Foxxxes had been so humiliatingly mauled as soon as the men closed with them. "The pheromone enhancer. You tricked them into using the pheromone enhancer," he remarked to Siouxsie. He had actually meant to accuse – hadn’t he? – but it came out admiring.

"Some women have simply no standards for the fragrances they’ll wear," Siouxsie replied blandly, tapping away at the BlackBerry again. "I’ve no sympathy, honestly. Those guys in Round One had the right idea with the spanking, didn’t they?"

As the Foxxxes stood up for Round Two, they were visibly shaken, some of them badly. "Mylene" and "Raven" were clearly trying to hold back tears, their lips trembling, while "Keiko" and "Satin" both had glazed, dissociated looks in their eyes as though they couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Even "Summerset," who’d won her match, looked like a deer caught in headlights, as though she’d belatedly come to understand the ugliness of the situation she was in.

After watching the humiliation of the Foxxxes in the first round, the tone of the crowd had grown uglier, more jeering... and distinctly hornier. The next round of challengers, all big, athletic-looking men, were all clearly sporting large hard-ons. Some winners from the previous round could be seen out in the crowd or the concourse, taking out their frustrated desires on the nearest vulnerable flesh: "Mylene"’s opponent now had a waitress bent over a bleacher railing and was pounding her cunt brutally, the girl wailing from the viciousness of his thrusts; "Keiko" and "Satin"’s challengers could be seen using either end of one of the dangling girls. Whistles and catcalls and cries of "Nice rack, bitch!".were starting to become more frequent.

"Two new stipulations before we begin Round Two, gentlemen!

"Stipulation One: Miss Siouxsie now offers an extra means of defeating a Foxxx! You can now either pin her for the three count, or you may spank her breasts or ass twenty consecutives times with pauses of no more than three seconds between spanks! Either is acceptable, either will get you a free drink or some free time with our breast-spanking vendors.

"Stipulation Two: Foxxxes will compete with tops off! Foxxxes, if you please!"

Both stipulations brought enormous rounds of whoops and hollers from the crowd, and the Foxxxes went rigid in horror. A tear could now clearly be seen rolling down "Mylene"’s cheek, and everyone else was frozen. Where would it end? was the question that must be racing through their minds, Max supposed. Only the second round and it was already far, far outside their comfort zones. Finally, "Summerset" could be heard to say "You know what? Fuck this," as she stormed away from her tub to a chorus of boos.

A mistake, Max knew. A bad mistake. Siouxsie suddenly sat up alertly, gave a curt gesture to Jimmy – who relayed it to the door staff – and tapped furiously away at the BlackBerry again. Seconds later, "Summerset" was being dragged forcibly back to her tub by a huge shaven-headed goon, held by the nape of her neck like a wayward puppy, to cheers and whistles and catcalls from the crowd.

"Stipulation Three," read out the announcer. "Any attempt by a Foxxx to breach contract will result in her competing for the remainder of the event with hands bound! Starting now!"

"Summerset"’s eyes went wide with horror as another goon came out from the councourse with a length of black rope. She began to protest until the goon holding her shifted his hand around to her throat, her voice cutting off in ragged gasps as the second thug bound her hands, elbows to wrists, behind her back to ecstatic cheers from the crowd.

"Please remember Stipulation Two, ladies! Tops off if you please!"

The bound "Summerset," unable to do it for herself, had the top of her bikini ungraciously ripped down for her by her tub referee, and she stood with her big glistening tits enticingly thrust forward by the bindings that forced her to arch her back. "Mylene" too had her top forcibly ripped off when she waited too long; big tears rolled down the girl’s face as her firm, cute, glistening little titties came into view, but she made no other protest. The other Foxxxes pulled their tops down slowly, reluctantly, as though executing a prison warden’s order. But eventually all five women stood in their tubs with their tits bare, nipples tell-tale stiff, skin flushed, their chests rising and falling rapidly in fear.

"Very good! Challengers for Round Two take your places! And... ready! And... set! And... go!"

The men surged forward again, and it was clear the second round was going to be even more of a mismatch than the first.

"Summerset"’s good luck was at an end; she found herself, hands bound behind her back, facing a big, capable, sober opponent who simply walked up to her, grabbed a handful of each tit and yanked the sobbing girl by her glistening, heaving breasts to the middle of the tub. There he forced her to kneel and decided to play with her; he slid one hand down to the juncture of her thighs and clearly inside the gusset of her thong (Siouxsie chuckled at this, "The horndogs are always ahead of the curve, aren’t they?"), diddling the blonde’s snatch while he spanked her tits hard, counting right up to nineteen and then deliberately, sadistically, pausing just long enough to have to start the count all over again. The blonde gasped, "AHHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHH!" at each fresh assault on her punished tits while her hips gyrated unconsciously, the gyrations getting more and more pronounced, her challenger having clearly forced a finger or two up inside her twat, her juices dribbling and leaking and squirting out around her thong bottom as she started to cum and cum, "AWWWWWGAWWWWD! AWWWWWAGAWWWWWWD!" – her jiggling, heaving tits pointing up in the air and offering themselves hornily to her abuser with each humiliating orgasm. By her final ride around this hellish tit-spanking, finger-fucking merry-go-round, "Summerset" had been climaxed several times and was clearly on the verge her biggest one yet by the time they reached eighteen spanks; her challenger controlled the last orgasm masterfully, making sure she came, "AUUUUUGHHHHHHH-AUGGGGHHHHHH-AUUUUHAUUUUGHHHHHHH!", shuddering and jolting and sobbing, right on the twentieth stroke that defeated her.

This kind of sadistic manipulation of the spanking rules proved a hit with all the contenders. "Keiko"’s challenger, who was twice her size, wrestled her to the ground with ease, positioning her atop him and contemptuously not bothering to restrain her arms or hands, which just fluttered ineffectually as he made the popular and highly-cheered decision to present her crotch to the crowd while her spanking ordeal began. He yanked her lower thong aside, exposing a dripping pussy that he openly manualized and fucked with his fingers – first one, then two, then three -- while he carried out the same sadistic game as his neighbour, spanking her glistening ass almost enough times to secure a win, but never quite. The fingerfucking clearly drove "Keiko" wild, and every fifteen or sixteen spanks she could be heard grunting and squealing, "UGGGGHH! UGGGGHHHH! UGHHHHH! UGHHHHH!" as the combination of pleasure and pain pushed her over the edge and her pussy seized up around the invading fingers, squirting and squirting and squirting, her gleaming jugs jiggling sexily as she was forced to cum for the edification of the laughing, jeering crowd. This only encouraged her abuser more, the spanks getting harder, four fingers now stretching out the sobbing girl’s slutty snatch, the massive invasion driving three knuckles deep, her orgasm intensifying, "AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" She was brought off several more times before her contender ended it with a round of vicious, punishing spanks and left his victim half-conscious.

"Mylene"’s tormentor took a different approach, unceremoniously grabbing the girl – who was so rigid with fear that she barely even put up a token struggle – and slamming her to the floor of the tub belly-down in front of him, restraining both her wrists behind her back with a single hand. He then pulled the girl’s hands toward the middle of her back, forcing her to climb up on her knees and display her glistening rump and pussy mound to the crowd, and he then simply yanked her lower thong right down to her mid-thigh, exposing her asshole and her dripping snatch. He would dip one finger into each of these, alternating the fingerfucking with smacks on her bottom at carefully-timed four-second intervals, the girl moaning and writhing and clearly on the boil and begging. He kept up a chatty conversation as he tormented and humiliated her this way for a while, then seemed to reach agreement with her: he reached down and freed his turgid cock from his swimming trunks and to a chorus of cheers, she became the first of the Foxxxes to start sucking dick. While the girl noisily deep-throated his meat, he sped up his onslaught on her ass and pussy, bringing her to several writhing, copiously squirting orgasms, "MMMMMMHMMMMPPPHHH! MMMMHMMMMMPHHH!" before he tensed up, drove his cock to the back of her throat and forced her to swallow his load, her throat working as she tried desperately to get it all down... at which point he relented and gave her wriggling bottom twenty sound smacks.

"Satin" made a valiant but shortlived attempt at actual wrestling; her opponent simply kicked her feet from under her before her grabbed her by the legs, pushing them back until her ankles were behind her head and her ass and pussy completely vulnerable. He, too, ripped her thong aside, then proceeded to fingerfuck her snatch hard and fast while slashing his other hand down across her ripe, jiggling ass, again keeping careful count so as not to reach twenty too quickly The girl was cumming almost immediately, "AHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH!" her juices squirting, squirting, squirting from her pussy all over her own face and tits, forcing her to taste it... and this just seemed to drive her over the edge even harder. Soon her tormentor, unable to resist the tempting target, was also driving fingers into her glistening asshole, the sensation driving her close to madness, "AAAAAAHAIIIIIIIIII! AAAAAHAIIIIIIIIII! AAAAAAHAIIIIIIIIIII!" as fingers simultaneously violated her ass and pussy while vicious slaps rained down on her sexy, curvaceous rump. By the time he saw fit to deliver twenty consecutive spanks, she was almost in a swoon.

"Raven" quickly found herself caught in a standing sleeper hold by her challenger, who turned her toward the watching crowd, depriving her of just enough oxygen to make her head spin and apparently demanding that she show the punters how she masturbates before he’d relent and spank her into submission and defeat. As the humiliated girl pulled her thong aside and played with her pussy, he could be heard – to the loud amusement of everyone around them – crudely giving her instructions: "Come on! Show those motherfuckers some pink! Spread that pussy! Is that all the fingers you can get in there? What, you call that squirting, bitch, I only counted three squirts, do it again! Put a finger in your ass, too, yeah that’s it! More, more fingers! POUND THOSE FUCKING HOLES, YOU SLUT!" "Raven" was forced to brutally powerfuck her own holes to orgasm after orgasm, groaning helplessly, "NNNNGGHHHH! NNNNNGHHHHH! NNNNNGGHHHH!", pounding her own orifices with more abandon each time, before her tormentor delivered twenty hard slaps to the squealing girl’s tits and contemptuously threw her face down in her tub.

"Defeat, defeat, defeat all around for the oil-wrestling vixens of Foxxx Force Five!" the announcer shouted. "But they seem to kind of enjoy it, don’t they? Let’s see what the next round brings!"

* * * * *

As the humiliation of the Foxxxes went on and on through a seemingly interminable second round, Max sensed an increasingly definitive change in his perspective. His sympathy for the girls was being replaced with anticipation, eager, almost gloating anticipation to see what they could be put through next. His cock was stiff, throbbing, would need relief soon. He’d told himself earlier that he wouldn’t use any of the waitresses on the platform for that purpose, but he already knew he would break that promise. Better that than throw them to that crowd of mooks down there, anyway.

His mind also began to stray to the real Foxx Force Five, mentally picturing them occupying the positions of the trapped, helpless, debased girls in those tubs, wondering how their bodies would respond to this kind of treatment, what they could be made to do... how they could be mastered. He realized abstractly that his old mind would have repudiated these thoughts in shame and horror, but right now his consciousness relished it, teasing at the edges of the knotty problem, working out ways that the much more formidable heroines could be ensnared. Their destined master, he wondered to himself. She might not be entirely wrong, after all. Certainly he had to admit he wouldn’t be surprised if they responded to Alethex as these girls had done – much more intensely, in fact, as it ripped away their inhibitions and asserted their basic nature as submissives, his submissives with maximum force. Their destined master. It had a certain ring to it.

And it felt good not to fight the effects of the Alethex, as he’d instinctively but mistakenly done on his first encounter with it. It left his mind clearer, able to appreciate pleasure but also able to multitask and evaluate things as clearly as he’d ever done, maybe more so.

"More champagne?" Siouxsie offered.

"Don’t mind if I do." He held out his glass, added: "The next round’s going to have to be full-fledged fucking, I think."

She nodded approvingly as she poured. "What do you think, just one per girl?"

"No, definitely more than one. Maybe up to three this round, at least a dozen at a time after that. Otherwise there’s going to be a riot in this place. The waitresses and the danglers look exhausted as it is."

Siouxsie gave him a winning, glamorous smile. "Good, good, good. My thoughts exactly. You have excellent instincts for this sort of thing. Somehow I knew that you would."

He shrugged and sipped on his champagne. "Thanks. Not rocket science, I guess."

Max smirked to himself, knowing how horrifying that little snatch of conversation would sound to outside parties... but he realized it didn’t horrify him. He was actually, on reflection, glad of having tried the Alethex again. It let him evaluate the claim about the ravening beast with fangs and claws inside him somewhat dispassionately. And yes, there was truth to it: he’d delight in watching the five young girls on the stage get debased and humiliated and fucked in every hole, delight in their helplessness to stop it. But perhaps he wasn’t ravening enough, because it wasn’t because of lack of empathy: he knew, it was plain to see, that they were at some level delighting in it too. In that way, too, Alethex really was a gift. It could revolutionize the experience of being kinky the world over, he thought with some amusement.

On the other hand, even this second self – red in tooth and claw, lusty from toes to crown, and capable of such perverse delight – could clearly see how sad and squalid and agonizing was the lot of most of the girls trapped working for Siouxsie, for "The Boss." She’s spoken of her "appetites" in the plural, but her entire M.O. showed only one, for cruelty, and even then there was something weirdly... missing. Hence her cool and clinical interest in these proceedings, as though she were a malign and brilliant child researching new ways to rip the wings off of flies.

Forget about the "I want to learn your true name" speech, he thought wryly. I have a feeling I’ve met stones with more human sentiment than Siouxsie. No, there was definitely something tying her to Island City, something she was pursuing, and his instincts told him it was something that went far, far beyond Operation Foxx Hunt. Whatever it was, it was guaranteed to be bad news... for everyone. Whatever it was, she had to be stopped.

He could do it, he knew, but he realized now that he’d have to start from scratch, let Operation Freedom go. In fact, he reflected, it was already dead; in snatching him, and doing it in a way that closed off his avenues for return, they’d effectively snatched out its heart and replaced it with a lump of clay. Only inertia would keep it going... for a while... and in the directions they dictated. That really was a brilliant stroke, Siouxsie, he thought with grudging admiration.

No, he’d need to focus on getting close to The Boss, as close at any rate as anyone could hope or bear to get. He’d need to play along, to let her think she’d pulled him in, that she’d neutralized him, keep close and wait for his chance. A lot of sacrifices would have to be made, and the old Max would have felt conflict, pangs of sorrow and regret and guilt and even horror for what lay in store for many of his former comrades. But the new Max... the new Max was all about forward motion, he thrilled at the opportunity, the danger.

Oh, but my lovely little Foxxes, them I’ll be bringing along, you can count on that, he crooned inwardly with creamy satisfaction. You want to "learn my true name," Miss Sexcrime? It is Power. Max Power. And ohhhh, you’ll learn all about what that means... you all will...

"Ah-ha, that looks like the last of them," Siouxsie said, tapping away at her BlackBerry again. "Round Three ought to be entertaining."

"I couldn’t agree more," he replied, beckoning one of the waitresses over, opening the zipper on his shorts as his mind laid plans.

* * * * *

All five of the Foxxxes lay shuddering, defeated, humiliated in their tubs as Round Three began. After a moment, at a gesture from Jimmy, each of the tub referees went in and pulled his Foxxx up by the hair, yanking them to their feet and holding them there, not even waiting for any further stipulations before stripping the remains of their bikinis from them and leaving their glistening flesh completely naked. To a one, the girls’ eyes were glazed with horror and disbelief and bewilderment as their nipples stood proudly erect and their hot pussy juices seeped down their thighs. They looked like women lost in a nightmare, like they were waiting to wake up.

"All right, kids," said the announcer. "It’s time for Round Three! And playtime is over – now it’s the real main event!" There was whistling, stamping, cheering, vicious jeering at the girls. The announcer continued: "These are Siouxsie’s Rules for Round Three, gentlemen!

"Stipulation One: Matches in this Round will be three-on-one! That’s three challengers for every Foxxx!

"Stipulation Two: All pinfalls and spanking submissions are... discontinued!" There were shouts of protest at this, but the announcer held out his hands placatingly and went on:

"Stipulation Three: From now on, there is only one way for a Foxxx to end a match... by bringing off all of her challengers! A Foxxx must ensure that all of her challengers have reached orgasm before her match will be ended! Foxxxes may use any part of their body and any available orifice to meet this goal!"

All five of the Foxxxes went rigid in terror as the room erupted in rapturous, vicious cheers, as they truly realized there was going to be no mercy, no relenting, no respite, that it was only going to get worse. There were rounds and rounds to go yet in their contracts, they knew; there was little or no chance that their fiendish host would stop at making them service just three cocks. The line-up of smugly grinning challengers began tugging off their trunks, their massive hard-ons heaving into view as the Foxxxes trembled in their captors’ grips. There were big tears rolling down "Raven"’s cheeks, "Satin" had closed her eyes tight and was clearly praying, "Summerset" was shouting "You bitch! You bitch!" at Siouxsie until her tub referee smacked her clit sharply, forcing her to break off in a squeal, "Mylene" was repeating something over and over that looked like "Mommymommymommymommy," "Keiko"’s eyes were dull and filmed over with shock.

"And finally, Stipulation Four: Speed counts! The Foxxx who is last to finish her match will spend the remainder of the event with hands bound! If she is already bound, then she will be whipped!"

Another loud round of raucous cheers and catcalls greeted the last word, and then the moment of truth arrived for the terrified Foxxxes: "It’s time, gentlemen! Challengers for Round Three take your places! And... ready! And... set! And... go!"

"Raven"’s challengers, who’d been in the closest section of the crowd that had watched her forced to masturbate herself to orgasm, were quite worked up and were on her like a shot, forming a close circle around her and forcing her to her knees, raping her face with their big cocks one after the other. She, for her part, had clearly made a decision on hearing the final stipulation, and was sucking them avidly, sloppily, her spit running down their shafts and dripping off her chin onto her tits. She stuffed two into her mouth at the same time whenever she could, lapped and sucked at their balls and licked up and down their shafts, jacked their cocks with her oily fingers as hard as she could, her tear-stained face smiling hornily up at them while she did it, doing her level best to bring them off as fast as possible.

One of them was only able to withstand this treatment for a few minutes before he cried out, "Ahhhh damn she’d good!" and held her head in place, nuts jumping as he spunked down her throat, forcing her to choke down his massive load; as he did so, one of his partners in crime slid down behind her and made her moan desperately, "MMMMMMHHHMMMMPH!" as he impaled her tight, well-lubed ass on his raging cock. As the early ejaculator stepped back and rested against the edge of the tub, giving the laughing crowd a rueful salute, "Raven"’s assfucker pulled her down with him into a prone position that displayed her wet cunt to his partner, who lost no time making her cry out a second time, "AWWWWWWW!" as he climbed on top of her and rammed his dick home. It took only a few rapid, pounding thrusts into both her holes before the horny oil-wrestler was clearly cumming, screaming "AWWWWW AWWWWW AWWWWW AWWWWW AWWWWWWWYEAAAAHHHHHH!" as her cunt squirted around the ravishing cock over and over again, her hips squirming and adding to her challengers’ pleasure as both men pounded frantically, finally tensing up together and unleashing simultaneous loads of hot spunk into the writhing slut and clearly taking her over the edge again, "AWWWWWFUUUUUCKYEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Finally, the three of them collapsed in the centre of the tub to general applause.

"Aaaand slutty little Raven McCoy is first across the finish line!" the announcer hollered as cheers erupted around the room. "I’ll bet there are a lot of fellas here who won’t mind enjoying that little whore!"

"Satin" was even more proactive; she stopped praying and opened her eyes as her challengers climbed into the tub and actually leaped on the middle man, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him passionately on the mouth and throat as she settled her sopping snatch onto his big, veiny cock. The other two challengers gave laughs of surprise as their friend started pumping the little Latina slut, and then moved in on either side to support her torso with their hands, helping pump her shuddering young body up and down even harder on the dick, occasionally slapping her beautiful round ass as she reached out to frantically jack their cocks with either hand.

It wasn’t long before one of them went around behind her and made her cry out, "AHHHHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHH!" as he impaled her glistening ass on his pole, and before long the double fuck had "Satin"’s eyes rolling back into her head, "AUGGGGHHHHH! AUGGGGHHHH! AUGGGHHHHH! AUGHHHHHH!" as she came copiously all over the pounding man-meat and her anal ravisher soundly spanked her ass. Impressively, the man at her cunt somehow managed to hold out against her gushing, squirting, multiply-orgasmic milking of his organ, but it wasn’t long before her ass was being filled with a load of creamy spunk which made her cum even harder, "AUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"

The third man circled behind her then and she could be seen wriggling her spunk-filled ass sexily, inviting another anal ravishing, but he had a surprise in store for her: he stepped in and chose instead to slide his cock right up alongside his friend’s, double-stuffing her sweet, spasming cunt! A look of shock, then indescribable ecstasy came over the little Latina fuckslut’s features as she threw her head back, the sensation so intense that her mouth was open soundlessly, unable even to scream. Her pussy did the talking for her, squelching and squirting and cumming audibly as both men powered into it, holding out as long as they could before they both lost it and pumped their loads into the wriggling bitch in unison. As they let her down, she slipped and fell on her ass, her head rolling, practically faint.

"Wow, gentlemen! What a show from Satin Rayne! That’s one ex-plosive beeeyatch!" the announcer laughed.

"Keiko"’s challengers stepped into her tub, rubbing their cocks and taking in the look of abject horror on her face as they laughed. One of them taunted, "What’s the matter, bitch? You don’t look happy to see us!" and another went over, grabbed her by the hair and dragged to the back of her tub, bending her over its edge and presenting her ass and pussy to the audience. He shouted crudely at her, "You’re gonna get spanked until you shout ‘Fuckee-Fuckee!’" and started raining loud, hard slaps down on the girl’s gleaming, jigging ass-flesh, her hips jerking and waggling sexily with every blow, her abuser leaning into it, her cries audible, "No-no-more-spanking-PLEASE-I OWWW! OWWW! OWWW! PLEEEASE! OWWW! OWWW! OWWW! PLEEEEHEEEASE NO OWWW! NOHOOO OWWW! OWWW! I’LL DO IT PLEASE JUST OWWWW! OWWWWW! I’LL DO ANYTHING JUST OWWWW! OWWWW! AHHHOWWWWWW OWWWWWW OWWWWWW FUCKEE-FUCKEE! FUCKEE-FUCKEE!" The pathetic cry brought a sadistic, jeering laugh from the crowd as the man mounted her, setting the pattern for his friends as he didn’t even bother with her pussy, instead sinking his hard cock right into her oil-lubed ass.

"UGGGGGGHHHHHH!" screamed the slut as her ass was royally pounded, juice squirting out of her snatch, the brutal ass-fuck quickly climaxing her, "UGGGGHHH UGHHHHHH UGHHHHHHH UHHHHH-UGGGHHHHHHH!" the girl sobbed as the reaming went on and on, bringing her back up to messily squirting climax again and again until finally her first ravisher tensed up, yelling, pumping his spunk into her tight asshole as she orgasmed helplessly: "AUUUUUUUUHAUUUUGHHHHHHHH!" As the man pulled out, his spunk leaking from her ass and dripping down along her slit, she was already looking back at the second man’s menacing advance, desperate to escape another spanking and crying out shamelessly: "FUCKEE-FUCKEE! PLEASE FUCKEE-FUCKEE!"

"Keiko" endured two more long, hard anal ravishings, her cunt squirting and squirting, plainly being brought to multiple orgasms despite the fact that not one of her cocksmen so much as touched her snatch. At last, as the last man was done with her and a river of spunk could be seen leaking out of her asshole and over her pussy and thighs, the newly-broken butt-slut slumped, shuddering, to her knees.

"Aaaand the versatile Keiko Takeda crosses the finish line! Who knew she was a master of the Greek martial arts, too?" joked the announcer to the cheering crowd.

Of the two remaining Foxxxes in the orgasm race, "Mylene" was thus far taking the most punishment. She had been the only one, at the outset, to make the mistake of trying to bolt, her primal terror taking over and actually attempting a run for the front of the tub; taking on three dicks was a far cry from just sucking one. One of the challengers caught her, his fingers sinking cruelly into her taut, oiled young flesh as she desperately tried to slip away from him, throwing the sobbing teen back into the middle of the tub. "Just for that," one of them could be heard to say, "we’re gonna make you beg."

They’d been true to their word: they’d put her on her back in the middle of the tub where one would mount and fuck the young teenaged Foxxx’s face, forcing her to choke and gag on his tool as the other two held her haunches up high on display for the crowd, her ass and pussy glistening as one would spank her and the other would play mercilessly with her slit and clit, keeping her maddeningly just on the brink of orgasm as she writhed in increasing desperation. They rotated through these positions relentessly, each somehow restraining himself from blasting down the horny teen’s throat, and every time a cock would pop out of her mouth the girl could be heard begging more and more urgently, "I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR DICKS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR DICKS I NEED TO CUM I NEED TO BE FUCKED PLLLLMMMMMPPPH UGGGHHHHCKKK AGGGGHHHHCCKKKKK!" And the coarse, nasty face-fucking and relentless spanking and pussy-teasing would begin again.

Aside from horniness, there could be little doubt that "Mylene"’s avid need for cock was also related to the periodic announcements of orgasmic fulfillment that had penetrated her whirling consciousness, the knowledge that now only "Summerset"’s crew of ravishers stood between her and the fate of being humiliatingly bound for the next round of cruel festivities.

But she needn’t have worried.

Everyone in the crowd had marvelled from the beginning at the restraint of "Summerset"’s challengers. As the other trios had been surging in to take command of their respective Foxxxes, these three puzzled everyone by standing back and conferring for a moment, then exchanging nods... and then sauntering, slowly, one by one into the tub, playfully pushing the bound "Summerset" back into the middle as she tried to scamper over and get at their hard cocks. The trashy blonde looked around at them in bewilderment, her big, glistening fake tits heaving in panic as they spaced themselves at wide intervals around the tub, their members glistening, their eyes gleaming cruelly... and there’d been appreciative murmurs from the crowd. They’d decided they wanted to see the blonde get whipped! They were going to toy with her until the other tubs were done!

It was plain from the desperate, despairing look in her eyes that "Summerset" realized this too, but there was nothing she could do except slither and scamper awkwardly through the oil as the men, in random order, called out "Heeeeere slut! Heeeere slut! Come get some dick!" The bound Foxxx would flounder desperately across the tub as each abuser would at first force her to kiss and lick their feet, eventually grabbing her by the hair and bringing her head up to the hard cock, shoving it in her wet mouth and letting her suck. And suck she would, desperately, loudly, sloppily, hummming and gobbling and spitting and twisting her head, gyrating her ass and pussy hornily at the men behind her, making smouldering eye contact with the man she was sucking as she ran her head down to lick his balls, ducked further down to shove her tongue sluttily into his nasty, sweaty asshole, sliding back up to bob wetly on his cock, sure that this time she’d get a load out of just one of them... and then the contender would be pulling the bound girl’s head off his cock, planting a foot in her chest and pushing her back into the middle of the tub as a man on the opposite side taunted: "Heeeeere slut!"

By the time "Keiko"’s ravishers were done, "Summerset" had made a seemingly endless number of these wriggling, slithering, degrading trips back and forth across the tub. But it couldn’t be easy, onlookers reckoned, for them to hold back from fucking her tight ass, her dripping slit, from letting go in her mouth. Eventually, one or the other of the remaining crews would snap and start fucking their victim in earnest.

It was "Mylene" who eventually forced the issue when, in one of her brief breaks from being mouth-fucked, a bolt of inspiration clearly struck her and she cried out: "Please see if you can fit two cocks in my tight little ass! That’s what I deserve cuz I’m a bad girl!"

Her challengers froze for a moment until one of them said, "Fuck it. SOLD." They lifted the teen Foxxx up, mounted her ass on a cock, "AUUUGHHHH!" – and a second cock followed it, inch by slow inch, "UGGGGHHH UGGGGHHH UHHHUGGGHHH," the teen squealing and sobbing as her inexperienced ass was stretched and stretched and stretched... and then one of her ravishers stuffed her pussy full of fingers as the men started pumping, and she lost control, her juice visibly spurting everywhere, practically a fountain as she came and came. "AUUUGHHHHH! AUUUUGHHHHH! AUUUUUGHHHH! AUUUUGGHHHHH YEAHHH I LOVE TWO COCKS IN MY MMMMMPHHHHHH!!!" The third man had clambered up and was fucking her mouth, in earnest now, and before long all four of them were climaxing together, "Mylene" cumming so hard as the three cocks filled her with hot spunk that she literally passed out.

"Well, it sure looks like Mylene Desanges knows how to charm a few dicks! Truly inspirational! Which means..." the announcer said stagily, the crowd cheering and whistling: "Somebody’s getting whipped as soon as three cocks are done with her!"

With the last obstacle gone, the restraint of "Summerset"’s crew vanished. There was palpable relief in their movements as their descended on the blonde, grabbing her as she gasped, positioning her like a rag doll so that each of them could access a hole, and as one they reamed into her, the slut moaning and writhing as the cocks pounded her with pent-up lust, ramming into her over and over again, mastering her, her snatch exploding with juice as she climaxed messily, "MMMMMMPPPPHGLHHHMPHHHGLHHMMMMGLMMMMPHHHHH!" She would have wanted to draw things out, but couldn’t stop her pussy from gushing and clutching its violator, couldn’t stop the sexy wriggling of her ass and the horny sucking of her mouth, and soon all three men were emptying their cocks into her and she was cumming again: "MMMMMMMPPPPHHHHHHH!" And just like that, Round Three was over.

Almost.

"Finally, Summerset has done it! Now the Number One Foxxx has a hot date with a piece of bamboo! What a way to end Round Three, what a round, what a group of utter whores!" The mini-stadium resonated with cheering and stamping as a formidable goon headed for Summerset’s tub with a bamboo cane in his right hand, and the announcer continued: "We have plenty more rounds to go! Don’t delay! Get a place in line and you can say you were part of the breaking of Foxxx Force Five – your Johnson will thank you!"

* * * * *

"Man, that was quite the event, Boss," said Jimmy as the last of a very satisfied crowd of punters filed out of the Mini-Dome several hours later. It was just him and The Boss left on the platform; their "guest," Max, had been escorted back to the mansion just a little after the soiled, broken, barely-conscious forms of the unfortunate oil-wrestlers had been carried out of the building. "Seems like things worked out with Fawkes?"

Siouxsie Sexcrime nodded absently, taking a brief pull on a Dominican cigar and blowing a smoke ring. "He’ll play along, Mister Beam, for now. For his own reasons, no doubt, but it’s the results that concern us."

"What do you think now that you’ve met him in person?"

"Formidable," she admitted after a long, pensive moment. "Someday, I shall really have to learn how he figured the Caliente connection out on his own, from the information he had when we took him. I had to do some fancy footwork, there. And on Alethex..."

"He seems to be one mean son of a bitch, Boss."

"Yes, he certainly is," she said. "That last stipulation he suggested was extraordinarily cruel." There was an unmistakable note of admiration and envy in her voice; clearly she was disappointed she hadn’t thought of it herself.

It had been Max, indeed, who’d hit on one of the most profitable ideas of the evening. The Foxxx Force Five girls had endured several crushing rounds of twelve-man gangbangs before a final stipulation had been announced that all remaining patrons who hadn’t had a turn would be welcomed to gather round a tub and shoot a load on a Foxxx – and that each Foxxx would be penalized fifty dollars from her fee for every load she failed to catch in her mouth. The spectacle of the broken girls scampering exhaustedly around their tubs, desperately trying to catch spunk on their tongues and swallow it as quickly as they could, every last shred of dignity and humanity abandoned, had been quite something. Along with the considerable boost in revenue from the punters, it had shaved a few hundred dollars off each Foxxx’s final price tag, too.

And sometimes more. The California stripper, Kandi, even more exhausted than the others from the whippings she’d had to endure round after round after round – toyed with mercilessly and then slam-fucked viciously by one group of men after another, her thighs and buttocks a criss-crossed pattern of red weals – had been simply unable to get up, her legs wobbling and giving out after several pathetic, writhing attempts. Her mob of punters, at a nod from the tub referee, simply climbed in and held the bound bitch face down while they spunked all over her back, her snatch and her bright red ass and she sobbed in utter defeat. At best she would only see a third of the extra two grand that had originally been dangled in front of her.

Best of all, though, the resulting pictures would be fabulous for the event’s blackmail revenue. Every last punter in attendance – many of them college students from wealthy New Amsterdam families – had been photographed in salacious activity, some of it more vicious than others, but those images of men crouching in cackling packs, cocks in hand, over the faces and bodies of the broken, dispirited women would be absolute gold.

He did feel an odd twinge of something in his gut when he thought about those pictures, though. He wondered why. Maybe he’d better eat something.

"What’s the status of the sluts, Mister Beam?" she asked.

"Pretty much in shock for the most part. They’ve been shown pictures of the event and told they’ll be sent to their families and boyfriends if they talk. Might have to tell them a few more times before it sinks in."

"Has any of them said anything?"

"Nothing major." The Boss looked at him levelly, and he cleared his throat. "Well, the one Kandi chick did say something about going to the cops. To be expected, really, she caught the worst of it. We let her know that’d mean her sweet Aunt Doreen buys the farm, though, wised her up pretty quick."

She nodded, stood up, ground out the cigar with the heel of her shoe. "Ship them offshore," she said mildly. "All of them. Better to take no chances."

"No problem, Boss. The Dominican house again?"

"Use your discretion, but I think the Peruvian house could use some topping up." She yawned, allowed herself a languid cat-like stretch and said: "Productive day. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mister Beam."

"Sure thing. Night, Boss."

Jimmy Beam was left alone in the miniature auditorium, staring numbly off into space. He was getting that twinge in his gut again, something fierce. Mexican, maybe, he thought to himself, taking a deep breath. Yeah, I’ll just go for some Mexican.