"Conceptfan's Shorts". Evil supervillainesses, bad supergirls and cruel superwomen fiction by Conceptfan.

Conceptfan's Shorts

A collection of self-contained one-off short stories that don't fit into the other series. Featuring all kinds of superhuman evil females, including alien invaders, sexual predators and cold-hearted killers.


Story Index


No. 1 - "Hostile Takeover"

The President sat calmly in his office and waited. He knew now that there was nothing more he could do. Over the past few weeks, he and his citizens had been subjected to an assault that had caused them all more than once to question their senses. Their country - in fact, the whole world - was under hostile attack by an extraterrestrial enemy. A single being. A single being that was so much like one of them in appearance.

It didn't seem possible. The alien looked like nothing more than a teenage girl. An outstandingly beautiful and - observers couldn't help but notice - well-developed youth, but a teenage girl none-the-less. Fresh-faced with long shiny brown hair, flawless skin, clear brown eyes, rosebud lips and perfect teeth, long arms and legs and a slim and exceptionally shapely figure, she might have been an up-and-coming film star.

But up-and-coming film stars didn't throw buses around as if they weighed nothing more than tennis balls using only their slender arms. Up-and-coming film stars didn't emerge without a single scratch when an anti-tank grenade exploded in their dainty hands. They didn't spill innocent blood seemingly with as little thought as others might use to blink. And they certainly didn't produce winds that travelled at ten times the speed of a hurricane just by casually exhaling air through the pouting lips of their perfect mouths. Only this girl did do all that, and so much more. And she seemed determined to demonstrate her unbelievable abilities at every opportunity.

The President sighed as he considered his position. The lone alien invader had utterly defeated countless army battalions. Air strikes had also proven totally ineffective against this beautiful yet deadly enemy from the stars. Pleas for negotiations had fallen on immaculate ears that seemed to be deaf one instant and capable of detecting a man's heartbeat when he lay hidden half a mile away the next. The President wondered if the alien was listening to the rhythm of his own heart at that very instant, or to the beats produced by the chests of the six security agents who stood around the room, fingers poised on the triggers of their state-of-the art weapons.

From the large window opposite were he was seated he could see the narrow swathe of disorder that had been carved through his nation's capital city by the incredible girl as she had made her unstoppable advance towards his residence. As bad as the damage appeared, the President knew that there were even worse scenes in many of his other towns. And he also knew that the trail of wreckage was still growing, and that it had now reached the interior of the very building in which he now sat.

As he listened the sound of muffled automatic weapons fire, intermingled with an occasional, much louder, explosion - possibly caused by grenades, or maybe even armour piercing rockets of some kind - he found himself touched by the bravery of the men trying to defend both him and all that he symbolised to them. But he felt no cause for optimism. He had seen, read and heard too many reports of the alien girl's complete invulnerability to far more destructive weapons than those that were being used on the floors below. No, the President knew that it was only a matter of time until he found himself face to beautiful young face with the invader.

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire and explosions ceased. He closed his eyes, fearful of what might have become of the men who had been protecting him. The half-dozen guards with him stiffened as well and the tension in the office became unbearable. Still, the waiting continued. The men in the room flinched as one as the sound of someone shouting filtered through the walls only to be dramatically cut off mid-syllable. Had the owner of that voice become yet another victim of the stunning alien? They had all viewed enough footage of her assaults on Earth to know that it was more than likely.

For the hundredth time, the President considered what he was going to do when she finally, inevitably, stood before him. Any thoughts of physical resistance were pointless. He could clearly recall the videos he had watched, and his mood while he watched - horrified but unable to look away. He remembered his shock as he had seen her walking confidently through the desert, her stride not altering for a second as the sand beneath her perfect bare feet was fused into glass in the heat generated by a tactical nuclear detonation directly over her head. After that, he was hardly even surprised to see film of her gorgeous and generous chest absorbing a series of direct hits from rockets designed to destroy armour-reinforced underground buildings.

He had become convinced that his armies could not hurt her. But how she could hurt them! One video had shown her stopping an enormous tank mid charge with just one delicate hand and then calmly tearing it in half down its length as if it were made of thin paper before calmly crushing the men who had been inside beneath the two halves of the destroyed vehicle.

In another piece of footage she had strolled through a squadron of infantrymen, her long, thin arms flashing out to either side, each movement claiming a life. She decapitated men, ripped gaping holes right through their chests, bellies or faces - she even threw some of them dozens of yards into the air. A few she had kicked, causing their bodies to explode with gore or occasionally to fly off towards the horizon. The President had felt sick as he watched, his mind unable to reconcile the girl's astonishing beauty with the inhuman cruelty of her actions.

He'd also seen film of her ripping the canon off the front of a tank and hurling it skyward with such force that it tore right through a fighter jet that had been flying overhead at an altitude of five thousand feet. The impact instantly reduced the warplane to a ball of fire that fell to Earth like a stone. Then there was the footage of her emerging unaffected from a dense cloud of deadly nerve gas, stepping disinterestedly on the bodies of countless soldiers who had succumbed to the poison, the lethal chemical not even causing the tiniest blemish on her flawless youthful skin.

Thousands of men had attempted to stop her using every weapon in existence. But this lone, unarmed, teenage girl who appeared to be dressed in nothing more than a tight-fitting T-shirt and a pair of immodest shorts, had defeated them all. She didn't even seem to need to sleep, rest or eat, continuously wreaking havoc day and night. Physically, militarily, there was no hope. What was a leader of so many supposed to do when faced with such an enemy? An enemy that was probably now only yards away. The President cleared his throat to catch the attention of his guards.

"Put down your weapons, men. They won't be any use." The guards began to slowly lay their guns on the floor. "All your weapons." he insisted. "Pile them up in the corner. If you're unarmed, and you don't offer resistance, your lives might be spared." He watched as the six uniformed men obeyed his instructions. Once they had deposited the last of their firearms he turned to them and said: "Now go whilst you still can."

The most senior guard immediately replied "Our place is here with you, whatever happens, sir."

"Very well." answered the President, before adding "Thank you."

Before any of them could reflect on the significance of the verbal exchange, they became aware of a rumbling sound coming from somewhere below their feet. The sound rapidly became louder and more defined until it was more like a rapid sequence of small explosions than a rumble. Soon, the floor beneath them began to shake slightly and then more violently. Something was making its way steadily up through the building towards them. "May our Gods protect us all." said the President.

There was an almighty crash from directly below and then the entire office shuddered dramatically, knocking the six standing men off their feet. With effort, the President managed to remain seated in his chair. A noise similar to a bomb going off filled the room as the centre of the floor suddenly rose upwards, the thick carpet tearing as splintered wooden boards flew towards the ceiling followed by large chunks of plaster and brick. And despite the huge cloud of dust that had been thrown up, the President could clearly see the alien girl rising through the huge new hole in the floor, her perfect features implacably calm.

With great speed and grace, the rest of her fabulous body followed, ascending until her delicate bare feet were half a yard above the ruined carpet. She came to ground effortlessly with her heels planted just inches from the edge of the thick hole she had punched, presumably, thought the President, with her head. There was a long pause as the dust settled. The girl stood unmoving, her long, slender arms by her sides. The expression on her face revealed nothing. There was not a speck of dust on her T-shirt or shorts or even a tiny blemish anywhere on her flawless skin to indicate that she had just jumped through the ceiling of the room below.

The President swallowed hard. He had been expecting this moment for some time, but he found himself overawed as he stared into her large, bright, brown eyes and thought about the incredible power that lay within her petite and truly beautiful frame. The six men on the ground began to get to their feet once more. Two of them, their loyalty holding firm, moved quickly to stand shoulder-to-shoulder between the alien and their leader. The other four dashed to position themselves behind the President's desk on either side of him where he sat. For a few more instants, the alien remained perfectly still, her gorgeous lips sealed in a slight pout, her limbs motionless, her magnificent chest stationary. "Christ," thought the President, "she doesn't even need to breathe!"

The silence was broken by the intruder. She spoke in a soft and yet authoritative tone, her voice both feminine and confident. As she formed her words, the seven men watching her so intently were treated to brief glimpses of her perfect white teeth and her inviting tongue. "The one who is called President will approach me now." she instructed. None of the men moved. After a short pause she spoke again. "The President will approach me immediately or you shall all die."

Her arms flashed out too quickly for any of her observers to follow. Suddenly each of her two hands was cupping the chin of one of the two men standing in front of her. Her facial expression did not even flicker as she lifted both large men a couple of feet off the floor, the effort of supporting the weight of a man on either of her palms clearly not troubling her in any way. The two soldiers' feet dangled helplessly mid-air as four hands tried frantically to break the alien girl's twin hold on their chins. When their efforts proved utterly futile, they began to kick out, their heavy boots crashing into her slim bare knees, again without effect.

The guards' next idea was to pound their fists repeatedly on her beautiful face. It soon became clear to everyone in the room that the succession of blows, whilst failing to even make the girl blink, was damaging the men's hands. Badly. To relieve their painful fists, they tried driving their knees into her breasts, but their hardest hits barely even put the tiniest of temporary dents in her large, shapely chest. None of their efforts was sufficient to produce so much as a flicker of discomfort in her flawless features. The President had seen enough. "Let them go!" he pleaded, rising to his feet. "They've done nothing to you. They're only trying to protect me. I'm the President."

The two captive guards ceased their struggles, still dangling helplessly from the alien's delicate palms. After a brief pause, without any indication that she intended to release her prisoners, she spoke again. "You do not give me instructions. You will approach me now."

"I am approaching you." responded the President, stepping out from behind his desk. The other guards made room for him to pass by them. As he came round to the front of his big, presidential table, he added "I'm asking you to release those two men in the name of mercy."

Holding the soldiers dead still, their boots still half a yard off the ground, she said coldly, "You do not ask me. I tell you." A casual flick of her delicate wrists sent both men flying upwards to impact heads-first on the high ceiling. The collision smashed their skulls, splattering the plaster with blood before the two headless corpses fell to land by the girl's petite, feminine feet. Without looking down, she kept her gaze locked on the President's face as she instructed him once more: "You. Approach me."

Too afraid now both for his own life and those of the four remaining guards, the President took a couple of strides towards the incredible alien, stopping a yard in front of her, visibly quaking with fear. Calmly, the girl walked about a quarter circle around him so that she was now close to the huge table, all the while fixing her eyes on his. The quartet of terrified guards were still standing in a tight group behind the heavy, wooden desk. She turned her head towards them, pursed her luscious lips and exhaled a short sharp puff of air, as if putting out a candle.

The force of wind generated by her alien lungs was sufficient to lift all four men off their feet and throw their heavy frames three yards backwards into a wall. The dull thuds of two pairs of heads and backs slamming against the solid partition horrified the President even more than the sight of the men sliding down to the floor, their eyes open but dull, their faces registering a frozen look of shock. He turned away to look at the invader once more. If she was impressed by the sight of her casual breath extinguishing the lives of a quartet of elite military men, she showed no sign of it on her lovely face.

Turning her exquisite visage back to the President, she said deadpan, "Now you understand my power. You will follow my instructions or I will kill every creature in this city as I killed your guards." The President, now visibly shaking, swallowed hard. She seemed to pay him no attention, continuing to speak. "I will address the inhabitants of this planet from this room in ten minutes. Make the arrangements."

All thoughts of heroism had now left his mind; he knew that the girl could not be resisted by physical means, and he took her threat against his nation's capital seriously. After all, she had clearly demonstrated her total lack of conscience as far as cold-blooded murder was concerned. He knew he had no choice, but to obey. He, a man with decades of top-level political experience who had been chosen by millions of his people to be their leader and the commander of their vast army, was obliged to meekly do what he was told by a teenage girl who had only a been on his planet for a few weeks. A unarmed teenage girl who had single-handedly defeated that vast army.

Bringing his thoughts back to the immediate, the President suddenly realised that he and the alien girl were quite probably the only living beings left in the building. To make an emergency, unscheduled broadcast he would normally have to summon his staff. He knew the necessary equipment was located on hand in a cupboard at the far end of his office, but he realised that he had no idea how to use it. He was also aware that he would have to inform the TV networks - provided they had escaped the destruction his youthful conqueror had wrought. In hesitating tones, his voice quavering, he gathered the courage to speak up.

"I.. I.. er, need to contact somebody to make the broadcast." he said.

"Make the arrangements. You have nine-and-a-half minutes." came the steely-hearted reply. The President reached for his desk phone, hoping that the line had survived the girl's assault on the building. It had. He dialled a special three digit code, and waited for an answer. After a few moments, a voice spoke into his ear "Yes, Mr. President." Evidently, at least one station was still up and running.

He spoke slowly and carefully. "What I am about to say is of supreme importance. I need to address the nation in.. er.. about nine minute's time. There's no one here to operate the camera, so you're going to have to talk me through what to do, as well as clearing the air-time. And I want you to inform the other networks and satellite companies. Everyone must carry this message. This broadcast is absolutely vital. Millions of lives are at stake. Do you understand.?"

"Yes, Mr. President. I'm already sending the emergency pager signal. I'll need a minute to set things up over here and then I'll be with you."

"Don't hang up. We'll speak in sixty seconds from now."

The President placed the receiver on his desk and then hurried over to the cupboard where the emergency broadcast equipment was stored. The girl watched him disinterestedly, her stunning eyes betraying no emotion, her luscious, full lips, which seemed set fast in their gorgeous natural pout, displaying not a hint of joy at her apparent victory. She looked on as the President tapped at a keypad on the wall. The doors of the cupboard mechanically slid open, revealing a camera lens and a bank of electronic equipment. Then, the defeated leader returned to his desk and picked up the telephone once more.

"Are you there?" he spoke into the receiver.

"Yes, Mr. President." said the voice in his ear.

"Good. We need to be on air in..."

The beautiful alien interrupted him in her deadpan tone. "Seven-and-a-half minutes." she said.

"Seven-and-a-half minutes" the President repeated.

"OK, sir. Here's what we need to do..."

Seven minutes later, the President stepped away from the electronic transmission equipment and, turning to his unwanted superhuman companion, said, "The broadcast will begin in twenty-five seconds. The red light should turn green when transmission begins. You.. er.. should stand here to be seen." She began to stride towards him, her step displaying the arrogant confidence of a young girl who had just conquered a nation. The President backed away from her until he found his back was against the wall. His anxious and uncertain movements were a direct contrast to hers.

"Remain there." she instructed him, not bothering to look in his direction as she faced the camera in front of her. "Or your death will be slow." He froze on the spot.

A few pounding heartbeats later, the large illuminated red indicator at the top of the equipment became green. Tens of millions of television screens across the battered nation and even more around the rest of the planet simultaneously flickered to show the same view of the beautiful young girl. "Citizens," she said, "I cannot be opposed." Turning to the cowering President, she instructed him: "Approach me." The President came into view on countless screens, walking slowly, trying to maintain his dignity, but avoiding the camera with his gaze. At that moment, he could not look his people in the eye.

When he was just a yard away from her, she calmly reached out with her left arm, gripping him by the back of his neck. Then, facing the camera and the millions of viewers once more, she lifted him off his feet, her one-handed hold like a steel vice. She bent her slender arm until the helpless President faced the audience, his eyes closed, his face a grimace revealing the pain her feminine fingers were inflicting. Sweat began to bead on his wrinkled forehead as his legs hung in space and his lips formed a silent prayer. Whether it was a prayer for himself or for his nation or for the world, it wasn't clear.

In direct contrast, the girl was immaculately calm, the weight of the much bigger man obviously no bother for her. She stared coldly out of the world's screens as she slowly tightened her fingers. The President bit his lower lip, determined to maintain his dignity no matter what. The microphone several yards away clearly picked up the sound of tearing muscle and cracking bone. Then, the world was filled with the sound of the great man's screams of agony and the sight of his face turning bright purple. Then the cries stopped and the President became utterly motionless.

Still fixing her gaze dead ahead, the alien relaxed her grip and let the big, lifeless body of the man who had been President fall in the most undignified way imaginable to her feet. Speaking in her unchanging, clear tone, she addressed the shocked planet. "Now, " she said, "I am your ruler. Every one of you will obey my instructions or you will all be joining your President." She paused for a few seconds before she drew her foot back slightly and swung her delicate bare toes into the crumpled corpse. The body flew violently into the camera and equipment, smashing most of it beyond repair. Millions of television screens suddenly filled with snowy interference.

In the blood-splattered office of the former President, a slim, shapely young girl looked through a window. She stood straight, her long, slender, smooth legs belying the incomprehensible power they possessed. Her wonderful, large breasts proudly stretched the unearthly material of her upper garment, so softly feminine in appearance, so inhumanly invulnerable in reality. If anyone else had been left alive in the room with her, they might have noticed that amongst her flawless, film-star features there was the merest flicker of a smile.

  

Conceptfan, Nov. 2001.






No.2 - "The Groupie"

It was just another night. Another post-gig party, booze flowing like water, drugs of every kind being openly used, record company execs trying - and failing - to be cool, roadies slumped unconscious over tables or on the floor and, of course, plenty of very young under-dressed girls trying to score with someone famous. And they didn't come much more famous than Karl. He was the lead-singer, the front man of one of the most popular bands of the day. He'd just played to yet another full house, had two tracks in the charts and a string of number ones behind him. In short, he had the world at his feet.

The sound system was blaring one of his latest big sellers as he sat on a stool at the bar, drinking neat spirits like a man who was extremely well accustomed to consuming large amount of alcohol on a daily basis. The rest of the band were scattered about the room. His bassist had been cornered by one of the suits who was showing off his very limited knowledge of the contemporary music scene. His drummer was over in a booth with one of the girls who seemed to have her hands inside his trousers. The second guitarist was lying stretched out on his back on a padded bench, his eyes closed, his brain presumably in orbit around Mars, fuelled by some narcotic cocktail.

Karl was drinking alone - he preferred solitude after appearing in front of a big crowd. He knew his presence at the party was a business essential, so he had agreed to come, and he'd already had the obligatory cursory chat with the head of the record company. Now all he had to do was hang around just long enough to avoid accusations of leaving to early. He'd bribed one of the roadies with a fistful of pills to stand nearby and make sure he wasn't disturbed by fans. The poor roadie was having a torrid time turning away various people - cousins of this exec, friends of that recording engineer, and groupies by the dozen. Karl wanted nothing to do with any of them.

The novelty of sex on tap had worn off pretty quickly for Karl when he first became big. Nowadays he preferred to spend his nights with a girl he knew, a girl who he could trust not to sell her story to the papers. Someone who had a pretty good idea what he liked, and how he liked it. In fact, there was just such a woman waiting for him back at the hotel. Karl knew she could give him far, far more pleasure than any stranger, no matter how beautiful. So he made it clear that he didn't want to be bothered by groupies. The rest of the band could screw anything that moved if they wanted and the crew could muck around with whatever was left, but he didn't want to know.

Which is why he was not a little annoyed to feel a tap on his shoulder. In reluctant response, he turned his head to the side without breaking the contact between his lips and the shot-glass in his hand. He wasn't surprised to see that the podgy finger that had prodded him belonged to his minder for the night, a strong, but enormously fat, lump of a man. What did catch him unawares, though, was the contorted grimace of pain etched on the big man's face and the way his upper body was turned slightly to one side, his left arm bent behind his back.

At first, Karl thought the roadie was trying to hide something in his fat hand, but he dismissed that thought when he saw a solitary tear glistening in a bloodshot eye. It was as if someone was holding him in a viciously tight half-nelson, the mysterious assailant completely obscured from view by the guy's physical bulk. But that didn't make sense to Karl; anyone strong enough to pin this tub of lard would also be too big to be hidden behind him. Curiosity got the better of his irritation. "Whass goin' on?" he slurred at his minder.

"There... there's... a... girl...," the fat man gasped, the sweat breaking out in a film on his red, round face. "Wants... to... meet... you."

"I told you no chicks, man. Tell her to fuck off."

"Can't... she's... g-".

The agonised roadie was interrupted by a young female voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"-Who are you telling to fuck off?" the tone was mischievous rather than confrontational, but it disorientated Karl nonetheless.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" he asked, exasperated. The female voice answered him.

"It'd be a lot easier to have this conversation without the middle man." Before Karl's half-drunk, quarter-stoned brain could formulate a reply, he was temporarily robbed of the power of speech by the sight of the huge, fat roadie appearing to rise slowly into the air, until he was levitating six inches off the ground. Karl wondered if someone in the band had slipped something into his vodka. He looked at the man's face; it seemed even more wracked with pain than before. He looked down at his shoes. No question about it. There was definitely a gap between the rubber soles and the carpet.

Karl had seen some amazing things - real and imagined - since his first hit record five years back. But nothing, no party antics, no narcotic-fuelled misbehaviour, no hallucination came even close to the sight of his massive minder hovering in the air. Nothing, that is, until a few moments later when the big guy began to move sideways, his feet motionless as he floated. After a moment, the fat man's arm became free of whatever had pinned it behind his back. Karl could see the relief spread across the roadie's face as he nursed his tree-trunk arm with his other hand. Still the big guy continued to move to the side.

Suddenly, Karl became aware of a shape emerging from behind his minder. It was a familiar shape - human. As the fat guy moved aside further, Karl saw that it was female. And young. And beautiful. And... He couldn't believe his eyes, but the more he stared the more it became clear. The beautiful, young female shape had encircled the fingers of one hand inside the back of the roadie's belt. It looked for all the world as if she had lifted the huge lump of fat off his feet and was now moving him out of her way, with one hand. Karl knew that was impossible. It had to be some kind of stunt, some sort of joke the others were playing on him. But nobody else in the room was paying any attention to him, the girl or the floating roadie.

By now, the huge guy was completely outside of the line of sight between Karl and the girl. The rock star stared at her deep green eyes, her perfect complexion and her erotic, full lips. She stared back at him, those lips parting slightly in a half-smile as she theatrically removed her fingers from their perch inside the roadie's belt. If it was a stunt, it was well rehearsed, because the second the girl let go of the belt, the big guy fell back to earth, landing clumsily and barely managing to stop himself falling over. Without letting her gaze drift from Karl's eyes she said simply "Run along now."

When the roadie actually started to make as if he was leaving, Karl's wonder turned to annoyance. "Hey!" he shouted. "I'm paying you. You go when I tell you to."

"Sorry, dude." he replied, without looking round, almost running now as he dived for the nearest exit.

"Looks like the big, strong man is afraid of a little girl." the beautiful stranger said before smiling, revealing her dazzling, immaculate teeth. Karl couldn't help but be impressed with her beauty. Now that there was nothing between them, he could take her all in. She was wearing a short, thin evening dress, cut low to display acres of firm, youthful cleavage. When he managed to tear his eyes away from her big, round breasts, Karl was able to appreciate her narrow waist, curvaceous hips and smooth, shapely legs. She was standing straight and yet relaxed, her long slender arms hanging by her thighs. Six inches shorter than him, she didn't look a day over seventeen. Even for the jaded eyes of an experienced rock star who had been around the block so many times he'd lost count, she was stunning.

"What the hell did you do to him?" he asked, vaguely indicating the door through which the big guy had exited.

"He wouldn't let me see you so I.. y'know.. twisted his arm a little."

"Why d'you want to see me anyway? Couldn't you see I didn't want to be disturbed?"

"I just wanted something." she answered, mysteriously.

"Well I haven't got anything, so why don't you just piss off and leave me alone like a good girl?" Karl saw the girl glance at the room around them, as if she wanted to check if anybody was watching them. No-one was.

When she had confirmed that they were unobserved, her left hand flashed out, grabbing his right wrist. She took a step closer to him, holding his captured arm low between them, out of sight of any onlookers. Karl's mind was suddenly filled with pain as the girl squeezed his wrist between her delicate fingers: tears welled in his eyes, his breathing became quick and laboured. It felt like a vice had been closed on his arm. Through watery, half-closed eyes, he looked at his assailant. She looked as calm and as beautiful as a moment before. As if to prove that she was making no effort to inflict such pain, she said "No I won't piss off. Oh, and by the way, I'm not a good girl."

"Let go of me for fucksake!" hissed Karl through his clenched teeth, the pain from his wrist rapidly becoming intolerable. The girl made no attempt to reply or to relax her hold on him, so Karl tried to prise apart her fingers with his free hand. He failed to make the slightest impression on her grip. In desperation, he kicked her bare shin once, then again and then several times in quick succession. Even though he was wearing heavy shoes, the only reaction his kicks produced was a tightening of her little feminine hand around his tortured wrist. New pain tore through his arm. He felt certain that his bones were about to be crushed. "Oh, Christ, no!" he spluttered. "Let me go, please! Just tell me what you want!"

She eased the force of her grip slightly so he no longer feared for his bones, but kept it tight enough to hurt. A lot. Then, she extended the index finger of her right hand and brought it slowly upwards, under his chin. "I'll tell you what I want," she said, lifting her finger upwards and tilting his chin back so that he was looking at her. Karl tried to push against her, his neck muscles straining, but once again his efforts were wasted. He used his left hand once more, pulling downwards on her fist with all his strength and weight, but she kept on pushing his head upwards with her single finger, completely unaffected by his struggles. Once she had raised his chin so that his eyes looked into hers, she added, "What I want, Karl, is you."

"I'm not available." He managed to say, despite his extreme discomfort.

"Yes you are." She replied, flatly. "Right now." Again, she threw a quick glance around the room to check if anyone was watching. Satisfied that they were still unobserved, she stepped incredibly swiftly from directly in front of him so that she was standing by his side before he even realised that she was moving. At the same time, she released his arm, which he immediately hugged to himself in relief.

"What the fuck?" he said when he realised that she was now next to him.

"You're coming with me. Now.", she answered.

"Hey! No, I'm n-" His words were cut off as her hand darted like lightening into his trouser pocket, two of her fingers expertly grabbing his penis through the lining. The agony that instantly raced from his loins to his brain made him wish she was still crushing his arm. "Eaaaoww!" he roared as his hands tried to pull her out of his pocket, with a now familiar lack of success.

She squeezed even tighter, making him see stars, and then she hissed in his ear, "Shhh! Don't make a scene or I'll snap it off." He tried to say something to her, but he was clearly in to much pain to be able to formulate proper words. He felt her other arm round his waist, holding him fast, but not uncomfortably. Not that he could feel much else with the pain in his organ reaching phenomenal levels. "Just walk calmly with me. This way," she said, taking a step away from the bar. Karl felt himself being pulled off his feet by the arm around his midriff. "Walk!" she instructed him once more, "Or you'll be singing soprano from now on."

The agony was too great. Karl did as he was told, his feet moving beneath him as she strode towards one of the exit doors, almost dragging him along with her. He realised that her arm around him made it look to everyone that they were a couple. He wanted to cry out for help, to say that he - the great rock star - was being kidnapped in the middle of a party by a slender girl slightly more than half his age, but he feared for his reproductive organ. He meekly let her lead him out of the room, onto a staircase.

Once she had shut the door behind her, she finally removed her hand from his penis. Karl barely had time to catch his breath when he felt the other arm - the one around his waist - tightening dramatically. Once more, he fought against her and once more he could do nothing to stop her. He tried to call for help, but found that she had squeezed almost all the air from his body and no sound would leave his lips. Then, to his shock, he found his whole body tilting, his head lowering and his feet coming off the floor. He pummelled at her flat stomach with both his fists and soon found his hands bruising. She seemed not to even notice his frantic assault. Pretty soon, he was horizontal. She was carrying him, tucked under her slender arm as if he was a rolled up newspaper, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.

The girl turned and faced the stairs, Karl's head and feet swinging around with her like he was weightless. She began to run upstairs, so quickly that the wall became a blur. The party had taken place on the fifth floor of the thirty-storey block, but it was only about half-a-minute until she reached the top of the stairs. Dizzy from being shaken about so violently, Karl was struggling to get some air into his lungs, his ability to breathe severely restricted by the girl's one-armed embrace. He caught sight of her beautiful face. She wasn't even a little out of breath, despite having ran up fifty flights of stairs with a big man tucked under her arm.

There was a big, steel door ahead of them, secured with a heavy padlock. Karl watch in disbelief as she reached for the door with her free hand, her small fist punching right through the inch-thick steel with a loud bang, puncturing it well left of centre, about a foot from the ceiling. Then, she closed her fingers around the hole she'd made and slowly pulled downwards, all the while holding him fast with her other arm. The metal gave off a groan as she tore away a strip about six inches wide and two foot long. She seemed to be finding it as easy as Karl found tearing off a strip of old wallpaper.

She left the torn strip of steel hanging in place as she repeated the whole process, punching another hole and tearing more metal, this time about eighteen inches to the right of the first piece. Next, she reached down for Karl, relaxing the arm holding him, but grabbing him with her other hand around the collar of his shirt. His feet hit the ground and he tried to run but he got nowhere, the grip around his collar proving too secure. With her one hand on his throat, she pushed him back against the metal door, between the two tears she had just made. He kicked out at her, making good contact with her naked thigh, but she ignored him. He pushed against her hold, but by now he knew she was far, far too strong for him.

He felt himself being pushed downwards so that his knees were bent and his eyes were level with her nose. Her free hand captured his wrist, bringing it up beside his head, his frantic efforts to resist her achieving nothing. She pinned his hand against the door with two fingers whilst the other fingers of her hand hooked around one of the strips of steel she'd peeled before. This she casually folded over his wrist, bending the inch-thick metal as if it was wet cardboard. As she removed her hand, Karl found that his arm was held firm by her improvised handcuff. He'd seen her tear the steel so easily, but it was utterly unyielding to his struggles. She then captured his other hand, brought that up to the door and secured it with the other strip of metal she'd prepared.

As Karl fought in vain to free his hands, she took a step back as if to admire her handiwork. Then, with one hand, she ripped his shirt from his body, the fabric tearing to shreds. She hooked two fingers from the same hand around his thick leather belt and, with a little tug, snapped it in half. Seconds later, she'd torn off his trousers and his shorts. She looked down at Karl's flaccid organ and said, with mock disappointment, "Don't you like me then? Or don't you like it when you're not in charge? Too bad."

She stepped back again, removing the straps of her dress from her shoulders. It fell gently around her feet. She was completely naked underneath. And she was perfect. Not a blemish on her creamy skin, her breasts large and round and high on her chest, their nipples huge. Her waist flat, her thighs smooth, her pubic hair neat and inviting. Despite his discomfort and his disorientation, Karl felt himself responding to her. She approached him, letting her breasts bounce with her step until her big nipples were just inches from his chest. Then she placed her finger under his chin one more, lifting his head until his gaze met hers.

She leant forward until her mouth was almost touching his and breathed into his face as she said. "You're mine now, Karl. I've wanted you since the first time I saw you on television and I always get what I want." Her warm, sweet breath washed over him, making him tremble at the knees, but still he said:

"I belong to no-one.".

At that moment, she kissed him, her soft lips pressing against his, for a instant before she broke the contact and repeated "You're mine, Karl."

"No, I -". She leant into him, her nipples brushing against his chest. Blood pumped into his penis, his organ betraying him as it became ever harder. She kissed him again, for longer this time, her tongue inexorably prising his clenched teeth apart and entering his mouth. He tried to force it out with his own but she flicked it aside and began exploring deeply. Karl felt his mind racing with conflicting thoughts as her tongue ran free inside his mouth. He wanted to resist her, but he could feel himself surrendering against his will to her erotic power.

She pressed her whole body up against his, her big breasts pushing hard against his ribcage, forcing the air from his lungs. His organ became fully erect as he struggled to breathe. She withdrew her tongue and ended the kiss, pulling her face about an inch away from his, at the same time slightly easing the pressure on his chest so that he could grab some oxygen. Then she took hold of his throbbing penis once more, holding it firmly but not too uncomfortably. She bent her knees a little, causing her breasts to drag down his chest almost painfully. She smiled and straightened her legs again, rubbing her chest against his again. His whole body shook.

The girl began to bend and straighten her legs again and again, stroking him repeatedly with her large breasts. Karl felt himself about to orgasm, and realised that her grip on his organ was preventing his release. "Oh God!" he cried in new agony. "What are you doing to me?" She stopped moving and with her mouth still so close to his, said:

"Can't you see, Karl? You're mine now. I control you. You can't cum unless I let you."

"Wha? No! No, I'm not yo-". His protest was ended as she leaned into him once more, this time pushing herself far harder against him, stopping his breath completely. Her big feminine mounds pressed painfully against his chest, making his eyes water. He was in terrible pain, but the sheer eroticism of her breasts as they overpowered him increased the pressure in his loins still further. Her grip on his penis was all that prevented his orgasm. She let her wonderful breath fill his senses and make his yearning even more intolerable as she whispered,

"You are mine, aren't you, Karl? I can do whatever I want with you, can't I?"

She increased the pressure of her chest against his as she spoke, until Karl was convinced that his rib-cage was about to collapse. His need to orgasm grew still further. Karl knew that even the pain was turning him on now. The knowledge that it was being caused by her wonderful breasts made him welcome it. Not even for a second had he been able to resist this girl physically. Now, with his hands held fast with steel bonds that she herself had torn and his bones about to crumble beneath her seemingly soft femininity, he knew that he could not resist her erotically, either. She was in total control of him. Even as she threatened to kill him, he knew he wanted to please her.

The girl seemed to sense his thoughts. She relaxed the crushing force against his ribcage slightly and kissed him violently once more, her tongue pushing his hard against the roof of his mouth. Again the pain only heightened his desire. She pulled her lips away from his and stared into his eyes. "Say it, Karl," she insisted, exhaling so very erotically into his face. "Say that you are mine."

"I am yours," said Karl, the truth of the statement now abundantly clear to him. She responded by thrusting out her hips and using the hand on his penis to guide him fully into her. Something inside her gripped him as tightly as her hand had done, preventing his release. She began to take him in and out, maintaining the inner hold. With every forward stroke, her hips slammed his pelvis, pushing him into the metal door and her breasts crushed his chest. Karl feared he would pass out and found himself fighting to retain consciousness, knowing that that was what she wanted. He truly belonged to her now.

She threw her head back, letting out a low moan, still gripping him with mysterious inner muscles as she enjoyed her climax. She began to thrust even faster until Karl was being hammered against the steel behind him several times a second, but still he struggled not to pass out. She orgasmed again and then a third time and a fourth. Still she held him inside her so tightly that his own release was impossible. Her body became a blur as she moved still more rapidly, enjoying two more climaxes until finally she slowed to a more conventional pace, and relaxed her unearthly grip on him.

Karl felt as though his whole existence was spurting through his penis into her as he shook with the most prolonged and violent orgasm of his life. He was still cuming when she suddenly pulled herself off him. "Well," she said, her voice cold, "that was pretty disappointing." Karl's spirits sank. He was hers. Her wanted to give her pleasure.

"Let me try again" he pleaded, oblivious to the bruising that now covered his body. "I am yours. Let me please you." The girl laughed cruelly.

"You really are mine, aren't you Karl. Too bad I don't want to keep you." Still laughing, she leaned into him for a final time, pressing her breasts up against him once more, this time far harder than before. His ribs were incapable of holding out any longer. She pushed still further against him, enjoying the sensation of her femininity crushing his bones. She saw his eyes bulge and then become dim as his head flopped onto his chest. She stepped away from Karl's lifeless body and, picking up her dress from the floor, she slipped it back on. Then she turned around and headed back downstairs towards the party. "I wonder if the drummer will turn out to be a bit more of a man than he was." she thought.

  

Conceptfan, Nov. 2001.






No.3 - "Leena's Boys"

Parking lot in front of Barry's Gym, Crampton, Friday p.m.

Jeff walked out into the cool night air, looking forward to watching the shows he had set his VCR to tape while he was working out. It was his regular evening ritual; ninety minutes of gym after work while other folks were in front of the primetime viewing. That was why he had such a great physique, why he got great-looking girls most weekends. Although for reasons he couldn't work out, they never seemed to stick around after Sunday night. As far as he was concerned, he looked great and that should've been enough. He strolled towards his car, admiring the all too brief glimpses of his reflection in the side-mirrors of the vehicles he passed.

He was startled by a woman's voice which came out of the darkness behind a parked pickup. "Mmmm. Nice butt." Jeff spun around to see the owner of the voice. She stepped out of the shadows into the artificial orange light, smiling as Jeff's jaw dropped. He'd never seen anything like her. She was tall - almost six foot. She was dressed in only a tight white T-shirt and a pair of tiny red shorts. He drank in her long, shapely legs, her round thighs and her narrow waist. His gaze lingered over her splendid, huge breasts, awed by the way they stretched out the fabric of her shirt, the big nipples straining erotically. Then he saw her face, her bee-stung lips, her clear eyes, her flawless complexion and her long light brown hair. What a babe! He needed to think of a line - a good one - and fast.

"Hey, did it hurt when you fell from heaven, angel?" he asked.

"No," she said. "And it was a spaceship, not heaven." This totally confused Jeff.

"Can I get you a drink?" That was the best he could come up with. She didn't answer, but she did walk towards him, so that was O.K. The closer she got, the more beautiful she looked. Jeff stared at her chest. "So, er, where are we going? Yours or mine?" he asked, confidently. She was only a few feet away from him now.

"Mine." she said. Her hand flashed out towards him, so quickly he barely saw it. Suddenly, everything went black.

 

Crampton Police HQ, Sunday p.m.

For months, four officers, a sergeant and the town's only detective had been working full-time on the series of mysterious disappearances that had shaken their small, formerly quiet community to its foundations. Weeks of painstaking interviewing and searching through the victims' homes and possessions for a clue had yielded almost nothing at all. Nothing, that is, other than the fact that all the disappeared were attractive young men who had been unaccompanied when they were last seen.

The town's lake had been searched by out-of-town frogmen who had brought a truck-load of equipment with them, but other than a rusty car chassis and a few illegally dumped oil-cans, nothing had been found. Lengthy questioning sessions with the families and friends of the missing men had failed to find any connection. There were no matching contacts listed in the men's address books. In short, there was nothing to link the various victims together, other than their ages, sex and the fact that they had all vanished off the face of the earth.

The investigation had become increasingly urgent with each new disappearance. Now, a day after the seventh report of a missing man, the whole town was panicking. The local police team had been supplemented by two senior detectives from the nearby city and the story was beginning to feature in the national papers and TV.

 

Outskirts of Crampton, Monday a.m.

Leena was running out of food. And now that she had seven young men to feed, it wouldn't be long at all until she was completely out. She had to do something. There was no point going to all the trouble of moving out here to this crummy nowheresville and building up a nice little collection if they were all going to get weakened from hunger. No, she needed to keep up what little strength they had. She was going to have to pay a little visit to the store.

But how could she buy enough supplies for seven men without arousing suspicion? She'd done so well to avoid leaving even the tiniest clue so far, it would be a shame if all her hard work was to go to waste. And she really didn't want to just let them go, or leave them to starve - they were such a promising group. There was only one thing for it. She would have to "visit" the store when it was closed - at night. That would remove the need for explanations, and it would save her quite a bit of money too. It was a superb plan, so why wait? She decided she would do it that night. That left the rest of the day to fill. Plenty of time to spend with her boys.

She strolled out into the back yard and walked up to the six-foot-high back fence. A quick check to make sure none of the neighbours were watching and then, with a casual standing jump, she vaulted the barrier into the scrub behind. She paused for another glance to confirm she was unobserved and then broke into a gentle jog, her long slender legs carrying her at a speed in excess of forty miles an hour. Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at the edge of the old abandoned stone quarry. She stood at the edge of the huge dip that had been carved out of the rock over decades so that it resembled a giant's bowl, more than fifty yards across and twenty deep.

Once again, Leena looked around to be certain that no-one was watching. Then she leapt off the edge of the rock bowl, landing on her feet sixty feet below with just a tiny bend of her knees. A couple of steps brought her next to an enormous round boulder, more than a yard in diameter, that lay on the bottom of the quarry. She reached for the huge ball of rock with her feminine hand, giving it a gentle shove. With a groan, the boulder rolled about a yard from its station, revealing a large circular hole in the rock below. From the depths below, the glow of oil lamps was visible. A shuffling sound, accompanied by human whispers rose to meet her ears. She grabbed the boulder with both hands and jumped down into the pit, pulling the big lump of rock back into place as she did so.

Two hours later, the boulder was moved aside once more and Leena reappeared from the pit. Low male groans could be heard as she leapt out onto the quarry floor before they were silenced as she rolled the enormous stopper back into place. Then in a single bound she soared sixty-five feet upwards to land gracefully on the edge of the giant bowl. Without looking back, she began to jog back home, covering the ten miles in a quarter of a mile and arriving as fresh as she had left. Noticing some blood on her T-shirt, she stripped and changed and then sat down and waited for night to fall so she could carry out her "shopping" plan. "Those guys definitely need some sustenance" she chuckled to herself.

 

Crampton Police HQ, Tuesday a.m.

At last they had what might be a lead. It looked they could, finally, be getting somewhere. The first clue had come to light in what was being referred to as the most baffling case in the department's history. For the relatives of the victims, these were desperate times. But now, there was hope of a breakthrough.

A local food store had been broken into overnight, and a large amount of tinned and frozen stuff taken. Robbery not being common in their little town, the store's owner had left a sum of cash in the register, but the thieves hadn't even tried to open it. Whoever was responsible was only interested in food - and lots of it. Was someone trying to feed seven hidden young men? An unusually thorough forensic analysis on the crime scene ensued, but it seemed to raise more questions than it answered.

The steel back door had been forced, but not by normal methods. It had somehow been completely ripped off its hinges. Despite lengthy searches, no trace of the door had been found. It was as if the criminals had taken it with them. No door, no fingerprints. There were prints all over the inside of the store, but the whole town shopped there regularly. On the cash register and the back door frame, only the owner's prints could be identified. The floor however, was a different matter. The owner recalled how he had scrubbed the linoleum as always last thing at night after closing. So any footprints had to belong to the felons.

The police knew there had been more than one robber because they had pinpointed the time of the raid to within five minutes. No single person could have carried so much food out of the store in less than three hundred seconds. But when they analysed the floor, what they found was as puzzling as everything else about the case. Aside from the owner's, they found only one other set of footprints. Not from a shoe or a boot, but from a naked human foot. A small, almost certainly female foot.

A forensic specialist was called in to analyse the prints. After several hours of careful study, he reported that the impressions had to be fake. As he explained to the exasperated detectives, the size of the foot suggested its owner was a woman approximately five foot ten inches in height. But such the weight of such a person - especially a person carrying half-a-ton of food - would have made a much firmer print; the marks on the floor were created by an extremely light step, far more consistent with a small child. Furthermore, there was no trace of any imperfections on either the left or the right foot; adults had marks and corns and other blemishes.

So, either the theft had been carried out by a single child with huge feet and the ability to shift enormous weights or someone had played a very, very clever trick on them. And the mystery did not end there. The trail of footprints leading out of the store lead to the road, but there was no sign of any car tracks were they became undetectable. How had the robbers moved hundreds of pounds of food off the scene within minutes without a vehicle?

The investigative team spent a whole day scouring the surrounding area for clues. Fifty yards away, in some thick bushes, they found one. A can of sweetcorn. The price sticker on its lid revealed that it had definitely come from the burgled store. It seemed more than likely the thieves had dropped it there during their escape. At least it was something to work with. Back at the station, they took out a local map and drew a line from the store through the spot where the can had been discovered, continuing the line to the edge of the map, just short of the old rock quarry. Somewhere along that line, they were confident of finding more clues to the robbery and, if their theory was correct, to the disappearances as well.

 

Underground Cavern, Old Rock Quarry, Tuesday p.m.

Gary stirred the vegetables in the pan on the oil stove, his badly bruised face still appearing handsome in the half-light of the subterranean chamber. A few yards away, Hugh strained in vain as he tried for the thousandth time to shift the boulder that blocked the only exit. The crudely-dressed cut above his eye hadn't begun to heal yet, and from time to time a drop of blood fell onto the rough, dusty floor. He turned to Gary and angrily asked "Why don't you stop trying to fatten y'self up for the bitch and come and help me?"

"We gotta eat, ain't we?" came the reply. "'Sides, you know as well as I do that rock ain't shifting without a crane."

"Well you might wanna spend the rest of your life as a sex-slave in this shitty hole, but I sure don't."

"Shit, guys," interrupted Frank as he limped towards them from the depths of the cavern, "we gotta stop fighting a work out a plan to get us outta here. We need to build a weapon or something."

"A weapon!" Gary spluttered. "We'd need a fucking nuke!"

Hugh spat. "We gotta do something. I'm gonna go crazy stuck down here with you guys. That's if my dick don't fall off first." They fell silent, listening to the sound of Larry washing in the freezing artesian pool and the other three men snoring at the other end of the enormous underground chamber.

After a while, Larry joined them. "What're we going to do, guys?" he asked. "There's seven of us now, for Christ's sake! I mean, if the cops can't trace seven missing men..."

"The cops!" Hugh laughed. "D'ya seriously think a pair of handcuffs is gonna stop superbitch?"

Frank groaned. "You know what I think? I think we gotta build us a tunnel outta here."

"You ever carved a tunnel through solid rock? What're we gonna use for tools? 'Sides, I don't know 'bout you, but I can hardly even walk, never mind dig a friggin' tunnel!"

"We gotta do something, man."

"Yeah. We gotta eat, so we don't die. Get the others. That new guy - Jeff - he got pretty roughed up yesterday. She had him against the wall 'till he was screaming. He'll need something in his belly."

"I'll get 'em." said Larry, walking over towards where the thin plastic mattresses were strewn about. "Hey guys!" he called. "We got food!" There was a collective moaning from the ground as the sleeping trio roused themselves.

"Is she back?" asked Jeff, hoarsely, his voice full of fear.

"Relax, pal. She ain't here, but we got something to eat."

A short while later, all seven men set around the stove, shovelling down the hot food. Jeff ate on his knees, his backside too bruised for him to sit on. "How long are we going to be here?" he asked, weakly.

"Fuck knows." said Gary. "I've been here for weeks."

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" Jeff sobbed.

 

Outskirts of Crampton, Tuesday Evening.

Leena was watching TV when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find a tall, thin police officer with a clipboard standing on her porch. "Good evening, ma'am" said the officer, looking up from his clipboard and staring at the points of her breasts which threatened to burst through her T-shirt at any moment.

"Can I help you, officer?" asked Leena. She didn't bother to smile. She knew he wasn't looking at her face.

"We're making some routine enquiries in this area, ma'am." he told her chest. "There was a robbery at the grocery store last night, and we have reasons to believe the perpetrators might have come this way. You wouldn't happen to have seen anything unusual, ma'am?"

"Hmmm..." said Leena. "Last night, you say... Don't think so..." She studied the young cop's face. She'd seen worse. And his body didn't look bad either. She imagined he'd have plenty of stamina too. But... a cop? Well, why not!

"Actually, officer," she said mischievously, "I did it."

"I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"I did it. I robbed the store. And I've got the missing men in a hole in the old quarry outside town. Here, I'll show you." She reached out for the policeman, putting a long, slim arm around his waist, quickly lifting the tall man completely off his feet.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Hey! He-" his words were cut off when she used her free hand to tear a strip off his shirt and stuffed it into his open mouth. With his cries muffled, she stepped back into the house and closed the front door. There, she adjusted her grip so that he was tucked under her arm, his hands pinned to his side, his chest pressed up almost painfully against the side of her huge breast. His legs thrashed about in the air, but her hold remained fast.

Leena carried the cop into her garden, leaping over the back fence with ease and, using the night as cover, began running towards the quarry, her load not slowing her down in the slightest. Trapped by her arm, the officer was thrown around violently as she jogged, but all his efforts to free himself were wasted. When she reached the quarry, she raised her arm, dropping the young man to the ground as if her were a bundle of clothes. Bending over, she reached for his chin, lifting him effortlessly back to his feet. Now that his hands were free, he quickly removed the gag from his mouth and drew his pistol from its holster.

"Hold it right there!" he said, pointing the barrel at the centre of her fabulous chest.

"Ooh. Please don't hurt me.." said Leena sarcastically.

"Put your hands in the air and step back." the cop instructed. She responded by reaching for his gun too quickly for him to react, grasping the barrel between her thumb and forefinger. Bending forward, she pulled the weapon towards her face, bringing the policeman's hands with it. He tried to pull it away from her, but with no success. Frightened now, he squeezed the trigger. He saw the burst of light, heard the bang, saw something flash on her face and then heard a sound that could only have come from a ricocheting bullet hitting the ground behind him. Still holding the gun between her fingers, she smiled.

"That was nice," she said. "Why don't you try again?" and she leant further forward until the end of the gun was almost touching her forehead. When nothing happened, she used a finger on her other hand to force him to pull the trigger. The kickback made the cop yell in pain. Even in the dark night, he could see the mark the bullet had left on her hairline. She rubbed it off with a finger as she easily tugged the weapon out of his hands. Placing the barrel theatrically into her mouth, she fired off a couple more rounds before slowly, erotically, biting the gun in half. She spat out the three mangled lumps of metal before reaching out with one hand for the stunned cop. Lifting him off his feet by his collar, she jumped down to the floor of the quarry twenty yards below.

The policeman screamed as they fell through the air. She laughed, landing gracefully, still holding her latest prisoner off the floor. With her free hand she rolled the boulder aside, revealing the hidden chamber beneath. "You won't get away with this!" the cop said bravely, but she just laughed again, jumping down into the cavern with the policeman held in one hand while she pulled the round rock back into place with the other. They landed in the underground chamber, Leena on her feet, the cop in a bundle on the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he became aware of frantic movement in the cavern. People, obscured by darkness, were backing off towards the far walls.

The officer could hear sobbing, pleading sounds. He tried to run himself, but her hand flashed out, grabbing him by the shoulder and holding him fast. He lashed out at her, striking her face, her big breasts and her slim waist, but she just smiled at him. Turning her face to the deep recess of the cave, she called out; "Come on out boys and meet your new friend." The sobbing continued, but there was no movement. "OK, then." she said cheerfully. Looking back at the struggling man next to her she said "They're playing hard to get. Isn't that sweet!"

"What.. what do you want from me?" he asked her.

"Oh, we just like having a little fun down here." she replied. "Look, I'll show you. You won't be needing these."

As she spoke she began to tear his uniform off his body, strip by strip. Her fingers snapped through his leather belt as though it were tissue paper. Very soon, he was completely naked. Then she pushed him down onto the hard, rough ground and held him immobile by resting the toes of one bare foot on his stomach. He writhed around, sitting up and biting her leg with all his strength. His teeth barely even dimpled her soft, smooth flesh as she effortlessly held him fast. Paying him no attention, she pulled off her T-shirt, revealing her magnificent, huge, firm, round breasts and their enormous proud nipples. Still trapping him with her toes, she pulled down her shorts, showing him her neat brown pubic hair. Then she removed her foot so that she could step out of her lower garment.

Before he could move, she pinned him down with her toes once more. She made a show of studying his limp sexual organ. "I hope that's no indication of its size when it's happy." she said.

"You're going to serve life for this." the cop said, insulted.

"Don't change the subject," said Leena. "Show me what a big boy you are." She removed her toes from his chest, bent down and grabbed him with one hand under his shoulder. Then, she stood up, yanking him violently back onto his feet, so that he was facing her, her nipples just inches from his muscular chest. "Let's see how much of a man you really are," she said.

"You can't do this. I -" She silenced him by grabbing his shoulders and pushing him down before pulling him towards her until his face was pressed against the inside of her massive breasts. He placed his hands on her hips and tried to push himself away, but even though he strained until his muscles throbbed, he remained exactly where he was. He began to pound at her flat stomach, but with a similar lack of success. He managed to turn his face slightly to the side, and, opening his mouth, he bit down on the soft, warm flesh of the inside of her enormous breast. This, at least, provoked a reaction from her.

"That's nice." she said, approvingly. Taking her left hand from his shoulder, she transferred it to the back of his neck. She began to pull his head away from her cleavage. He tried to sink his teeth deeper into her, but she drew his head back easily, breaking off one of his front teeth in the process. He moaned in pain. With her hand on his neck, she pulled his face to within a fraction of an inch of her own so that her breath caressed his lips as she spoke. "Don't you like girls?" she taunted. "I could have sworn you were staring at my tits earlier. Let's see if we can't get that little worm of yours to stand up and show me some respect."

As she finished speaking, she pushed his head down towards her chest once more, this time, brushing his face to and fro across her superhuman breasts, whilst her free hand stroked his member. "That's more like it," she said, now forcing his head deep into her incredible cleavage once more. The hand on his penis ceased stroking and gripped lightly, until, very quickly, he became fully erect. She pulled his head free of her chest and kissed him violently on the lips, drawing all the air from his lungs and flicking off another of his teeth with her tongue. She let him gasp down some oxygen as she whispered erotically, "Well, it's not much, but it will do."

She placed her hands on his hips and before he could react, lifted him off his feet and laid him, not particularly gently, onto the rocky ground. In an instant, she was on top of him, her hands pinning his wrists down as if he was wearing steel clasps, her legs holding his in place just as surely. Her gorgeous face loomed above his, her long, silky hair falling across his cheeks, its beautiful scent filling his nostrils. His vision was filled by her huge breasts which hung over his chest, her enormous nipples brushing his skin, sending tingles of excitement through his entire body despite his anger, his confusion and his fear. Slowly, she lowered herself onto his almost vertical shaft, pressing her breasts down on him, their points digging painfully into his flesh.

"Stop!" he cried. "You're hurting me." She responded by bending her head lower and silencing him with an aggressive kiss, incidentally increasing the pressure of her chest against his. Then she began to pump her hips, taking him in and out of her, smashing his backside against the rough ground with each thrust, squeezing the air from him each time her breasts slammed against him. He came almost immediately, unable to resist the supreme eroticism of her unearthly body, but she continued to ride him, ignoring his screams of "I'm done!" and "Please! No more!", not slowing the powerful movement of her hips until, with a groan, he lost consciousness. She stood up.

"Pathetic!" she muttered. "He'll have to learn to do a lot better than that to please me." Then she turned towards the men huddled at the far side of the cavern, calling out "Right! Who's next?" There was no reply. In a single bound, she leapt the thirty yards, landing amidst the cowering, whimpering group. Instantly, they began to move away from her, but her hands were too quick, grabbing Larry's arm with vice-like strength. She released his arm, only to push him with one finger up against the cold, hard wall. Pinning him there by leaning into him with her firm breasts, she exhaled hot breath into his face until his cock was hard. She pushed his shoulders down and, standing on tip-toe, slid herself onto his shaft.

Even before she had fully taken him inside her, Larry was cuming. "What's wrong with you guys?" she asked in an annoyed tone, bending her knees to ride up and down on him anyway, her nipples scraping up and down his broad, muscular chest, bruising his flesh. She was leaning a little too hard into him and soon his legs gave way beneath him. She let him drop with a dull thud onto the rocky cavern floor before she turned to see where the others were now trying to hide. Spotting Gary crouching nearby, she ran towards him, arriving before he had time to see her coming and react. She lifted him with one hand under his armpit while the fingers of her other hand massaged his member to readiness.

Gary was shorter than the others and she was able to take him where she stood, holding him with her hands on his hips, lifting him into and out of her insatiable sex like a giant dildo, throwing his body around as if he were made of rags. He also showed better control, holding his orgasm for quite a few seconds until she began to move him at incredible speed and he shot his load into her, moments before passing out when his head slammed against her chest with the force of a boxer taking a hay-maker on the chin. She let him fall at her feet.

Jeff was next; he tried to make himself invisible by lying on the floor. Leena merely leapt gracefully to land sitting on his chest, bending forward to kiss him deeply, her tongue forcing his to the roof of his mouth as her nipples brushed his chest. Then, she adjusted her position, so that she rode him with her back perpendicular to his, her long legs working like pistons long after he had cum in violent spasms, until he too fell unconscious. She then tripped Hugh, stroked his penis to hardness with her toes, and then, straddling him, lifted him bodily into her with a hand on each of his buttocks. She pulled him in and out; his head, arms and legs thrashing about wildly for a few minutes and then, when he was of no more use to her, she removed her hands and dropped him between her feet.

That left three men. She grabbed the first, a stocky red-haired amateur boxer, by his hair and rubbed his face violently across her breasts. Then she forced him onto his knees and made him lick her eager sex, trapping his head between her thighs. That ended all to soon for her when she squeezed a little to hard, putting him to sleep, his face falling onto the rock floor as he rolled off his knees. A second later, the penultimate member of her harem was pressed into service when she lay on her back, placed her hands on his hips and drew him into and out of her at a frantic pace until the constant collisions of their chests knocked all the air from his lungs.

Her final victim was forced to pleasure her with his back pressed against the wall, his knees bent and shaking as she pushed down on his shoulders and furiously pumped her legs, slapping him - gently by her standards - for time to time to keep him awake for as long as possible. When he collapsed in a heap, she lay down on the cave floor, letting her fingers finish the work that eight virile young men could only start, her back arching when she finally achieved her own orgasm, her backside and head splintering the rock beneath her.

A few moments later, Leena stood up and washed the traces of the men off her body in the pool, the freezing water not bothering her at all. She dried by spinning rapidly on the spot a few hundred times before she recovered her clothes and slipped them on. The entire orgy had lasted less than a quarter of an hour. It had left her feeling slightly disappointed. She had thought that eight young men would be enough to satisfy her, but their puny stamina had once again failed to match her expectations. What was she to do? Build herself a harem of twenty? Now that was an idea. But not here. Not now she'd kidnapped a cop - the whole town would be crawling with Feds any moment. She wouldn't be able to keep her secret much longer. It was time to move on, to start a new collection somewhere far, far away from Crampton.

Leaving her boys sleeping off their exertions, she one-handedly moved the huge exit-blocking boulder aside and leapt out into the quarry, as full of energy as when she had arrived. This time she left the cavern entrance open. She'd let them all find their own ways home. After all she had work of her own. It was going to be a challenge gathering up twenty men.

  

Conceptfan, Dec. 2001.






No.4 - "Beaten Up"

I think what caught my attention first was what she was wearing. I mean, everyone's running around in these dark-coloured, heavy garments - you know the kind of thing: layers of shapeless clothes to keep out the cold and the rain and that evil, icy wind we get in early March. But this girl was only wearing a T-shirt (and a brightly-coloured one at that) and a pair of well-above-the-knee shorts. And let me tell you, once you looked at that T-shirt, it was hard, really hard, to look at anything else.

Everyone was staring at her. Even the women. Even the guys who were clearly with their girlfriends. And you could see what most of the guys were thinking. All around the tube carriage, those blokes who were sitting down began crossing their legs. The ones standing suddenly decided they wanted to carry their briefcases or polythene bags - whatever they had - directly in front of their waists. She was that good-looking. And she moved like a dancer. So light on her feet, so graceful as she worked her way down the carriage. I could feel my heart in my throat as she turned in my general direction.

You have to believe me when I say she was stunning. I mean, I could have spent a week just looking at her, not eating or sleeping. If I had to guess her age, I'd say early twenties. Her complexion was utterly flawless. Nowhere on her exposed skin - her face, her long arms, her legs - was there a single blemish or wrinkle or mark of any kind. She just looked perfect. And I mean perfect.

She was quite tall - nearly six feet I'd guess - and slim. Not skinny like a kid or one of those sick-looking nineteen-eighties models. No, no, no. She was shapely. Actually, a mere word like "shapely" doesn't begin to do justice to this girl's figure. She was exquisitely proportioned. Her curves - oh, her curves - they were... No, there isn't a word for it in the English language. I'm just going to have to describe her bit by bit.

Her hair was dark brown, and straight. As straight as an arrow fired on a windless day. It hung just below her shoulders at the back and spilt onto them at the front. Her face was the equal - I would say the better - of any film star of any country and of any era. Her eyes, a deep shade of green, framed by long, thick lashes, sparkled as though backlit. Above each of them a simple, thin and immaculate eyebrow arched in perfect symmetry. Her nose was the ideal size for her face, straight, strong (but not overly so) neither too wide nor too narrow, with the barest hint of an upturn at the tip. Her cheekbones were high, and visible without being too evident, and her cheeks themselves looked as smooth as silk, their colour not exactly what you would call rosy, but warm and healthy. In fact, "healthy" applied to her whole face. She seemed to glow with well-being, radiate it even. She wore no make-up. No cosmetic could create an effect like that. If it could, they'd sell it for millions.

The girl's mouth was the stuff of fantasy. She had rich, generous lips, invitingly red, slightly pouting when relaxed. They looked like they would be heaven to kiss. And beneath them was a beautifully sculptured chin. Yes, even her jaw-line looked good. As did her neck - you know, the perfect length, smooth skinned, immaculate. You could see glimpses of her collar bone above the neck of her T-shirt and it was as flawless as the rest of her. Same goes for her bare arms. Really slender, long-looking and not a glimpse of a blemish or even a tiny hair anywhere on her. She had lovely hands too, delicate, feminine, dainty fingers, unpainted not-too-long nails that seemed to have just been given a master manicure.

The rest of the flesh she was displaying was awesome. Her long legs emerged from her shorts like two pink ivory sculptures. So shapely, not an ounce of surplus skin on them. And you could tell that everyone on that train was wondering what they would be like to touch, to stroke... to lick. She was wearing a pair of cute trainers that came up to her ankles. Not too chunky, they seemed to finish off her wonderful legs perfectly. You had to see the way those legs moved as she walked down the carriage. It was enough to get a dead man erect.

I found myself ogling her. My eyes just worked their way slowly up her legs. When I got to those shorts, I had to imagine what her hips looked like, and her knickers. I did my best. I didn't get to see her from behind, but the shorts were tight and the people who she passed all stared hard at her backside, so I just assumed it was as magnificent as the rest of her. I didn't mind. I had more than enough beauty to occupy me. More than enough alright...

Her T-shirt was tucked into her shorts, not something anyone but the flat-stomached can afford to do. She could. Her waist was tiny. No belly on this girl. Some folks would probably suggest that her shirt was too small for her. To my bulging eyes, though, it was just the right size. To say that she filled it doesn't even begin to paint the picture. It was stretched to the very limit of its fabric by the highest, biggest, roundest, firmest pair of breasts I have ever seen on any woman, let alone a slim young girl with an angel's face. To be frank, they were easily the best-shaped tits I have ever had the pleasure of drooling over.

As she came closer, you could see them bobbing ever so slightly with each step. Incredibly (seeing how high they sat on her chest), I don't think she was wearing a bra. I say that because I could clearly see her large nipples tenting her T-shirt. I almost felt sorry for that shirt. It was being put under an unbelievable strain. Then again, I was too jealous of its contact with those fabulous mounds to be too sympathetic. A man could lose everything he ever had just for the promise that he might get to touch them.

She got as far as I was sitting and seemed to stop for a while. As I was sitting facing the windows on the other side, I got the perfect view of her profile. And it was the most amazing sight anyone could ever wish to see. How could she be so slender, so beautifully long-limbed and yet be so big-chested? To my embarrassment, I almost soiled my boxers just looking at her sideways on. I mean, she was sex-on-legs. You'd sell your mother for twenty seconds with her. Crawl a mile over broken glass just to masturbate at her feet. You'd crash the Earth into the sun if you could and you thought that was what she wanted. She was that hot. Believe me.

She must have noticed the hungry look in my eyes because she threw me a smile as she turned to sit down next to me. She had one hell of a smile. Her teeth were as white as pure light, spirit-level-straight, and perfectly set in her lovely mouth. As she sat down, I finally got to see her arse. It was the most pert, beautifully rounded, ideally proportioned rear I have ever encountered. Like a peach, but infinitely better. Then she was sitting. I saw her fabulous bare legs alongside my scruffy jeans, her exquisite face in profile, her glorious chest ideally placed for me to glance at out of the corner of my eyes. I crossed my legs to hide the bulge in my trousers.

For twenty glorious minutes we sat side by side as the train crossed town. Then, she stood up, her long legs and incredible figure drawing any eyes that had managed to look away while she was seated. Purposefully, she strode along the carriage, gorgeous backside swaying sexily with every step, and got off the train. I found my legs acting of their own accord. I was on my feet, racing through the door, even though it wasn't my stop.

I followed her up the escalator at what I thought was a sensible distance. She got out the station and onto a main road. Then she turned down a little side street. When I got to the corner, there was no sign of her. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.

"About time, pervert. I see you're as slow as you are stupid." Shocked, I spun around to see the same, stunningly attractive girl standing there just a yard behind me in all her sexy glory. She must've noticed my erection, because she said "I suppose what little brains you've got are all in there," and she nodded in the direction of my loins.

"H..How did you get behind me?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Work it out for yourself." she answered. I tried to. Had she hired a helicopter? Found a hole in the space-time continuum on the northbound platform of a commuter station? Was one of the vending machines now offering teleportation as well as stale chocolate? Seeing my confused face, she nearly laughed.

"You really are stupid, aren't you."

"Actually, I'm not, OK?" I was beginning to get a bit pissed off at this point.

"No, it's not OK and yes, you are stupid. Don't argue with me. It's not in your interest. You're already in enough trouble." She might have been the most beautiful young woman ever in the history of the world, but she seemed to have taken lessons in social skills from Eric Cartman. Despite that, I was getting turned on by her mouth as she spoke, you know, the movement of her lips, the flashes of her sexy teeth, stuff like that.

I tried a new tactic. "Look," I said, "I'm sorry for following you. It's just that I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come for a drink some time.."

She burst into cruel laughter. "You really have no idea, do you? Why would someone like me - " and she waved her hands to indicate the work of art that served as her body - "want with someone like you?" I had no answer to that. I couldn't think of anything an angel like her would want of a penniless, unfit, overweight, ugly man like me. I found myself staring at her chest, calculating just how far out of my league she was. Once again, she noticed.

"I've got a face, too, pervert. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

"S..Sorry."

"Oh, you will be." she said.

"Look, I'm sorry." I tried again. "It's just that I -" I was cut off mid-sentence as there was a blur between us and suddenly, her hand was around my throat. It hurt terribly and I couldn't breathe. The pain quickly increased as I felt my neck stretching. I panicked, bringing my hands up to hers, desperately trying to dislodge it. Shocked, I found that I couldn't. It was about then that I realised my feet were no longer touching the pavement. My legs were hanging in the air. With lightening speed, she'd lifted me off the ground by the neck with one slender hand. I felt the sweat pouring onto my forehead.

Struggling for air, I kicked at her. I got several good blows in but it made no difference to her hold. I looked at her, intending to plead for my life. She was smiling! I tried to say something, but her grip on my throat was robbing me of the power of speech. Instead, it was her who spoke. "You speak to me out of turn once more and you're dead. Understand?" I nodded. She opened her hand and I fell to the ground. My legs tangled beneath me and I found myself sprawled on the pavement, rubbing my bruised neck.

"Get up, idiot." she said. Gingerly, I did.

"Good." she mocked. "That wasn't hard, was it?"

"It hurts." I confessed, still rubbing.

"It's going to hurt an awful lot more."

I was completely stunned now. "I'm sorry." I said, anxious not to piss her off. There was that blur again, but this time she didn't strangle me or lift me off my feet. She just put her lovely hand loosely around my throat.

"I told you what would happen to you if you spoke out of turn again. You do understand, don't you?"

"Yes." I was getting pretty nervous. I didn't relax much when she removed her hand from my throat and placed it on her shapely hip, although it was one hell of a sight. She smiled.

"Let's kiss and make up." she said. Relieved, I looked at her. She'd puckered her gorgeous lips and was leaning a little towards me, making her breasts strain the material of her T-shirt even more. Her hand was still on her hip. She looked incredible. My heart raced as I began to move towards her. I'd barely gone a step when I was hit by what felt like a wall of air.

From nowhere, an incredibly powerful and deafeningly loud gust of wind - a mini hurricane - threw me off my feet, and I was flying back through the air. Even as I panicked, I noticed how warm the wind was. That didn't make sense on a cold, wet day. Neither did the delicious scent that permeated the rushing air. Still flying backwards, I caught a glimpse of the girl, her mouth still shaped like an "O". That's when I realised. The "hurricane" was her breath.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, the roar of wind ceasing in an instant. She'd stopped exhaling. I fell back to ground, my momentum making me tumble backwards head over heels six or seven times. Despite the shock and the pain, the feeling of being tossed about like a piece of litter by her breath was unbelievable. I'd literally been blown away. It took me quite a while to recover my bearings. I was covered in bruises from my awkward landing.

I managed to pick myself up onto my hands and knees. I was just about to try and stand when I saw the girl's stunning legs just inches in front of my eyes. How had she moved so fast? She lifted one of her feet, lowering it towards my shoulder. Before I could react, I felt a blinding pain and I was tumbling head over heels again. My roll came to a halt as I hit a wall, my shoulder feeling as if it was on fire.

This time I didn't even have time to catch my breath. She was standing over me, her slender arm reaching down and grabbing hold of the back of my collar. Suddenly I was dangling like a puppy in its mother's mouth as she straightened out, holding me at arm's length in one delicate hand as if I was a soiled nappy. "Let me go! Please!" I pleaded, but she just laughed.

She swung her arm up and down a few times, my whole body moving through the air as if I was on a fairground ride, making me nauseous. To my horror, she opened her fingers, letting go of me just as she reached the highest point of her swing. I soared up into the air, screaming for my life. I passed the tops of the trees, only slowing when I was so high I could see dozens of streets beneath me. Then I began to come down. Terrified, I saw the upper branches of a big oak rushing towards me.

Compared with the prospect of falling a further forty feet to land on the concrete pavement, the tree was quite welcome, but it didn't feel like that at the time. The twigs scratched deep long cuts in my face as I fell into them, finally coming to rest on a thick, strong branch that struck my back. knocking the wind from my body so that I couldn't cry out in pain.

For a few moments, I thought that I was finally out of the girl's reach. I looked down through the leaves and saw her standing by the thick trunk of the big tree. She looked like she was casually leaning against it, her arm outstretched and her palm flat against the bark. It was only when I heard the sound of wood splintering that I realised what was happening. She was trying to push the huge tree over! With one hand!

A battle was ongoing between the slim girl's single arm and the roots of the mighty oak. The strain on the trunk was audible even from as far up as I was. I felt the thick trunk bending slightly, unable to resist the power of this young girl. The creaking grew ever louder until with an almighty crack, the tree succumbed to the girl. The trunk itself split, and the enormous tree began to tumble as if felled by a lumberjack. I clung on for dear life.

I lost my grip when the top of the tree smashed down into the road, bouncing me up into the air a few feet until I crashed back down into the middle of the branches. Just when I was thanking my lucky stars that I hadn't been killed, I felt the fallen oak moving around me. Looking wearily upwards, I saw her standing some ten yards away, her long arms around the broken trunk, pulling the whole tree off of me. She didn't look like the weight was any problem for her. Casually, she tossed the massive trunk ten feet to the side, leaving me exposed, lying in the middle of the road.

By now I was too wounded, too battered to move. I saw her strolling towards me, but the only thing I could do was plead with her. "Please! It's enough! I'm sorry. Please!" She stood over me, her feet slightly apart, her hands on her hips. I looked straight up at the curve of the underside of her wonderful breasts and beyond them, at her beautiful face.

"I haven't even started with you yet." she said. I began to weep. She bent over me, grabbing hold of my right ankle. Her grip was painfully tight. When she straightened up again, I was dangling upside down from her iron grasp. The blood rushed to my wounded head. I felt sick. For about a minute she let me swing from her hand like a human pendulum, then she let go and I was rolling head over heels. My forehead smacked against the kerb of the road and I felt blood trickling down my cheek from a new wound. My vision had become blurred, but I could still see her walking towards me once more.

"You're going to kill me!" I croaked in desperation. She didn't respond. Her long shapely leg flashed out, catching me in the stomach. For a second everything became black and then I was airborne again although only for a moment. As I hit the pavement, I felt a new, terrible pain in my belly. The momentum of her kick carried me, rolling, across the width of the sidewalk until I hit a brick wall and gained another wound, this one on my backside. When I tried to catch my breath, I found I could only wheeze noisily. I was faint and dizzy. Lying face down at the foot of the wall, I was convinced that I was about to die.

This time, she picked me up by the back of my trousers. I hung from her tiny hand, too weary to even protest. I hoped the end would come soon. It didn't of course. She raised her arm and slammed my backside up against the wall. By this point I was in so much pain, I hardly even felt the impact. Her other hand flashed out, pressing into my chest pinning me to the wall with my feet well off the ground. The pressure her dainty fingers exerted was so great, I couldn't breathe. She must have seen my face turning blue because she removed her hand and I slid down, landing on my feet.

I would have collapsed in a heap - I no longer had enough strength to stand, but she stepped in so close to me that her body held me upright. Her fabulous breasts pressed lightly against me and her face loomed just inches from my own. I was surprised to find myself with an erection despite my weakened state. She smiled, her beautiful mouth so close to mine. Slowly, very carefully, she leant into me, squeezing the air from my lungs with her big round mounds.

I could feel my ribs bending under the impossible force she was exerting with her gorgeous chest. Even as I struggled vainly for air, even as the pain reached new, impossible levels, I couldn't help but find the situation incredibly erotic. Her hand came up, a single extended finger lifting my chin so that our eyes met. She breathed into my face, her sexy mouth so very close as she said "It's been fun. Thanks." And she stepped back, away from me. I slid to the ground and everything went black.

By my watch I reckon I was unconscious for about thirty minutes. When I came to, I staggered in agony to the main road and hailed a cab. All the way home, I thought about her. As soon as I got there, I swallowed four aspirins and a couple of large glasses of scotch. Every inch of me ached. I lay on the bed, smoking a joint and thinking about the incredible girl. A little while later, I shut my eyes and drifted into a deep sleep. The pain she'd given me lasted for two weeks. The erection she'd inspired stayed almost as long. Although I never saw her anywhere again, she's still haunting my dreams to this day.

 

Conceptfan, Mar. 2002.






No.5 - "Beautiful Monster"

20th March 1833.

At last!   My years of painstaking research in the vaults of the world's archaeological museums and libraries has come to fruition.  I have finally gathered enough evidence to justify an expedition deep into the jungle.  For so long, I have been the subject of my fellow experts' derision, but now it is my turn to laugh at them.  The fools!  They said the original document I discovered a decade ago was a fake.  Then, when I challenged them to prove their lies, they announced that I had mistranslated the text.  Even when a dozen linguists agreed with my findings, they claimed that what I had discovered were nothing more than the writings of some ancient lunatic.  But soon, my mockers will be silenced.

Now, I hold in my possession no fewer than a dozen ancient artefacts, gathered from the corners of the globe, that show that my original text was anything but the work of a madman.  I am now utterly convinced that the being - the thing - described in the text did once walk the Earth.  No longer do I entertain doubts over the existence of the "beautiful monster" that so terrified the author of the text.

I have located two parchments, found preserved in South American swamp mud, both of which contain descriptions too similar to my original document to be co-incidental.    In a private collection in Lisbon, I discovered an ancient golden statue whose exquisite proportions match those in the three texts.  Carved in the statue's base, the words "Beauty", "Evil", "Deity", "At rest" and "Nearby".  Some papers that were kept with the precious object suggest it was discovered not far from the swamp that had hid the parchments.

A museum in the United States was holding a collection of severely damaged weapons - swords, spear- and arrow- heads - which were recovered from the very same part of the jungle.   The curator believed these battered bits of old metal were proof of the use of highly sophisticated armour around the end of the tenth century.  I believe they are further proof of the existence of the "undamageable one" referred to in my text.   The curator points to the discovery of a huge number of mutilated millennium-old corpses in the region as proof of a major battle around the time I am concerned with.  I am certain this massacre was the work of the "beautiful monster" - a creature whose strength one document compares to the mighty Amazon river itself.

There is also a travelogue - which I have in my possession - written by a European merchant who travelled through the region only two centuries ago (about six hundred years after the creature if my beliefs are correct.)  The merchant speaks of a small temple-like edifice, hidden in the greenery, which housed a sleeping god.  The local inhabitants told the merchant that, before time began, their tribe had been assigned the task of guarding this "resting chamber".  From the description in the European's journal, it is clear that the entire tribe were prepared to sacrifice their lives to prevent the god's repose being disturbed.  I do not know what happened to those people, but I must presume that contact with the "old world" heralded their total destruction.  However, there is no record in any Spanish or Portuguese writings of the time that suggests that the temple was ever discovered or looted.

I believe that those people were, indeed, guarding something.  Increasingly, I am convinced that it is the strange "beautiful monster" and that this creature sleeps to this day, untouched and possibly unseen for a thousand years.  I can only speculate as to whether this being is as human in form as the statue I found suggests.  If the golden sculpture is an accurate likeness, I fully comprehend the ancient scribe's use of the adjective "beautiful".  But as to the other word - "monster" - I am completely ignorant.  Likewise, I can only hazard wild guesses at "deity", "strength of the river", and "undamageable".

It is these unknowns that dictate that I must investigate further.  If I am correct, somewhere in that jungle, there is a link to a ten-centuries-old wonder.   A wonder since unknown anywhere on our world.  I must find the "beautiful monster" that spilled so much blood and determine if it is of human origin.  If it is not, I must determine if it comes from heaven or from that other realm - the world of beasts and eternal pain - or even from another place as yet unknown to Man.  Then, I must revive it from its slumber, tame it and bring it back to Paris so that all society may see that I have been correct all along.

Now I must leave this journal for there is much preparatory work to be done.

 

May 5th 1833.

It would appear that, despite the overwhelming evidence I have now accrued, I stand alone in my belief of the existence of the "beautiful monster".  Not one member of the Institute has been prepared to grant me assistance in my quest and I regret to announce that no support - moral, financial or otherwise - has been forthcoming.  Therefore, faced with the possibility of the mysterious creature remaining dormant and undiscovered for a further millennium, I have taken upon myself the task of mounting the expedition.

To this end, I have found a purchaser willing to part with many thousand francs for my residence and another who has offered an even greater sum for my offices next to the Institute.   Naturally, when news of my desire to sell reached the ears of my colleagues, there were fresh cries of "Madness!".  I long for the day when I return from South America laden not only with untold riches, but also the living breathing proof of my sanity - a being perhaps not even of this world.

But the path I must travel until that day is difficult and generously endowed with pitfalls.  First I must assemble a crew for my journey.  Without the blessing of the Institute, I must draw my men from beyond the ranks of the scientific community.  I have already informed my two most faithful servants - Christophe and Marcel - of my intention for them to accompany me to the jungle.  But it is essential that the ship I will hire to transport us across the ocean is supplied with a working crew for not one of the three of us has any nautical experience.  The remaining required labour must be recruited from amongst the desperate rabble that throngs the establishments of ill-repute next to the docks.

These men will be complimented by a party of native guides whose services I will purchase upon arrival in the New World.  It is to be hoped that the Indians will be able to lead us to a supply of gold or other precious minerals in order for our return journey to be funded as I fear I will only have sufficient wealth for a single sea-journey.   This lack does not concern me, however, as the discovery of the "undamageable one" and its delivery to the Institute will be worth untold fortunes to me.  I go now to begin endeavours aimed at securing a ship to carry my ragged band of explorers.

 

July 15th 1833.

At last it is done!   Our ship sails next Tuesday at dawn and upon its deck when the captain raises the anchor will be myself, Christophe, Marcel and the three men I have persuaded to join our venture - Jean, Philippe and Artur.  This foul-smelling, uneducated trio will be responsible for organising the native guide-party upon our arrival and for any of the other more physical tasks we are likely to encounter.   I pray that these are the men whose brute force will subdue the mysterious "Evil Deity" once I can both locate and awaken it.

Having paid the ship's master half his due as our arrangement calls for, sufficient monies remain to me to clear the rest of my debts upon arrival, but little else.  However, my thoughts now are occupied with the anticipation of the great discovery I will be bringing to the unbelieving world and not to my precarious financial situation.   It is too late now to suffer from a faint heart:  I shall travel to the jungle.  And I shall return with the mythical "beautiful monster" or I shall die in the attempt.

 

August 20th 1833

A black day indeed.  The sickness that has spread through so much of the crew of this creaking vessel has now claimed the life of one of my own men.   I write this having witnessed the diseased body of Philippe being tossed onto the waves.   This sight caused me great pain for the prospect of mounting a successful expedition with only four men at my command is not a welcoming one.  But it is far too late to amend the plans now, and the lure of what awaits us is as powerful as ever.  I only hope we can reach our destination without incurring any further losses.

 

September 8th 1833.

I have arrived in the New World.   The four surviving members of my crew have already unloaded my possessions - a meagre three trunks of clothing and equipment - as well as the two bags containing their own paltry belongings.   The captain of the vessel has been fully paid up, and as soon as I can arrange transport, we will be headed towards the area of the jungle where I believe the secret we seek is hidden.   The weather is beastly warm and I have encountered a fresh setback.   It is difficult to find a translator who speaks French, but I shall not be disheartened.  My quest will be fulfilled.

 

September 14th 1833.

Following our successful two-day struggle to recruit a translator, we have now been upon our feet for half-a-week.   The man I have found is a former seaman from Marseilles who seems to be able to converse with the locals well enough, even if his accent in French is a little provincial for my liking.  His name is Henri.  I have also hired two natives to guide us to the approximate area where, my evidence suggests, the temple of the "beautiful monster" will be found.  The party thus completed, we are, at last, on the way to the heart of the jungle.

Now, more than ever, I am convinced that my quest will be triumphant.  Through the interpreter, my two natives have told me of their reluctance to undertake our journey.  When I heard that a local legend tells of evil spirits living in the region, I pressed the natives for more information.  My heart began pounding in my chest when I heard them speak of a creature as powerful and as beautiful as the mightiest river.   They claimed this creature had caused great pain for their distant ancestors.  After many terrible days, the ancestors had placed a magical curse upon the monster, making it sleep.  But their people still feared that the creature might awaken once more one day.

To extract further information from the two Indians, I offered them each one quarter of a gold coin in exchange.  Delighting in the new-found wealth, they told me of a tribe who protected the evil spirit's resting place.  It was just as the European merchant had written!   I asked what had become of the tribe and the natives explained that diseases and white men had killed them off.

I knew at once that the men were speaking of the very thing I am seeking.  I understood that they were afraid that the arrival of strangers would awaken the slumbering monster.   Despite that being my precise intention, I have kept the matter quite secret from the natives.  Once we have arrived and I have exhausted their local knowledge and heard all the legends that they have to tell, I will inform them of my desire to awaken their "evil spirit" as a means of ridding myself of their company.

 

September 20th 1833.

We are now in the heart of the jungle.  Although as a scientific man, I have never given much credence to such things, I am experiencing the oddest sensation.  It is almost as though I can detect a nearby presence - a force of some nature.  My two natives have also felt it.  Both men immediately started to flee until Jean and Artur restrained them.  The interpreter informed me that the words they were whispering signify: "The spirit is near!  The spirit must not be awoken!   We must leave!"   Despite my offer of a further half gold coin for each man, neither would be calmed until Artur brandished his largest knife and let them see the murderous intent in his eyes.

We have settled for the evening, making camp in a small clearing.  Our meal of fresh meat and fruit was the most enjoyable since we arrived on this continent and I am preparing to take my night's rest.  Tomorrow we begin searching in earnest for the temple.  I am certain that it cannot be far from this very spot.

 

September 21st 1833.

Our two native guides have fled during the darkness!   My men have failed me, for although we had agreed that one of the four of them would always been on watch throughout the night, the entire quartet were soundly asleep as the Indians made their stealthy escape.  As punishment, I have informed them that their wages shall be cut when we return to civilisation.

More immediately, however, we are presently lost in the jungle with no local knowledge to guide us.  I have decided that the search for the temple must be our first priority, as that is the sole reason for our presence here.  The men, albeit with bad grace, have concurred.

 

September 25th 1833.

Four days we have now been searching and nothing have we found.   It is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain whether we are retracing our own steps or forging new ground.  There has been no sign of the temple I seek, nor of any form of pathway.  In truth it had been a week since my eyes beheld the slightest  indication of human civilisation either present or ancient.  Only the peculiar feeling within us - the sense of a presence - remains to give us any hope.  We must find the "beautiful monster" soon, for I doubt we can survive much longer in these harshest of conditions.

 

September 29th 1833.

It has been more than a week now since we lost our guides and commenced our search for the temple of the "beautiful monster".  The moral of my men grows weaker by the day and I believe that the first rumblings of dissent will soon be heard.  I confess that I, too, grow weary and the lack of the comforts of civilisation bears down hard upon me.  But I will not leave my work for I am as sure as ever that we are close, perhaps very close, to the greatest discovery of our age.

 

October 1st 1833.

The most wonderful day of my life thus far, though tomorrow, no doubt, shall surpass it!  At dusk this evening, we cut our way through some of the densest vegetation we have yet encountered to emerge into a small clearing in the jungle.  As I stepped out through the branches and leaves, the strange feeling of a presence grew ever stronger within me, until I felt as though it would consume me entirely.   Then, I looked up and saw what I have been dreaming of these past ten years.  There, overgrown with centuries of thick, exotic plant life, was  a low, square stone edifice.

Immediately, I knew it was an ancient construction.  Instructing the men to stay away, I slowly approached it, and found myself gasping as the mysterious sensation manifested itself almost as waves of heat from a baker's oven, hitting my body, so it seemed, on the outside as well as the inside.  This was clearly no ordinary building.  Encircling it, I found it boasted no doorways or windows.  It was not designed for the easy entering and leaving of men.  The only feature on the stone I could discern were some worn-away symbols carved into one wall at about the height of my neck.

I called Henri over to study the symbols.  I was hoping that, given his mastery of local dialects, he might have experienced their like before.  Whilst he busied himself with examining the markings, I summoned Jean.  I had the big man stand me upon his shoulders that I might gain enough vantage to view the roof of the structure.  But alas, the roof was solid and featureless with no sign of any opening.  "Who would build a house one could not enter?" I conjectured.  Then, I realised that I had posed the wrong question.  This was not a house no-one could enter.  It was a house no-one could leave.  But who, or rather what, was inside?  Could it be the sleeping "beautiful monster" I seek?

Just then, Henri let out a cry of astonishment.  Dropping down from Jean's sturdy back, I approached the interpreter at an almost undignified fast pace.  "Monsieur," he began in his atrocious brogue, "I believe we may have found your monster!  I cannot believe it.  I thought you were perhaps a little mad -"

I interrupted him.  I have no interest in his opinion of me.  "What have you read, translator?" I demanded.

"Monsieur, " - he was apologetic now - "I cannot recognize all these symbols, but some I do know.  This one -" he pointed to one of the carvings, "-means 'divine being' or 'deity'.  And this one -" he indicated its neighbour, "-is to do with rest or sleep."  My heart was pounding in my ribcage now.  The sense of presence, so peculiar when I had first noticed it, now seeming an obvious effect of standing at that location.

"What else does it say?"

"It is hard to be sure, Monsieur.  These words were written a very long time ago and the language has changed greatly since.  I believe it is some kind of a warning.  It speaks of something 'greater than men', but I cannot be certain."  In truth, that was enough information.  Never have I been more certain of anything.  The object of my quest, the mysterious being, deity, whatever it is that no-one but me believed exists, lies inside that stone structure.

Tomorrow, at dawn, we will take our hammers and chisels in hand and commence creating the doorway that the ancients omitted to design.

 

October 2nd, 1833.

My eyes have seen the creature of the legend!   All these years I have endured countless insults for my belief but all that is a mere detail now.  So long have I wondered as to the appearance of the one described in the ancient works.  I have found, to my shock, that it is the sculpture I located in Portugal that is the most accurate portrayal.  For, far from being a monster or a demon, the creature's beauty surpasses any I have ever encountered.  I understand now the epithet "deity" for surely nothing of this earth could reach the physical perfection that I have observed today.

It took us the entire morning, working with our tools, to create an opening in the wall of the stone house large enough for a man to pass through.  As the last pieces of rock fell away, a fresh, remarkably intense wave of what I now call the "presence sensation" washed over us.  Intrigued by the feeling of getting ever closer to its source, I crawled through the hole without a second thought.

There was just enough light entering behind me as I stood for me to see the entire inner chamber.  No bigger than my study back in Paris, the stone room was cold despite the midday sun, and its walls were devoid of any decorations or markings. Perhaps, a thousand years ago when it was built, something was placed there, but the centuries must have reduced it to dust long before I arrived.  All I saw was the single feature of the interior of the "temple":  a column of what appears to be almost completely transparent amber.  Taller than I by at least a hand span, it is as wide and as circular as a tree trunk.  But it was only as my eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom that I understood that I was in the presence of a thousand year old legend.

For standing upright, entirely encased in the cold glass-like amber, was a young woman.  A young woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Lisbon statuette.  But to see her in the flesh was an experience as far removed from beholding that shaped lump of gold as staring at the midday sun is removed from gazing at a candle.  I confessed that I stared for quite a length of time at this particular object of radiance.  She was clothed in a manner that I have never encountered - at once primitive yet ingenious, suggesting both barbarous times and also the lowest morals of the Roman Empire.

Two main garments adorn her body.  The upper seems to have been designed in such a way as to afford the male observer the most gratifying possible view of her feminine charms.  These are, I feel compelled to state, maybe the most sensuously formed globes ever to grace any girl's perfect ripe body.  Her lower garment serves only to hide from view her most intimate area, its shape accentuating the smallness of her flattest of waists, all of which is displayed.  Her limbs are slender and long and shaped as though carved from marble.  Her face is that of an angel with full lips and straight dark hair that falls over her smooth shoulders.

I spent the next several minutes carefully and minutely examining every centimetre of the creature that I could see through the thick glass-like casing.   In the interests of science, my eyes passed over the entire exquisite form, studying it in the finest details.  Nowhere upon that wonderful form did I spot the slightest mark or blemish.  Just endless, perfect, youthful skin.  In the most appealing shape I have ever encountered.  Yet it - or she - is supposed to be over a thousand years old!

My mind was ringing with questions.  What is the material she is encased in?  Is she truly asleep in there or was I merely observing a well-preserved corpse?  The others had entered by now, and each in turn was being drawn to the remarkable beauty of the girl in the column.  I chided both Jean and Artur for their lewd remarks, but I could see both men's minds were on matters far distant from scientific study so I reconvened the party outside the stone building, away from the visual distraction of my discovery so that I could better ponder my next course of action.

We took a small lunch, the best we could plunder from mother nature, and then, tools in hand, we re-entered the stone building.  Nothing had changed.  The creature with the beautiful countenance remained unmoving in her glassy prison.  I understood quickly that the easiest operation would be to completely remove the column from its place so that we could then decide whether to bring it back to Europe whole or to access its remarkable contents right here in the jungle.  So, with this in mind, I instructed the men to begin chiselling carefully away at the place where the glass-like material met the cool stone floor.

It soon became apparent, however, that our tools were not disturbing the smooth surface of the pillar.  No matter how much pressure the men applied, the material remained intact and unscratched.  With my blessing, they began using mallets to apply blows of ever increasing strengths, first via the chisels and then directly onto the case itself.  Nothing had the slightest effect.  I sent the men outside to gather rocks with which to try and crack the pillar, but even though they pounded the thing with all their might using hard, sharp-edged stones, the material still showed no signs of yielding.

My servant, Marcel, then had a splendid idea.  Using the guts of a monkey he had killed for food on a previous day and some young tree branches, he constructed a crude catapult which he erected inside the stone chamber.  We loaded rock after rock - some of them so heavy they needed three men just to lift them - into the catapult and shot them at the pillar.  To our general amazement, even the biggest impacts that shook the ground failed to cause even a scratch on the "glass".

Being unable to disturb the material surrounding the mysterious young woman, I decided next that we should dig it up from underneath.  After all, even though our tools were ineffective against the case, they are more than adequate for digging through stone.  And so the task of digging a pit around the object began.  The men worked hard and well, despite their chisels having become blunt during their futile battle with the strange glass.

Now, many hours later, as the last vestiges of light are disappearing from the sky and the stone room is too dark for work to go on, we have created a hole as deep as a man is tall all the way around the pillar yet we have still to find its base.  It is as though what were observing in the room is but the tip of a much, much longer object that has been secured by some unknown force deep into the Earth itself.  We must now leave our labours for tonight.  Tomorrow, we will continue to search for the bottom of the incredible column.

 

October 19th, 1833.

Heaven forgive me.  I know, dear reader, that when you have reached the end of this text, you will judge me most harshly for not heeding the warnings all around me.  My punishment has already been served.  I have been cursed to live.  To be the one who survived.  My mind is forever scarred and I must carry that with me until I die when eternal damnation must surely await me.

I am changing the purpose of this journal.  I began it as a scientific work; a simple report of my expedition for the benefit of the entire anthropological community.  Now I am completing it for the benefit of all peoples.  The world must know what horror I have unleashed upon it.  This is my warning to you, and I beg you, for the sake of Man, heed my words!

It began the night after we discovered the pillar in the temple.  After dinner, I entered the stone room once again, with a torch in hand, lit from our fire.  I knew that with only a small door, smoke would soon fill the chamber, making the air unbreathable, but I intended only to spend a few moments in there, gazing upon the wonder I had found.  But something remarkable happened.  Thinking back upon it, my torch may have begun the nightmare that ensued.  For up until that moment, and ever since the building had been constructed, no light had ever touched directly upon any part of the pillar, save the part level with the opening we created.  Now, as I held my fire up to better see the face of the one I now know is the beautiful monster, direct light touched her features for the first time in a millennium.

If only I had dropped my torch a few moments before.  If only I had left that cursed temple in the afternoon, never to return.  If only I had never been born!  But it was too late.  The weak light cast from the torch had briefly illuminated her face.  Instantly, her eyes snapped open. Clear, dark eyes that shone even beneath several centimetres of the strange casing.  My first thought was joy.  I had been right - she was sleeping.  I let out a cry of delighted surprise, which summoned the others.  Soon we were all stood around the pillar, staring in awe.

A loud, creaking sound, like that of an heavy wooden door in an old country house, filled the air and Christophe cried "She is moving!"  I looked and saw the faintest flicker of movement from the long fingers of her left hand.  Then the fingers of the other hand twitched.  A look of confusion came over her face for a moment, and then vanished, as if she had resolved to do something.  Too late, we learnt what it was.

The creaking noise rose to an almost deafening crescendo.  Suddenly, cracks began to appear in the glass-like material around her two hands.  Slowly, she began to move an arm and the cracks rapidly widened and stretched until they began meeting one another.  Then with a snap, a large chunk of the casing broke free of the pillar, tumbling to the floor.  I expected to see it smash into a million pieces on impact, but it remained whole.  It was clearly as unbreakable inside as outside.  Yet a chunk had broken, and now the creature's exquisite arm, from the shoulder to the finger tips, was exposed to the air.

I was confused.  The material had proven unyielding to chisels, hammers and rocks, yet the thousand-year-old young woman appeared to have shattered it with her fingers and brushed it aside with her slender arm.  But I did not have time to ponder the dichotomy.

It was Marcel who was closest to that infernal arm.  He had moved in to examine the movement of her fingers and now he stood right next to her freed limb.  That was the moment I finally understood what the ancients had meant when they spoke of the beautiful monster.

Her lovely arm moved so fast, I could barely see it as its fingers took a hold of  Marcel by his throat.  What happened next will stay with me forever.  The monster lifted my servant off the ground, holding him purely with that one, feminine hand on his throat.  The rest of her slender body was still encased in the strange glass, but she seem unperturbed as she slowly closed her fingers.  Marcel's face turned purple and his two hands rose to meet her single one.  I could see he was struggling for all his worth, but he seemed unable to dislodge her grip.  Charles immediately leapt to help his colleague, adding his own strength to the struggle, but still it appeared futile.

As Marcel's struggles slowed, Charles in desperation bit down hard on the exposed arm.  I heard him yell and when he removed his mouth, I saw blood.  I thought he had wounded her, and could not understand why she showed no signs of pain or why she had not released Marcel.  Then I realised: it was Charles' blood I saw.  His teeth had been torn from his gums before they could puncture that perfect-looking skin.  I had no time to react when I heard a sickening crunching sound and looked up to see Marcel's head hanging limply.  The beautiful monster's fingers opened and the body of my servant fell to the floor.

Henri, Jean and Artur were already backing out of the tiny doorway, but Charles had taken a chisel from his pocket and was stabbing at the exposed arm.  I saw his blows striking again and again but none left so much as a mark.  As  he worked harder, he moved in closer until he put himself within reach.  The hand that had squeezed the life out of Marcel now laid itself flat with its palm against Charles' face.  I saw it move slightly, almost as if it was giving a gentle push, and Charles flew backwards across the stone room, his back slamming into the wall with so much ferocity that I knew he was dead before I even saw his blood spread on the wall behind him as his body fell to the ground.

What had I done?  I looked at the beautiful monster; at this perfect, ripe specimen of womanhood that had murdered two men with the simplest of touches.  Now I realised what the legends and texts had been describing, how this god-like creature that cannot be harmed with a chisel, really does possess the strength of a river.  I turned to run, diving towards the rough opening on the ground.  As I pulled myself clear I turned and saw, to my utter horror, that the creature's other arm was now free and that it was pulling and brushing the thick, apparently indestructible, casing away from its remarkable body, seemingly with ease.  Before I ran towards the shelter of the jungle, I saw the final pieces of pillar shattering around her lengthy legs, dissolving as she took a stride towards me, as if the very movement of her legs provided force enough to destroy this strongest of materials.

I ran straight across the clearing, into some thick bushes.  A rustle nearby terrified me until I heard a whispered voice "Shh!  Monsieur!  It is us!  Jean and Artur!".

"Where is Henri?" I asked.  They did not know.  The two men told me they wanted to run as far from there as possible, but I instructed them to wait.  A moment later, Artur whispered "We shall see you in hell, monsieur" and he and his colleague turned and ran from me.  Part of me was eager to follow them, but for some reason, I remained rooted to the spot, staring at the stone house.

It was difficult to see by the light of our dying fire, but the darkness was far from complete enough to mask the next impossible sight.  A sound like a cannon being fired rang out through the jungle and I saw the wall of the temple nearest me buckle outwards and then break into countless huge pieces of stone that flew out with incredible speed.  Had any of those chunks hit me, I would have been instantly killed.  Instead, they fell all around me and my life was spared.  I should have run, but once again, my feet refused to move.  I simply stood and stared at the vision before me.  The most beautiful young woman I have ever seen standing just yards away from me, her lovely, slender body having just smashed its effortless way through twenty-centimetre thick stone.

Some of the remains of the destroyed wall lay at her feet.  I saw in the flickering flames that those feet were as unblemished as the rest of her.  I saw her flicking her long toes against a rock the size of my head and watched that rock sailing over the trees, landing out of earshot, perhaps as much as half a kilometre away.  The beautiful monster!  Sleeping deity!  Strength of the Amazon river!  The Undamageable one!  It is all true.  I had awoken a monster of such unfathomable power and yet such delicate loveliness.  But once again, I had no time to consider the situation.

The girl broke into a run.  Instantly, she was moving so fast, I could only just follow her with my eyes.  She flashed past me as if I was not there, heading into the jungle, her wake creating a momentary wind that almost knocked me off my feet. A few seconds later I heard a yell.  A second later, another cry rang out.  Then silence for twenty long, long seconds.  This was broken by the sound of undergrowth being crushed underfoot behind me.  I spun around to see the girl once more, walking through the tall plants as if they were no encumbrance.  I noticed she was carrying something quite large in each of her hands as they hung loosely by her sides.

It was only when she was close enough that I could see what she was holding.  I recognized them from their clothes.  In her left hand, Artur.  She had him gripped by his belt as if his entire body weighed almost nothing.  He wasn't moving.  Jean was similarly hanging from her other hand.  Her angel's face showed no sign of strain as she carried the two men, although I soon discovered that she had made each of them a little lighter.  For as she turned slightly, I saw that her hands and wrists and the upper half of her exposed legs were caked in blood.  Both men's heads had somehow been removed.   The girl dropped their corpses and tuned to stare directly into my eyes.  I was trembling and my face must have been white with fear.  I felt certain I was about to die.

Just then, there was a sound in the bushes immediately behind her.  Henri, my interpreter, jumped out into the clearing, with my rifle in his hand.  That was where he had been all this time, filling the chamber and preparing a shot.  Never have I been so relieved to see a weapon.  The girl turned around slowly to face him, paying no attention to the device he held in his hand.  Henri waited until she had taken a step in his direction, and then discharged the gun.  I was confused by the sound of two cracks instead of the usual one, but I realize now that the second noise was made by the bullet striking the creature's beautiful torso.  She remained upright.

"Oh my God!" cried Henri.  "She is a devil!"  He turned as if to run, but in three long strides, the girl had laid her hand upon his shoulder.  She lifted him into the air with this hold, her single hand crushing his bones as it held him impossibly tight.  Henri screamed as she reached for the weapon with her free hand, appearing to tear it from his grasp with ease.  Then she dropped Henri, and rested a single delicate foot on his chest.  I saw him fighting to dislodge her, but it was clear that she was pinning him in place with that foot.  Apparently ignoring him, she began studying the gun, turning it over in her hands.

Then it struck me: having slept for a thousand years, she had never seen such a weapon before.  She held it up in front of her face, one hand gripping either end.  I heard a scream that was almost human but must have originated in the gun metal itself, because when it was done, she was holding half a rifle in either hand.  She had torn apart my gun with her bare hands!  A gun whose bullet had bounced from her lovely skin as a dried pea bounces from a slab of marble!  The Undamageable One!

Apparently, the weapon no longer held any interest for her.  She tossed the two pieces of it over her shoulders.  I could not see their flight in the darkness, but wherever it was that they crashed down to Earth, it was beyond my earshot.  She bent down, a long arm reaching for poor Henri.  The terrified translator began to scream at her "Leave me be, you devil!" but she seemed not to even hear his words.  Once more, I witnessed the spectacle of the slim girl lifting a man from the ground with a single arm, this time with her fingers gripping the collar of his shirt.  He shouted at her in tongues I did not recognise, the terror clear in his voice.

The girl merely continued to raise him until his waist was level with her chest.  Then she gripped one of his dangling legs with her spare hand.  Henri's scream of pain fused with the sound of bones and sinew being crushed to paste.  Blood began to spurt from between her long fingers, splattering both her and Henri, but she did not stop squeezing until, with a terrifying thud, his amputated leg dropped to the forest floor.  The interpreter must surely have surrendered consciousness at that point, for when she repeated the process with his other leg, there was no scream to block the sound of tearing flesh.

Whether or not he was still alive as she lowered his shortened body so that their faces were level, I do not know.  But I saw her pulling first his left and then his right arm free of his torso with as much care and difficulty as if he had been nothing more than a over-roasted chicken. I felt myself about to vomit, but resisted the urge.  Still I did not run.  Something was holding me in place.  The beautiful monster turned to face me, her magnificent body splattered now in blood, the torso of my poor translator hanging helplessly from her hand.  With a flick of her delicate wrist she sent it flying across the clearing to land exactly at my feet.  Then she began striding towards me, her legs moving so gracefully, despite the incredible power I now knew they controlled.  I should have run, but for some reason, I could not.  I remained fixed to the spot.

In seconds, she was right in front of me.  For the first time, I could see her flesh without intervening distance or the strange glass-like material she had been encased in.  Her physical perfection stunned me.  Never has such beauty walked the Earth since.  And surely never such power either.  I am convinced that she comes from the very depths of hell, a trick of the Devil to put his most vile, invincible demon into the body of a delicate-looking nubile young woman.  As she reached for me, just as she had reached for five of my men immediately before killing them, I felt the strongest of terrors.  But I also felt something else, a feeling in my loins.  It seems her appearance is so striking that one part of me could not help but responding to it.

Her hand did not close around my neck as I expected it to.  Neither did it grip my legs or arms with enough unearthly force to tear them from my body.  Slowly, but steadily, her outstretched fingers approached my forehead.  I closed my eyes and muttered a prayer, believing that the moment of my death was imminent.  But instead I felt nought but the lightest touch of silken fingertips upon my forehead.  Looking, I saw that the girl had indeed merely reached out to touch me.  Then, the sight before me appeared to fade.  It was as though I was, in the space of a few seconds, losing my gift of vision.  The night time jungle sounds of insects also became swiftly less apparent.  She was still touching her hand to me, but now I could feel less and less of the contact.  Soon, I could hear or feel nothing, and all I could see was the vaguest outline of the beautiful demon.  Then that too vanished and there was nothing.

Nothing at all.  I could not see, nor hear nor feel as though my soul were no longer a part of my body.  Total blackness, total silence filled my mind.  I knew it was the girl, that somehow, by the merest touch of her hand, she had extinguished all my senses.  Another demonic trick!  Was this utter nothingness perhaps a taste of the afterlife that awaits me?  I shall not know until it is too late.  I don't know how long I was held in that ghastly empty limbo, but it felt like hours.  Perhaps it was only minutes or even seconds.  With no sensations, no nourishment for my mind, it was impossible to gauge the passing of time.

It ended not with the restoration of my senses, but with a totally new sensation.  An image, conjured from nowhere that appeared in my mind unbidden.  It dominated my thoughts, so that I could think of nothing else.  I cannot describe the image, because I cannot recall it, other than that I seemed to know instantly its significance.  Indeed, it soon became clear that the girl was communicating with me, speaking without sound, but with shapes; without language but with wordless ideas planted magically inside my head.  I could not shut out the messages she forced into my mind and I still could sense nothing of the outside world.  I could do nothing but, for want of a better word, 'listen'.

"You are the one who awakened me." she 'said' - again for want of a better word.  "You are the one I will choose.  You will be my witness.  You will observe my power.  I will give you the -" I did not understand the next concept that appeared in my head "- and you will witness and not die."  Then the images ended.

My vision began to return to me, as though a shade were being pulled from in front of a candle.  The sounds of the jungle became audible to me once more as well and I could feel the night breezes against my skin.  The girl was no longer touching me; when enough of my sight returned, I was able to discern her lovely form some paces away. Her back was turned to me and she was walking towards the now half-destroyed stone building.  Once again, I considered for a moment taking the opportunity to run from her, but once again something within me keep my feet firmly in place.  I stood and watched as she went into the temple for a moment and then returned, clutching something in her hand.

She was holding a fragment of the material that she had been encased in.  I stared, both fearful and curious, as she rubbed the glass-like substance between her palms.  I had seen four strong men working with tools fail to even scratch the stuff, and yet now I observed this petite young woman sculpting it with ease with her bare hands.  She seemed to be stretching out the clear "glass", turning the chunk into something much thinner and longer.  She worked fast, the movement of her hands especially difficult for me to follow, illuminated as she was by the last flickers of firelight.  I noticed that the ends of the piece were now as thin as thread and that they were coiling now at her feet.  She was extracting meters and meters of cord from the solid lump of material, as though she were spinning wool from a fleece.

When she had finished, she had created a long, continuous length of transparent twine.  I remained rooted in place as she moved towards me yet again.  Too stunned or confused to react, I barely flinched as took hold of my hands.  Her grip was firm - slightly painful even - but I did not make a sound.  I just watched as she brought my two wrists together, transferring her grasp so that she held both my hands in one of her own.  Then, almost too quickly for me to see, she bound the end of the line tightly around my wrists.  Experimentally, I tried pulling my hands apart but, as I expected, the strange material refused to yield, even though I fought until the thread dug painfully into my skin.  Walking slightly away from me, she gathered up the other end of the cord and, in a blur of movement, tied it around her own, delicate-looking wrist.  She was putting me on a lead like a prisoner!  Or more probably, as I began to realise, like a dog!

She approached me once more, coming so close that the peculiar fabric of her upper garment was almost touching my shirt.  The thought of the wonders that lay beneath that garment being so near my own body stirred me greatly.  Her hands rose up and rested heavily on my shoulders and I noticed that her eyes were closed.  Then, incredibly, my entire body felt as though it had caught fire. A burning sensation unlike anything I have ever experienced before seemed to pass instantly into every part of my being.  So intense was it, that I screamed.  What seemed a moment later, the girl's eyes opened.  For a second, I thought I had seen her beautiful lips slightly smiling, but I couldn't be certain.  She took her hands from me and walked away, leaving me shaken and confused.  What had happened?  It was then that I noticed that dawn was just breaking in the Eastern skies.  Yet it had been twilight what felt like only an hour before. What demon process had been performed upon me? Was this the incomprehensible "thing" that she had "told" me she would give me so that I would "witness and not die"?

She was strolling towards the edge of the clearing whilst I remained as stationary as I had been for the past few minutes.  In the dim light, I could just see the remarkable thin rope she had spun uncoiling as she carried one end away.  The other end, of course, bound my hands together.  I should have realised what was about to happen, but it still came as a shock.  The line stretched out between us and then suddenly became taut.  She did not stop walking, the long arm with the cord attached, swinging nonchalantly by her side.  Without warning, I found my wrists pulled forward in the most violent manner, my feet leaving the ground for several instants as the rope - and the girl - yanked me.  I landed flat on my belly with my arms stretched out in front of me, the tension in the line keeping my hands a fair distance above the ground.

The fall hurt badly, making me cry out.  The girl seemed not to hear, or perhaps not to mind, for she continued to stride on at a remarkably brisk pace.  I was being dragged on my front across the forest floor as though I was tied to a pair of horses, rather than a young woman.  The pain as my body scrapped over branches and rocks was great and I could not help but shout in my agony although such outbursts made no difference to my captor.  Several times I was convinced that a sharp piece of stone or twig had cut my skin open, but when I looked, I saw no trace of blood.  For many minutes we continued in that fashion, the beautiful monster's long legs covering the ground with speed and ease, whilst I was drawn bodily and roughly over that same ground.  The pull on my arms was excruciating, the constant blows to my torso agonising, but the girl showed no willingness to halt or even slow her progress.

My low perspective made it challenging, but when we travelled over a flatter stretch with less undergrowth, I could see her striding forth some short distance in front of me.  Amazed, I watched as she walked on, hauling me all the while. A huge ancient tree trunk loomed before her.  I thought she would take a detour to steer around the massive obstacle, but she merely thrust out a single palm, and pressed it against the trunk.  The sound of splintering tore through the jungle as the two-meter-circumference tree yielded to the unworldly strength of this slender young woman.  With a mighty crash, the trunk tore in two near the ground and the enormous tree fell to the forest floor, bringing down several smaller plants as it tumbled, shaking the ground beneath me.

Having disposed of the obstacle, the beautiful monster then merely kicked her bare foot through the remains of the stump, making it explode in fragments of wood, as she continued her walk, her pace barely interrupted by the tree.  Forced to follow her path, I observed in horror as I was dragged rapidly towards the battered stump.  Certain that the imminent head-on collision would end my life, I screamed in a vain attempt at attracting my tormentor's attention.  She paid me no mind.  The top of my skull slammed into the wood, drawing yet another scream from me, this one of pure agony.  But the impact did not kill me.  I felt the jagged splinters pressing painfully hard against my face and then my body as I was drawn over it, but there was no blood.  Only pain.

So this was the mysterious "thing" she had given me!  She had made me as undamageable as she is.  I still felt discomfort, agonies even, that she clearly is immune to, but I could not be wounded.  I was invulnerable.  And that invulnerability was why she had said I would not die.   I saw then how I had been doubly cursed.  I could be dragged around and hurt at her whim, but my suffering could not be ended by death.  I had been condemned to be her witness - a pet who must watch her murderous violence.  A pet for whom even the escape of suicide was denied.  All faith in my situation now extinguished, I began to cry.

I do not know for how long she walked through the jungle, pulling me helplessly and painfully along behind her.  Finally, she came to a halt in front of a high, thick bush.  The relief generated by no longer being hauled over the undergrowth was immense, but short-lived.  As I was taking advantage of my stationary state by catching my breath, I saw the girl slightly raising her arm - the one with my lead affixed to it - and then snap it sharply forward.  There was a split second moment as her tug travelled along the "rope" before the most aggressive yank I had yet felt pulled on my wrists.  My arms were jerked forward so violently, that it was surely only the strange invulnerability spell she had cast over me that prevent them being ripped from their sockets.  My belly and then my knees left the ground, the strength of the beautiful monster's careless pull enough to lift my entire body and cause it to fly through the air.

In no time at all, without touching the ground, I had covered the distance between where I had been resting and where the girl stood.  Slamming into her legs, I was shocked when they not only failed to yield, but in fact remained utterly unmoving as I bounced from them, a fresh yell of pain on my lips.  I sprawled at her feet and she looked down on me. There was no indication of any emotion on her stunning countenance.  Her hand reached for me, her long fingers curling under my shoulder before she hoisted me into the air, holding me level with her hip, her slender limb comfortable by her side despite supporting all my weight.  It hurt where her fingers dug into my skin, but I bore it with clenched teeth.

As I hung powerlessly from this young woman's hand, I stared out at the thick bush in front of us.  In the comparative stillness I could hear noises in the distance - voices, animals and equipment.  Suddenly, I understood.  There was a camp of some kind on the other side of the foliage.  The beautiful monster was preparing to attack it, and I was being carried along to "witness."  I knew there would be carnage.  I had to warn whoever was there to flee!  I took a deep breath, the air hurting as it poured into my battered chest, and open my mouth wide, intending to yell the simple word "Run!" as loud as possible. But no sound left my lips.  I tried again, but still without success.  I do not know if so much screaming in pain had damaged my throat, or if the demon girl had cast another of her spells, but it did not matter.  I could not speak or forewarn anyone of the terrible fate awaiting them.

The girl stepped into the bushes, the leaves, stalks and branches bending or breaking to accommodate her superb body.  I followed, my head at the same height as her tiny waist, face first.  The bush did not yield to me, but rather it poked and scratched harshly at me, hurting me, but of course, not leaving an actual mark.  I was beginning to think that the beautiful monster was enjoying causing me such discomforts.  A few confident, long-legged strides later, we emerged.  I gasped as greenery finally came free of my eyes and I could see where we were.  This was no camp we were approaching.  It was a full, walled and defended, European-style fort!

The four, square walls of this outpost had been fashioned from bound and nailed vertical tree trunks.  At no point did I see a portion of wall less than twenty meters high and each trunk used in its construction was at least seventy centimetres around.  In the nearest corner of the fort stood a watchtower, a small hut built at the top of  four thick, thirty-meter high poles.  Two men with rifles stood guard inside the tower.  The rest of the fort was hidden from my view by the high walls.  I dared not think how many more men were inside.

The girl strode out towards the nearest wall, its immense scale dwarfing us both.  Evidently, the guards in the tower were performing their duty well that day, for only a moment after we emerged from the shadows of the foliage all around, I heard a shout from above and, twisting my neck, saw two men leaning over the parapet, pointing at us.  One of them called down some question in Portuguese.  The beautiful monster's wonderful lips did not move, and when I pushed mine to work, no sound would leave my body.  Thus, in silence, she walked right up to the wall, tree trunks towering above us.  With me still clutched in one hand, she used the other to punch the thick wood.  I shuddered as I saw her small fist penetrating the hard material until her arm was buried almost up to her shoulder.

Then she began to walk sideways.  Her shapely outstretched arm passed through the trunks as easily as it passed through air, the wood splintering and cracking against its silky perfection.  After a few meters, she stopped and bent her knees so that her limb now moved downwards through the wall.  I have never seen a machine that can cut through so much dense wood with such rapidity and ease, and I doubt if one exists.  She came back a few paces to create a second vertical incision.  In mere seconds, she had sawn a large doorway in the defensive structure.  The cut-away wood fell with a mighty crash inwards into the fort.  My first glimpse of the interior was of a dozen shocked faces turning as one to see the vast breech that had suddenly appeared in the wall.  Their surprise increased when they saw, standing in that new doorway, a beautiful young woman with a large man dangling from one of her arms.

The beautiful monster's partial destruction of the perimeter of the fort awoke the wrath of the guards in the tower first.  I heard the crack of a rifle above and actually saw the flash of light as a bullet, as though it were nothing but a raindrop, bounced from the crown of her head.  Another crack and this time I saw the tiny ripple of briefly disturbed flesh as the shot struck her exposed womanly breast and deflected away, leaving no trace behind it.  A third bullet actually hit me, striking my leg.  Miraculously, I found my voice had returned as I screamed, the intense, localised pain like none I had ever felt before.  Yet somehow, the shot did not pierce my skin.

The firing guards had called too much attention to themselves.  The girl walked over to the foot of their tower, oblivious to the two bullets which had struck her, and uninterested in the agony caused by the one that had hit me.  She placed a single hand on one of the four posts supporting the watchtower and slowly pulled.  I heard a creaking noise that evolved into a loud cracking and suddenly all four posts tore free of the ground.  Now the girl was holding the entire tower  - two men, their hut and the four pillars - and supporting the total weight with a single hand!  She shook that hand, making the tower move violently and the two guards immediately toppled out of the hut, tumbling to the ground far beneath them.  I knew that no-one could survive such a fall.  The beautiful monster acknowledged their deaths by tossing the complete watchtower over her shoulder as though it were a pinch of salt, not a thirty-meter high wooden structure.  It travelled well clear of the wall behind us before landing noisily in the jungle, maybe a hundred meters away.

Now the whole fort had been alerted.  Shots rang out all around us, a few hitting me, eliciting screams but no blood.  Many, many more hit the girl, ricocheting from her perfect body, eliciting no reaction whatsoever from the unworldly one.  Groups of men, bayonets, knives and swords in hands, charged at us from every possible angle.  The girl released her hold of me, letting me fall to the ground by her feet.  Bayonets, pressed into her flat belly, round hips and smooth back, snapped in two but did not seem to affect her in any way.  Swords clanged down on her, some breaking against her invulnerability, others producing sparks but no cuts.  Daggers had even less effect.  One or two blades were thrust at me as I lay, without a weapon, my wrists bound, unable to defend myself.  The points of the knives pressed my skin until I yelled with the excruciating pain of it, but my blood remained inside my body.

Down on the ground I saw how the attempts to hurt the beautiful monster were futile.  From there, I was well-placed to see her arms flash out towards the onrushing men in response.  I tried to look away, to close my eyes, but some inner compulsion, perhaps yet another demon-trick, forced me to watch as her small hands carved through flesh with even more ease than they had carved through wood.  Blood began to splatter over me.  Heads were removed from shoulders, limbs from torsos.  Men were split asunder vertically and horizontally by those feminine hands.  Her feet kicked out, sending some bodies soaring into the air, and causing others to explode in gore.  Vomit rose in my throat but I did not throw up.  Still, I struggled to gain enough control of my body to avert my gaze and still I found that I could not.

Only a few seconds had passed, but we were surrounded by death.   Pieces of soldier lay all around and both the girl and I were covered in fresh blood.  The men of the fort were no longer attacking.  The devastating carnage had persuaded them of a preferable course of action and they began to flee.  The girl took pursuit after them, her legs moving  impossibly fast so that she could catch each group within a few strides.  I found myself being dragged roughly along behind her once again as she moved this way and that at blinding speed through the fort.  She chased after three men and reaching forward, sliced her hand clean through their necks from behind.  Then she turned and sprinted around a group of two, facing them before reaching out, placing one of her hands on each of their throats and squeezing until blood shot from their mouths.  Four more died when she ran along side them, kicking out at each in turn, sending them, spinning like children's toys, maybe forty meters into the air.

In the centre of the fort stood a large carriage.  Unfettered, its two horses had fled the moment the first shots were fired.  The girl approached it, using a single hand to lift one side of it clean off the ground as though it were weightless.  Then reaching down, she grabbed hold of the underside with her other hand and effortlessly hoisted the whole huge contraption over her head, holding it there for a moment.  Twenty men would have struggled to lift such an object, yet this lone girl found no challenge in the task!  I watched, helpless from the ground as she turned, drew back her arms and then hurled the entire carriage at the last group of fleeing men.  Unable to stop myself, I saw the black shadow descending upon them and heard their desperate shouts cease suddenly as the mighty weight bore down on them.  Five men disappeared in an instant beneath the carriage as it crashed to the ground, the growing puddle of blood beside it the only evidence of their existence.

Sickened, shocked and pained, I turned to look at the young woman whose unworldly strength had brought about so much bloodshed.  She stood tall and erect, body splashed with the gore of others, surveying the scene, as though proud of what she had done.  She pulled on the cord that attached us, and I flew violently from the ground to smash into her legs once more.  Then she lifted me by the arm pit, turning sharply to her left.  It seemed that there was, unnoticed to me, a survivor.  Carrying me as though I wasn't there, she walked over to a pile of wooden crates.  A sweep of her free hand noisily sent the boxes soaring over the far wall of the fort and revealed the man who had been crouching behind them.  A young man, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, he was shaking and sobbing, his terror both obvious and understandable.  But how had the beautiful monster known that he was there?  Had she smelt him?  I will never know.

She reached out for him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and picking him up.  His legs kicked out furiously at her flawless knees and his fists pounded her angelic face and her beautiful chest.  I could see his hands bruising with the effort, but the girl seemed not to notice the blows.  She changed her grips on the young man and myself, bring us both in front of her deep navel, turning our heads so that we faced one another and then pressing our cheeks up against her stomach.  Her smooth, flat and warm skin smelt of the loveliest garden on a spring day - despite the blood sprayed upon it.  But I knew it was the flesh of a demon.  I looked into the terrified eyes of the last survivor of the fort.  Like me, he was trapped, our heads held immovably in place by a vice one side of which was a girl's abdomen, the other her palm.

She was looking down at us, but, I suspected, particularly at me.  Suddenly, the young man screamed and I realised that she was squeezing his head against herself.  I was forced to watch as his face contorted, forced to listen as his screams gave way to the sound of crunching bone when his skull collapsed and forced to look as his head split open, erupting with blood just centimetres from my face, painting me with his gore.  The girl's very belly had proven so much harder than a man's skull!

She pushed his remains away from herself, deliberating catching my eye for an instant, making sure I understood that I was being spared such a horrendous fate only to suffer one even worse - that of being her "witness".  I felt myself being released and fell to resume the increasingly familiar position of lying at her feet, like a faithful dog.  An instant later, she strode off, the incredible rope around my wrists tightening and then dragging me off behind her.  She did not seek out the doorway she had created in the huge wall, she merely picked up a little more speed and let her magnificent body smash straight through the thick, strong wood, splinters flying out in all directions.  A few seconds later, I was towed, with much pain, through the rough hole her slender womanly form had punctured.

We travelled on roughly through the jungle for a while longer, my mind still filled with horrific images from the fort.  Was this to be my life now, to be hauled around for all eternity by a monster I had awoken, to witness such horrors?  The sight of the ground rushing and jerking by as my body bounced upon it was making me nauseous, but when I shut my eyes I saw only the poor young man's head exploding so close to my own.  I did not vomit, but tears stung my eyes.

Without warning, the girl stopped.  Had we reached our destination?  Were we already at the site of the next massacre?  I awaited the expected tug on my lead that would bring me violently to her side, but nothing happened.  Gathering my knees beneath me, I drew myself up to half-height and looked ahead.  The beautiful monster seemed to have stopped perfectly still.  From the trees around her, a group of around six natives emerged, cautiously edging towards her.  Still she did not move.  I studied the half-dozen men.  One of them carried a strange object about the size of my arm.  Made of silver or some other well-polished material it glinted in the increasing daylight.  I couldn't see well, but it seemed to be marked with symbols similar to those I'd seen on the wall of the temple that had housed the beautiful monster before my cursed intervention.

The natives continued to carefully approach the girl.  They began a low chanting and the one holding the metal object held it high over his head, letting the sun reflect off it.  Five of them encircled the motionless girl whilst the sixth approached me.  I looked up as he neared and recognised one of the two men I had hired as a guide.  It seems I had grossly misjudged this man.  He had fled our party not through ignorant, superstitious fear, but rather simple practicality.  He had also not told me the whole truth when I had questioned him about his people's legends.  He and his colleagues were the descendants of the tribe that had guarded the monster's temple, the men who dedicated their lives to protecting the world from the beautiful demon.  Men who were determined to save all mankind from a single girl.

The guide-turned-saviour looked at the transparent rope around my wrists and shook his head sadly.  Then he raised his hand high above my head and brought his closed fist down upon my skull.

 

 

 

I do not remember feeling the blow, nor anything of the two weeks that have passed since.  Two hours ago, I awoke here on the edge of the jungle with no possessions save my torn clothes.  There's no sign of the native group or the strange rope.   Nor, I thank heaven, is there any trace of the beautiful monster.  I can only believe that she has once again been imprisoned in a cylinder of that strange glass and housed anew in the dark temple.

Somewhere in that jungle sleeps a force far more powerful and a demon far more cruel than any that has ever walked the Earth.  A murderous creature, stronger than any river, and as undamageable as a deity.  Man has no hope of defending himself against this monster save the magic of a tiny group of native tribesmen.  And this unstoppable devil bears the appearance of a petite, slender, gloriously nubile young woman!

Reader, should you ever hear tales of the beautiful monster, think of my story.  And should you ever stumble upon the little temple in the jungle, turn around and leave.  The monster may be truly beautiful, but remember this:  Men are but flesh and blood.  But she... She is a demon.

  

Conceptfan, Jul. 2003.






No.6 - "Get Conceptfan ("Beaten Up": The Remix)"

Below is a copy of an e-mail I received the other day.  The sender used the on-line comments form on this site and didn't fill in the e-mail address box, so I couldn't reply.  To be honest, I'm not sure I want any further contact with this person, but anyway, here's the message that was in my inbox:

 

"Dear" Conceptfan,

I've just read your short story "Beaten Up".  I thought that it wasn't quite as bad as the other rubbish you've posted on your site.  I almost enjoyed your description of the girl who beat you up. You've really got the hots for her, haven't you, you sad little fetishist?  Too bad.

If you hadn't already guessed, it's me, your friend in the tight t-shirt.  And like I said when we met, I'm perfect and you're anything but. So, forget it, boy.  Count yourself lucky I've bothered to type out my version of what happened that day. Consider it a gift from a goddess to an insignificant mortal.   It'll  help you think of me as you play with yourself.

Signed: Your fantasy.

 

What follows is the text that was contained in the attached file:

 

Just because I'm superhuman, it doesn't mean I don't have any leisure time.  And just because I'm stunningly beautiful (that's truth, not immodesty, as you can verify), it doesn't mean I don't enjoy surfing the 'net every once in a while.  Anyway, I was on-line the other evening, jumping from page to page, not really doing much more than passing time, clicking on links and seeing where it got me.

Now, being superhuman and stunningly beautiful, I don't need to explain why my interest was fired when a search engine threw up a site claiming to contain stories about "super-powered", "gorgeous young women" with "bad attitudes".  I read on.  It quickly became clear that the stories had been written by a guy with a fetish for super-women.  Again and again in the fiction, these women were flaunting their power, hurting men, and in particular, crushing guys against their chests.

I'm always amazed by the extent of the heterosexual male's obsession with women's breasts, but this guy seemed especially fascinated.  All his female characters had "generous" or "magnificent" chests, and he described them in great detail.  I wondered about the guy who had written the stories.  I mean, there I was, a young woman with superpowers like those he was writing about, with a face as close to perfection as any on planet Earth and a body to match (in other words, I, too, have "magnificent" breasts).

I soon realised that I was the absolute living embodiment of this guy's every fantasy.  It'd be funny, I was thinking, if he ever met me.  I could make him think his dreams had come true, and end up having a good time myself, roughing the poor bastard up a bit. After all, I figured that a little taste of what a superhuman young woman with a "bad attitude" could do was just what the writer needed.

So, I sent an email to the address given in the website, asking something pretty banal about one of the stories.  When he replied, I asked another question.  And so on it went, until I could tease a few little bits of information out of him, like a rough idea of where he lived and worked and how he travelled between the two.  Once I knew he took the London Underground daily, I managed to find out which line.   I also found he did much of his writing on the train, using a PDA.  He was also obliging enough to tell me the name of the model of Pocket PC he used, all without suspecting a thing.

I spent the next four or five mornings standing on various platforms at tube stations, watching the over-full commuter trains fly past.  With my superhuman vision, it was no bother for me to scan each passing carriage for anyone using a PDA.  I was even able to read what was on the screens of those portable devices as they decelerated from forty-odd miles an hour to stationary.

Most folks with hand-held devices were playing games, or drawing up expenses sheets.  One guy caught my eye, however.  I couldn't read his PDA screen at first because he was hiding it from view with a cupped hand but another passenger jostled him and his fingers momentarily moved enough to let me catch a glimpse of screen.  In that split second, I was able to read around fifty words.  More than enough to tell me that I'd found my man.   How easy it had been!  I memorised his face.  The next morning I went back to the same station and let trains pass until his came in.  I noticed him immediately as the tube pulled onto the platform from the tired, furtive look in his eyes, the PDA in his hand and the scruffy, ill-coordinated clothes he wore. I know my outfit - a bright, tight T-shirt and hip-length shorts, specially chosen to display my fabulous form - wasn't exactly inconspicuous for the last weeks of winter in London, but he looked like he'd chosen his get-up from a pitch -dark second-hand shop. It's one thing having no sense of style, but it's another thing to be so determined to make it obvious.

As I got on the train, the commuters shuffled aside as best they could to allow me to pass down the carriage.  I'm used to men making as much room for me as I want just in response to the most throwaway little smile.  It's just something that comes with the way I look.  I mean, when you've got a face as lovely as mine, guys just love to help.

I'm also used to men checking out my body.  Again, with a figure like this, it just goes with the territory.  It's no secret that I happen to be extremely attractive. And, as I mentioned, on that morning, I was squeezed into a t-shirt that is, I guess, possibly a size or two too small for me.   But none of that excuses the way my little web-site guy stared at my chest once he finally caught sight of me.  His eyes lit up as I passed into his field of vision and he did a quick head-to-feet scan.  As soon as that was done he just locked his pupils on the top part of my t-shirt.  And stared and stared.

Once or twice he did manage to tear his eyes away for a split-second to check out the rest of the carriage, but each time he quickly returned to studying the shape of my breasts.   Sure, all the other guys in there were checking me out, but none of them were being so unsubtle about ogling my chest.

I got close enough to him (a couple of yards away) to hear the way his heart went into turbo-drive every time I looked in his direction.  His breathing was pretty rasping too.  He started shifting his legs to hide the growing bulge in his crotch, but to be fair he wasn't the only man in there beginning to get erect.  It's just the effect I seem to have on guys - the price of being so perfect, I suppose.  But this particular idiot was different from the other guys.  Rather than looking away or trying to do something about his stiffening organ, he just kept on staring at my t-shirt and getting harder and harder.

I made my way through the crowded carriage towards where he was sitting.  I'll admit I put on a little bit of a show for him, putting a little more wiggle than absolutely necessary into my hips, and making sure that my breasts bounced with every movement I made.  I could see the way his gaze flickered occasionally onto other parts of my body - my legs and face, for example - before resettling each time, without fail, on my front.

I don't have the ability to read minds, but I didn't need it at that moment.  I could see the man was drowning in a sea of fantasies, all starring me, that were forming in his mind.   I knew he was wondering what it would be like to touch me, to stroke my skin, to press his ugly lips against my perfect mouth, to cup my glorious breasts in his clumsy hands.  Like I've said, I'm used to attention from men, although I've got to say this guy's obvious obsession was getting a little out of hand.  And he didn't even know about me being superhuman - his particular "area of interest".

I got through the crowd until I was right in front of him.  Still, he didn't stop staring for a moment, even though he was now looking almost straight up at the top half of my torso.   I thought I'd tease him a little and turned until I was in profile to him, giving the horny idiot an even more dramatic view of my fantastic curves.  Now his tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth as he stared at the swell of my breasts and the way it contrasts with the smooth flatness of my stomach.

I waited until I thought he was on the point of soiling his underwear before "accidentally" catching his eye and tossing him a casual smile.  He stared back, probably surfing a new wave of fantasies inspired by the brief glimpse of my flawless teeth.  Then, I started to lower myself slowly into the vacant seat beside him, making absolutely sure that he had plenty of opportunity to appreciate the firm roundness of my posterior.

Once I was seated beside him, I kept my back straight, my lips pouted and my chest thrust out so that every time he threw a glance at me (thinking I wouldn't notice, no doubt) his hormone levels increased still further.  He re-crossed his legs, obviously uncomfortable with his throbbing erection. Each time he strained his eyeballs to try and see my breasts pushing out my t-shirt from the corner of his eye, he had to shuffle his legs once more.

I stayed put for quite a few stops, knowing that his plan was to ride to the end of the line.  I had originally intended to speak to him on the train but it was becoming increasingly obvious that I didn't need to say a word.  He was already completely under my spell.  I knew that he wouldn't stand letting me out of his sight.  My little fish had well and truly swallowed the hook.  I could lure him to the spot of my choosing.  I just waited until there was a stop where not to many other people got off and stood up.

I made the most of the short journey to the door, letting my rear sway in classic fashion, no doubt drawing attention from quite a few pairs of male eyes.  The only pair I was interested in were definitely focussed.  I knew that without having to check.  Nonetheless, I put on my most self-confident air as I walked, knowing that it would be irresistible to him.  I was proved right.  My reward was the now already familiar sound of his breathing as he suddenly stood up, hurrying nosily to follow me off the train.

I walked slowly to the escalator, not hurrying as I listened to the sound of my target following noisily about twenty yards behind.  He probably thought he was being discreet.  Discreet!  Puffing his way up, his heart pounding like a bass drum from the effort of climbing a few stairs...  Meanwhile I had to keep pretending I couldn't hear him and keep forcing myself to be slow so that he wouldn't lose sight of me.  Of course, I could have run up the stairs a thousand times (without breaking a sweat) in the time he could have done it once.  But I'm a "superhuman young woman" and he's just a man.

I made sure that he saw which exit I took, striding with an air of authority so that his urge to follow me would be further strengthened. Out on the main road, I had to tone down my performance a little, so as not to attract too much attention.  I wanted to get this guy alone, not have him and fifty other drooling males following me like rats after the Pied Piper.  In truth, I was beginning to get a bit bored of walking slowly down the road.  Then, at that very moment, I spotted a quiet-looking residential, tree-lined side-street.  Perfect!  I turned the corner, certain that my new "friend" had spotted me.

As soon as I was away from the main road, I checked to see if anyone could see me.  Satisfied that I was alone, I bent my knees a little and sprung up off them, leaping effortlessly over a eight-foot-high brick wall to land immaculately at the bottom of someone's garden.  For such a small jump, I hardly had to bend my knees to absorb the shock of my feet hitting the ground.  I just stood against the wall, resisting the temptation to smash it to dust with my fists, and listened out for the ancient-steam-engine-like sound of fetish-boy puffing around the corner.

It took him an age, but eventually, I was "treated" to the racket of him passing by.  Another easy standing jump carried me back over the wall (with quite a few feet to spare).  I came down on my training shoes about a yard behind him.  Although I clearly heard the sound of my soles hitting the pavement, the guy's pathetic senses detected absolutely nothing.  I just stood there for a while, trying not to laugh as he frantically scanned the road ahead for a glimpse of me whilst I waited a couple of paces behind him.

In the end, I had to speak to get his attention.

"About time, pervert. I see you're as slow as you are stupid." I said, and I meant every word of it.  It was fantastic to see the surprise on his face as he whirled around, but the way that surprise changed into pure lust as his useless brain took in the information his eyes were providing was, to say the least, a little predictable.  That in turn had the usual effect of making him breathe hard and, I noticed, making his penis fill with blood so that his little stiff was incredibly obvious in his jeans.  I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to tease him for it.  Indicating his groin with my head I mocked: "I suppose what little brains you've got are all in there."

"H..How did you get behind me?" the poor fool stammered.  I figured he was uncomfortable with my use of the word "little" in conjunction with his reproductive organs and was trying to alter the course of the conversation.  As if I cared either about the size of his equipment or his choice of topic!

I just dismissed his question with a curt "Work it out for yourself."

I didn't mean for him to take it literally, but I could see the frantic workings of his mind showing on his face.  His hopeless mental struggling almost amused me.

"You really are stupid, aren't you." I said.  I wasn't teasing now, merely observing.  Men can be incredibly unintelligent.

This one seemed to be no exception from the rule.  He even seemed offended by my comment.

"Actually, I'm not, OK?" he protested.

Being a perfect superhuman, I don't accept being corrected by lesser beings, especially not lesser beings of the male variety.  I needed to let him know the rules of our interaction. I did it in no uncertain terms:

"No, it's not OK and yes, you are stupid. Don't argue with me. It's not in your interest. You're already in enough trouble."

I could immediately see the effect of my words on him, but it wasn't the effect I intended.  He was getting even more turned on by it.  I don't know if it was the authorative tone of my voice appealing to his fetish-ridden fantasies or the sight of my lovely mouth as I spoke, but something was driving the guy wild with desire.  His heart was pounding so hard I thought he would collapse at any moment.

A look of resolve came over his features.  He'd clearly made his mind up about something.  "Look," he said, "I'm sorry for following you.   It's just that I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come for a drink some time."

I couldn't believe my ears!   Was this... this... sad excuse for a man actually asking me for a date?!  It was the most ridiculous suggestion I'd ever heard. How could anyone - even a stupid man - be so deluded?  Laughter exploded from within me.

"You really have no idea, do you?" I noted, still chuckling.  Using my hands to demonstrate the contours of my perfect body, I asked "What would someone like me want with someone like you?"  I knew he wasn't going to provide me with any kind of a response to that.  Instead he reverted to his usual default activity - staring at the top-half of my t-shirt.  Typical, useless, puny man!

"I've got a face too, pervert." I scolded him. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."  That was an understatement.

"S..Sorry."he stammered pathetically.

"Oh, you will be." I assured him.

"Look, I'm sorry. It's just that I -" he started.  I'd had enough of his clumsy attempts at excusing himself.  He was beginning to anger me.  He needed to be taught a lesson.  In less time than it took him to form his next syllable, I walked the two paces up to him and reached out with my left hand. I'd already curled my fingers as gently as I could around his flabby neck before he even realised I'd moved.

Although the guy was large and carrying plenty of excess weight on his disgusting frame, it was never going to be a problem for me to use that one-handed grip on his throat to lift his entire body off the ground.  (In truth, I could have picked up a hundred of him without straining.)  Suffice to say, in a blink of his eye, I had him dangling helplessly on the end of my arm.

Finally, his brain managed to work out his predicament.  His reaction didn't surprise me.  Actually, I've seen it dozens of times before - each time I've lifted a guy off the ground with one hand.  It's always the same.  He brings his hands up to his throat and his fingers try like crazy to pry mine off his neck.  Then he starts fighting to pull my hand away.  Then he has a few attempts at pounding my forearm.  Of course, none of this ever has any effect on me or my grip.

This guy was no different.  He struggled like a trapped animal (which is pretty much what he was.)  The strain creased up his face and the sweat dripped from his forehead.  But, I could have told him, he might as well have been attempting to pull the moon down from the sky.  There was nothing he could do.  No way he could ever hope to resist my strength.  Not even if he got a hundred friends to help, and I doubt whether someone like that would even have two friends.  I just let him hang there.

After a while, he finally understood that his hands were useless against mine.  So, he tried using his feet instead.  He slammed his filthy shoes against my beautiful bare knees a couple of times, but if either of us felt anything, it would have to have been him.  Me?  I've been caressed harder than he was hitting me.  He was so pathetic, but at least I was starting to enjoy myself.  In fact, I couldn't help grinning.

He caught my eye.  I think he was trying to say something, but with my hand on his throat, there was never going to be enough air passing into or out of his lungs to allow him to speak.  Still, it showed that he'd at last worked out that he couldn't oppose me physically.  Now I could explain the nature of our relationship in a way even a man could comprehend: "You speak to me out of turn once more and you're dead. Understand?"

He couldn't say "yes" but he could nod and he did so enthusiastically.  I guess my hand crushing his neck and holding his whole body in the air was hurting him.  I just relaxed my fingers and let gravity do the rest.  He fell like a sack of potatoes.  Where my feet would have absorbed the tiny impact, his legs collapsed under his torso and he finished up in a heap on the ground.  He started to rub his throat where large purple marks were forming around the spots where my gripping hand had bruised it.

"Get up, idiot." I instructed.  He obeyed, albeit extremely slowly.  "Good." I said once he had finally risen to his feet, adding  "That wasn't hard was it?"

It wasn't a question, merely a throwaway, piss-taking remark.  I was stunned when he answered with a pitiful "It hurts."  Hadn't he heard what I had told him about speaking out of turn?

"It's going to hurt an awful lot more." I told him.  I saw no harm in informing him of my intentions.

"I'm sorry." the guy mumbled, nervously. I moved towards him (not as fast as I could have done, but certainly faster than he could hope to react) and put my hand threateningly near his throat once more.  This time I didn't bother lifting him.  It was enough to remind him how easy it was for me to do it.

"I told you what would happen to you if you spoke out of turn again. You do understand, don't you?"  I asked.

"Yes," he answered.  So I dropped the hand from by his neck, resting it on my hip in a defiant pose that I knew would appeal to his fantasies.  I smiled.  I could hear the changes taking place in his body as his simplistic male brain switched from scared mode to horny mode.  Such a basic creature!  I couldn't resist teasing him a little more.

Leaving my hand on my hip I bent slightly forwards in a provocative gesture that forced my chest to press visibly against my t-shirt.  "Let's kiss and make up." I said, cheerfully.  Of course, there was no way I would ever allow his greasy lips anywhere near the perfection that is my mouth.  Neither did I harbour any intention of "making up" with him.  But when I pushed out my lips as if preparing to kiss, I think the stupid guy really believed it was his lucky moment.  His hormones must've made him forget everything else that had happened up to that point.  Men!

I let him take part of a step towards me, his own ugly lips already extending in anticipation of a kiss he could never experience.  Amazingly, his heartbeat accelerated still further.  How could he be so arrogant?  He actually thought I would allow him to embrace me - not to mention in such an intimate manner.

I put paid to his foolish hopes by just blowing gently at him.  That's all it takes to deal with an over-eager man if you're as superhuman as I am .  One little puff of breath (even more effortless then a "normal" person extinguishing a candle) is always enough to knock a full grown man well and truly off his feet.  In this case, my easy exhalation picked up the idiot and tossed him a couple of yards back through the air.  When I closed my lips, he fell to the ground, but his momentum sent him tumbling along the pavement for a few seconds more.  And I hadn't even strained myself!

I made my way over to where he'd come to a stop.  I moved at a leisurely pace by my standards (in other words, too fast for him to follow) so that I was stood over him before he had started recovering.  Imagine: needing time to recover from someone blowing on you!  But that's how vastly superior I am.  As he tried to raise himself into a crouching position, I made sure he got the point by lifting my foot and tapping him lightly on the shoulder.  Nothing hard, just enough to send him rolling helplessly until he smacked into a brick wall, crying out in pain.

Beginning to enjoy this rare chance to express myself, I wasted little time. I was standing right by him before his scream ended.  I extended my hand downwards and got a good grip on the back of his clothes which I used to pull him off the pavement. His entire weight hung from my hand, but it was nothing for me as I stretched my arm out, away from my body, carrying him like a bag full of refuse.

As I might have expected, he began to beg: "Let me go! Please!"  How pathetic.  I had to laugh.

With him dangling from my grasp, I decided to just toss him down the street. But I couldn't resist playing with him a bit first, swinging him around at the end of my arm a few times before eventually releasing him when I reached the apex of the final swing. Off he flew, yelling all the way, his limbs flailing wildly as his body arced skywards. I tossed him high - high enough for the fall to have killed him (I thought it would be funny to give him a proper scare) - but I made sure he would land in the relative safety of a leafy treetop.

Needless to say, my aim was perfect. He crashed down into the tree, his shouts at last coming to a halt as his back smashed into a particularly thick branch. My superhuman senses allowed me to glimpse some of his fresh injuries and to hear his rasping as he fought for breath, which saved me having to call up to ask him if he was still conscious (or even alive...)

Understandably pleased with myself, I was smiling broadly as I strolled casually over to the tree on which he was perched. I glanced upwards at him to make sure he was watching and slowly placed my open hand flat against the trunk. Pushing very carefully, my negligible effort was rewarded by the sound of first straining and then cracking wood as the tree began to yield to my vastly superior strength.  To be honest, a sixty-year old oak was never going to be a challenge for me. The only reason I went about it slowly was to increase the drama of the situation.

Inevitably, my single hand began to bend the thick trunk.  The frequency and amplitude of snapping sounds grew as, one by one, the wood fibres tore inside the tree.  The roots, having spent decades securing themselves beneath the street, held fast as the curve in the trunk became ever more apparent.   I was really just comfortably leaning against the tree with one hand, the way anyone else might do for a rest.  But unlike anyone else, my comfortable "lean" contained more strength than a mere tree could resist.

Soon enough, the trunk began to split just below my hand.  I didn't even have to push hard to make that split expand noisily right through the entire tree.  Looking up, I was entertained to see the look of horror on my little man's face as the trunk broke completely in half and Newtonian forces took over from my hand.  The top half of the tree, branches, leaves, web-site writer and all, began to tumble towards the waiting road.  He was hugging his branch as it fell, looking helpless and pathetic, which, after all, is what he was.

The tree hit the road with the greenery absorbing the bulk of the impact.  There was still enough force to break the guy's hold on the branch, but then when you're that weak anything can break your hold.   He looked quite funny as he bounced a little into the air after the initial crash, only to come back down into the foliage once more, deep amidst the leaves.

As I walked along the fallen half-tree, I saw that the guy was still moving, trying I think to climb out of the mess of branches.   Bending down, I wrapped both my arms around the horizontal trunk and then stood up straight once more, lifting the tree with me.   It was no bother  (it wasn't even a whole tree, anyway) to raise the thing off him, but the look of amazement on his face as he saw the ease with which I picked up the trunk was priceless.  I couldn't help but show off a little as I casually tossed the broken tree aside as though it were nothing more than an old newspaper.

Now he was lying prone in the middle of the road with no tree to cling to for comfort.  I could tell from his moans that he wanted to stand but couldn't.  I started walking slowly towards him, enjoying the way my approach inspired such obvious terror.  Unable to run or fight (even his useless male brain had been able to figure that much by this point) he could do nothing but plead in the most pitiful way imaginable:

"Please! It's enough! I'm sorry. Please!"

I was standing over him now, my total superiority made all the more obvious by our relative positions - him lying on the ground, begging for mercy and me, towering over him, looking down at him, my hands dominantly on my hips.  He was looking straight up at me, his expression a mixture of fear, panic, awe and pain.  I didn't exactly calm his inner turmoil when I told him "I haven't even started with you yet."  His only response was to begin crying.  I wasn't surprised.  Underneath all the macho posturing, all men are just overgrown babies.

I leant over him and stretched out my right hand, curling its fingers around one of his ankles.  I was careful not to crush his fragile bones to powder, but clearly not careful enough to avoid hurting him all together because he gasped in pain immediately.  I stood tall, holding on to his ankle so that his whole body hung upside-down from my hand.  Then I let him just sway there as if he were nothing but a child's floppy doll (although he felt a lot lighter than a doll to me.)

I quickly got bored of the guy swinging from my grip, so I let go and watched him crash down and roll helplessly over the concrete until his head banged the pavement, brining him to a stop.  Walking over to him, I saw a fresh cut on his face.  His eyes were crossed, as if he was having trouble focussing now, but he must've seen me because he blurted out in panic "You're going to kill me!" I didn't bother to either confirm or deny it as I approached him.  I didn't bother to bend down either.  I merely kicked him very, very gently in the stomach.

It was enough to lift him off the concrete for a moment.  Once again, when he landed he went tumbling sideways, the momentum of my little kick carrying him down the street for a while.  Only a brick wall stopped his movement, his flabby backside smashing into it mid-roll.  He wasn't moving much and his breathing sounded terrible - really laboured.  His face was against the pavement and he made no attempt to turn around as I strolled over to him.

I picked him up with one hand on the back of his trousers, lifting him so that his head was slightly above mine.  I held him at arm's length, his back to the wall and used my other hand to press against his chest, pinning him to the bricks.  I could see that my fingers were crushing his lungs so that he couldn't breathe because his face turned blue immediately.  I wasn't even pressing hard!

Taking my hand away I let him slide down the wall until his feet touched the ground.  Even with a brick wall behind him for support, I could see that he no longer had enough strength to stand up by himself.  He would have slumped forwards onto his face if I hadn't stopped him.  I just moved in close to him, using my body to hold his in place, trapping him between myself and the bricks behind him, holding him upright with nothing but my torso.

Of course, pinning him in that way meant I had to lean my chest very lightly against his.  Being a man, he responded in typically primitive fashion to this contact, his heartbeat accelerating, his breathing becoming harsher and a swelling in his groin becoming apparent.  Here he was, too battered, too weak to even stand, and yet I was making him hard just by brushing my nipples against him (through my clothes and his!) I smiled at the pathetic sight of him.

Leaning forwards, I let my breasts press into his chest, his male bone and muscle powerless to do anything but yield to my supposedly soft feminine perfection until I had forced all the precious air from his puny lungs.  I felt his ribs bending beneath my breasts, about to succumb entirely to me.  At the same time I felt his erection that, despite everything, was becoming ever firmer.  He was getting turned on, even as I crushed him!

I confess I was amused by his total inability to resist my "charms" even now after I had hurt him so badly and even as I robbed him of the ability to breathe.  I extended a single finger and used it to tilt his chin upwards so that his eyes were staring straight into mine.  I didn't think he had enough energy to lift his own head.  In fact, looking at his face at that moment, I realised that he would not remain conscious for long.

Playtime was over.  That much was obvious.  Sadly, his pathetic male body just wouldn't survive any more punishment.  I could see he would be passing out at any moment.   "It's been fun. Thanks." I told him before backing off him.   Without my body to lend him the support he desperately needed, he immediately collapsed to the ground.  He was completely unconscious, but at least he could breathe now that my chest was no longer crushing his lungs.

I lifted a strand of my hair from in front of my eye, pushing it behind one ear.  As I did so I noticed that a few splinters from the tree had attached themselves to my shorts.  I brushed them away.  Once I had done that, I was as immaculate as when I had left home that morning.  After all, beating up a man (and knocking over a tree in the process) was never going to be enough to work up a sweat.  I turned my back on the comatose jerk and walked off.

  

Conceptfan, Nov. 2003.






No.7 - "Monika and the Ring"

5,000 years before our story begins.

The ancient ball of rock tumbled noiselessly through space as it had done for millions of years. Orbiting the centre of the galaxy more than a billion miles away, its seemingly never-ending journey might have lasted as long as time itself.

If, that is, it wasn't for the small grey-blue world that interposed itself into the meteor's path. Catching the rock in its gravity, the planet pulled it towards its surface. This world possessed a rich, thick atmosphere whose molecules rubbed against the meteorite, creating ever fiercer friction. The rock heated. And heated.

Soon, the outer material was burning away as gas. Acting like a defensive shield, the primarily nitrogen and oxygen mix continued to warm the falling body, reducing it dramatically in size. Reducing and reducing until there was nothing solid left of the mighty meteor save its tiny, semi-transparent core.

This jewel-sized piece of beautiful, mystery material seemed immune to the heat all around it and continued to fall, accelerating at almost ten meters a second squared until, unobserved, it reached the planet's surface. Momentum carried it through the soft ground and it burrowed itself a vertical channel into the planet. This shaft quickly collapsed on top of the extraterrestrial object, burying it far from the reach of any life on the surface.


1,000 years later.

A millennium of earthquakes and volcanic activity had shaken the planet. The water locked into its surface had frozen and thawed many times, shifting the ground still further. Every decade or so, the little rock from space had been pushed a fraction of an inch away from the world's core until, inevitably, a movement of the ground forced it up onto the planet's surface.

During those centuries when the object had been underground, that particular portion of the planet had been increasingly colonised by the world's dominant species. Whereas it had first tumbled through the atmosphere over an uninhabited land, the little rock surfaced on a now heavily-populated territory and it wasn't long before its unusually attractive appearance caught the attention of one member of that populace.

It was a young female who made the discovery. The sunlight had glinted off one of the many facets of the object, making its colour appear all the more vibrant and heightening its beauty. Believing it to be a gem, she stopped and picked up the little stone. Immediately she was overcome by a strange new feeling. A feeling of vitality, of energy. A feeling of power.

The girl did not know if the enjoyable sensation was down to magic or the gods. But she did realise that its source was the strange gem. She placed it in the animal-skin hip pouch that was tied around her waist and headed back towards her tribe's cave.

She was still some distance away when she heard the unmistakeable roar of a tiger. A moment later, she saw the beast just as it was preparing to leap at her. She felt fear, great fear. Animal attacks had cost the lives of so many of her tribe, even during her own short life. That was a part of their existence and she believed at that moment that her own time was about to come.

But something incredible happened. The tiger leaped right at her, but she remained on her feet. She was not knocked down; the animal landed on her and yet it felt more like an empty skin than a beast to her. It closed its fearsome teeth around her exposed neck, but drew no blood. In fact, the razor sharp incisors caused only the barest of sensations. Confused, and still panicked, she raised her arm and watched, stunned as her slender limb brushed the enormous animal off her body and sent it flying several paces back.

Both girl and tiger were confused, but it was the four-legged one who responded first, leaping at the girl once more. This time, she was more prepared and she knocked it away with her forearm before it impacted on her. The animal appeared wounded as it came down on the ground and, overcome with curiosity, she approached it.

She reached for the creature's neck. Once again, it locked its jaws on her, biting down on her hand. She pulled it free without difficulty and saw that she had ripped a few of those terrifying teeth loose. A look of fascination came over her face and she placed her unharmed hands around the beast's throat and squeezed. Instantly, something crunched and the animal went limp.

A few moments later, the girl was standing with her legs slightly spread and her arms stretched towards the sky. Lying across her upturned palms, its considerable weight supported entirely by those arms was the body of the tiger that she had killed. The confusion she had felt earlier had vanished, to be replaced by certainty. Her lips parted slowly into a smile. "So," she thought. "The stone is a gift from the gods."

The girl bent her arms and tossed the tiger a hundred paces from her. She laughed. Then, she made sure that the pouch by her side was securely attached to her waist. She didn't walk back to her cave. She ran. Far, far faster than any member of her species had ever run before.


5 years later.

It was rare in those times - extremely rare - for a tribe to be lead by a female. But no-one would ever dare question her right to hold that position. They considered it an honour to give praise to such a powerful chief. If ever another tribe sought to attack, she alone, without a weapon, would slaughter its warriors. If she desired the lands or the goods of another tribe, she would simply take them. Those that tried to oppose her met their deaths.

She made sure that the strange stone never left her side. She never revealed its existence, so no-one ever sought to take it from her. She told them her power came from the gods themselves, and there was no cause to doubt that. Her tribe became larger and more prosperous, its lands expanded and its influence grew. Nothing, it seemed, could stand in her way.

Nothing but a cat. It was her pet. An animal she loved perhaps more than her kin. It sat almost permanently at her side, occasionally rubbing its head against her. Sometimes, it would absent-mindedly nibble at her clothes. She found such disrespect endearing in the animal. But one day, it chewed through her hip pouch and swallowed the stone inside.

Instantly the girl felt weak. It was as if she had suddenly become extremely heavy. She felt for the stone and found it gone. Shock echoed throughout her being. She collapsed to the ground, calling out for her servants who rushed in to find her lying prone, pleading for help.

No-one noticed the cat choking on the rock that was stuck in its throat. Panicking, the animal ran outside of the cave. Moments later, it succumbed to the suffocation. It died unseen amongst the thick bushes.

The tribe had a new, male, leader within two days. It soon lost its lands to neighbouring tribes and its lineage disappeared within a couple of generations.



3,900 years later (100 years before our story begins.)

Darius clambered up the rocky outcrop. The sounds of distressed goat filtered down towards him, making him hurry. He was young, even by the standards of the time, to be looking after a flock and he was determined to show that he was capable.

One of the animals was in trouble up there, and it was his job to look after it. He was going to make sure that the entire herd returned to the village for milking. He would be a shepherd like his father had been. A successful shepherd.

He saw the goat, its horns tangled in an old, dead bush and almost laughed. These animals could be so stupid sometimes! Approaching with a surprising degree of experience for one so young, he soon freed his charge and was about to begin the process of encouraging it back down the outcrop when something caught his eye.

Bones. Lying inside the dead bush. He leant in to take a closer look. If something was preying on animals in the area, it was his duty as a shepherd to know about it. He guessed the dry remains had once belonged to a cat. But he soon realised that the skeleton was no recent kill. These bones were old. Really, really old.

No archaeologist, Darius was happy to leave the remains as they were. Until he spotted the shiny, blue stone that lay half-buried in dust, in the centre of the skeleton. He immediately reached in and grabbed it. It was pretty, like a jewel, but he knew jewels were not to be found lying in the dust.

He couldn't determine what it was made of. As he turned it over in his hand, he became fascinated by it. It was beautiful. He placed it in his pocket and made his way down the outcrop, driving the formerly trapped goat before him.

That evening, with the herd safely in the big barn on the edge of the village, he took the stone out of his pocket and examined it by the light of a candle. Its many faces reflected the flickering light, enchanting him. He'd never owned such a special object before. He put it back in his pocket.

The following morning, Darius was bitten by a dog. He screamed as an old washer woman dressed the wound with a makeshift bandage until the woman began to tease him. "Some brave man you are!" she laughed. "It's a dog-bite, not a sword wound!" He wanted to cry, but knew that he would only make her laugh even more if he did.

Once he was alone, he took the beautiful stone from his pocket and looked at it. The pain in his leg throbbed terribly, and this time, away from everyone else, his eyes did mist over. "At least I have this pretty rock" he thought to himself.


20 years later.

Over the next two decades, Darius matured. He kept his responsibilities with the goats and slowly earned his place amongst the people of his village. He had learnt early that fighting was not his forte; indeed it was sometimes said - only partly in jest - that he possessed the strength of a child.

Meanwhile the world around was becoming an increasingly violent place. Hunger was stalking the land and more and more tales from other villages began to circulate. Stories of bandits roaming the hills, stealing flocks, attacking townships. Increasingly, the climate became one of fear.

Knowing that he would stand no chance against a single bandit, never mind a group of them, Darius became fearful. When a traveller stopped at the village inn and offered to sell him a rifle, he listened intently to the patter. But he didn't have the sum of money the salesman wanted.

"All I can offer is this jewel." Darius said, holding out the strange blue rock that he had kept for twenty years.

"Let me see that." said the merchant. Then, after scrutinising the stone he declared. "This is no jewel! But it is pretty... I like it. Give me two and you have yourself a deal."

"There's only one." Darius said, disappointed.

"You mean there's no other like it? It's a unique object?"

"Er.. yes." The shepherd was pleasantly surprised by the line of questioning.

A deal was eventually struck; the stone and a few coins for the rifle.

Two days later, Darius was minding his herd when he heard a rustling from a nearby bush. Fearing an attack by bandits, he grabbed his new rifle, raised it to his eye and fired it as the seller had instructed him. The dog who had caused the movement of the foliage was startled by the bang as the rifle, uncleaned for years, exploded.

The shepherd was instantly killed. As he lay dead, much of his flock of goats wandered off and the rest of the village faced years of hard times, struggling without livestock.

The merchant never returned to the village. But he sold more weapons. At first just the odd rifle. Then several guns at once. As the social and political situation declined, so the opportunities for a gun dealer increased. Profits grew. Money accumulated. And silver. And gold.

As he prospered, the arms seller would often think about that rifle he had sold to the shepherd. He kept the stone he had won in that trade, marvelling at how his business had grown from that humble starting point.

After one particularly successful transaction, he paid a goldsmith to set the blue stone into an elaborate gold ring which he placed on his finger and never took off. He liked the fact that to others, it was unique and beautiful - a sign of his wealth - whereas to him, it was a constant reminder of his inauspicious beginnings. A symbol of how well he had done for himself.


40 years later.

Even a rich man must succumb to the creeping advance of age. And a life accumulating wealth from the hardships, suffering and deaths of others can end in as much comfort as any other. The man who sold Darius the rifle passed away as a grey, wrinkled version of his younger self.

Lying on his silk-sheeted, four-postered death-bed and surrounded by his adoring family, he thought of that early trade he had made with the shepherd and of the mysterious jewel he had accepted as payment. With almost all of the strength remaining in his body, he pulled the gold ring housing the gem from his finger and with a trembling hand, held it out towards his eldest son.

"My son," he croaked, "you are well prepared to take over my business. Take my ring and put it on your hand so that I know a part of me will live on with you."

The young man accepted the gift and followed his father's instructions. He looked at his hand and decided that he liked the way the ring looked on his finger. "I'll never remove it, father." he said. The old man's lips moved slightly as if he was trying to smile. Then he sighed and closed his eyes.

"Father!" cried the son, but he already knew it was too late.


30 years later still, when our real story begins.

Jerold had proven himself a worthy inheritor of his father's affairs. With the world becoming increasingly violent, divided and ruled by greed, business had thrived in the decades since the old man passed on, and the son now traded in volumes and values that were beyond even his ancestors' wildest dreams.

The silver that was taking over more and more of his dark hair was a pale reflection of the silver that filled his vaults. But now, as he felt himself approaching the autumn of his life, his thoughts were turning to retirement.

For a wealthy man, after his income has ceased, to continue leading the fine life to which he had become well accustomed, a very large amount of capital is required. So when he heard that a particular foreign government was looking to buy armaments in huge volumes, Jerold realised he had been presented with the opportunity to raise that capital.

It had the potential to be the one big deal whose proceeds he could retire on. Immediately, he set about organising a ship to take him overseas so he could meet his new partners in person and persuade them to go through with the trade.

To create a good impression, he hired the finest vessel he could afford with the best captain. A man in his line of work has access to contacts in walks of life that are closed to most others. Thus, to ensure maximum security, his crew were recruited from the vast ranks of mercenaries and rogue soldiers that were easily accessible to him.

The ship sailed uneventfully for the first few days. An attack of sea-sickness meant that Jerold stayed entirely inside his luxurious cabin, even taking his meals in there. The men went competently about the business of piloting the craft and the captain kept his employer fully informed on the good progress they were making.

Then, around dusk on the third day, the normal activity on deck was halted by a single, monosyllabic cry from the look-out: "Pirates!"

Of the twenty men on board, only Jerold and the captain lacked experience of battle. Most of the rest were violent men and accustomed to keeping their rifles and pistols close at hand. The remaining few were very violent men and unleashed swords, cutlasses and machetes, their eyes all a-gleam at the prospect of cutting the flesh of an enemy.

As the pirate ship pulled alongside their own, the crew were not only ready for a fight, they were actively looking forward to it. The captain had long since barred himself into his quarters. Jerold, lying sick on his bed, barely even registered the activity outside.

They were ready to face a small army. But they were to be disappointed. The pirate ship appeared deserted except for two slightly corpulent men who swung across the space between the two vessels on ropes, their faces red with rum and effort. Each of the two was skewered on a long, eager blade before his feet even touched the deck of Jerold's ship.

The men gathered around the pair of slain pirates laughing heartily. No-one noticed the young and extremely attractive red-haired girl swinging across to land on the opposite end of the deck. They failed to spot her looking about nervously, her complexion pale and her eyes wide, betraying fear.

Monika was horrified by the fate of her two erstwhile colleagues. It had been her who had persuaded them to attack the big fancy ship. She had assured them that such craft were invariably laden with treasures and crewed by ageing imbeciles. She had plied her friends with rum, telling them that the other ship's men would surrender without a fight.

She had badly, badly underestimated her target. Her companions were slaughtered. Now she feared for her own life. At least she had the presence of mind to jump ships at a point where no-one was looking, unlike the other two. But what was she to do now? She couldn't capture the other ship single-handed. She would surely be killed as soon as she was spotted. No, there was only one option left.

She had to hide. But where? Not on deck. She needed to be somewhere inside the ship. She could hear voices. People were beginning to move towards where she was. In a panic, she ran to the first door she saw and,to her enormous relief, found it open. She darted through, closing the door quickly behind her. Only then did she look around the room she had entered.

She had been right about one thing. There was wealth on this vessel. She found herself in a luxurious, extremely well appointed cabin. Beautiful mahogany furniture filled the room. A dining table with silver cutlery, a leather-covered writing desk and a huge bed. With... a man lying upon it.

Jerold sat up quickly, despite the slight nausea still affecting him. He took a moment to make sure he was seeing right. He'd heard tales of men at sea having hallucinations. But they'd only been three days out of the harbour and "besides," he thought, "even if it is a hallucination, it's an extremely pleasant one."

Standing by the door to his cabin was the most extraordinarily beautiful woman he had ever beheld. She was tall and slender, and clothed in the sort of outfit he had only seen worn in the upstairs rooms of inns. Her legs were long and shapely, her hips dramatically flaring, emphasising the remarkably tiny circumference of her flat waist.

Her hair was as red and wild as fire itself, crowning her head in undisciplined strands that made it appear as if the perfect beauty of her face had caused her head to ignite. Her eyes were bright and green, her nose perfectly proportioned. Her lips were full and dark, like the ripest of fruits and they begged to be tasted.

Jerold noticed all this about her appearance and then forgot it. His mind was wiped clean as a slate the moment his gaze fell below her chin. For beneath her tiny costume, threatening to explode out of the over-worked material at any moment, the girl sported the two most wondrously large, full and round breasts he had ever seen. They stood so high upon her body and so perfectly symmetric that he could do nothing more for the next few moments other than stare at them.

The man's fascination with her body bought Monika a few moments. She was well aware of the power of her appearance, and had always been happy to use it to her advantage. It was why she wore such revealing outfits. More than often, the way she looked gave her the initiative in an encounter. Especially an encounter with a man. Like this one.

She used the moment to pull out the long dagger that hung from her belt. Brandishing it with a confidence that came from frequent practice, she strode quickly towards the man in bed, eager to be within stabbing distance of him before he came to his senses and reached for any weapon the he might have.

The girl came at Jerold with a knife while he was still mesmerised by the sight of her epic chest. The flashing blade brought him out of his erotic day-dream and his survival instinct came into play. did have a weapon of his own - buying and selling them was his trade after all. It was a pistol. A very, very expensive pistol encrusted with jewels that had been manufactured to the highest possible standards. But there was a problem. His beautiful gun was safely stored in one of the draws of the writing table. To reach it, he would have to run right past the girl, which meant running past her lovely face, her amazing breasts and her big knife.

The irony was unbearable. Here he was, a man who had traded more guns than most armies possessed and his life was in grave, grave danger because of a simple dagger. She was very close now, in another step or two she would be near enough to use the blade. He had no chance to escape without giving her at least one opportunity to stab him.

The size of the knife and her comfort with it told him that one stab might well be fatal. Instinctively he brought his hands up as protection, holding his left arm across his throat and face and his right over his chest and heart. "Don't kill me!" he pleaded, urgently. "I can give you great wealth."

Monika knew that she had got to him before he could get to her when he shielded himself with his arms. Something caught her eye - on the hand covering his face. A ring. It had a thick gold band that stirred her pirate's lust for the precious metal, but what really attracted her was the beautiful, large semi-transparent blue gem that was set in the band.

She'd never seen, or even heard of, any gem like it. It was astonishing in its colour and its size. Countless tiny faces caught the light, alternatively reflecting and absorbing it in a dazzling, fascinating manner. It enchanted her, almost as if it had a voice that was calling to her. She'd never known anything quite like it. For some reason, some strange, inexplicable reason, she had to have that ring.

She paused a moment. Hadn't the man just offered her great wealth? Obviously he was scared of her knife, frightened for his very life or else he wouldn't have made the proposition. She had the advantage over him and he had something she wanted. Desperately wanted.

"Give me your ring." she said.

"No... not the ring!" he exclaimed. "It... it's special. My father gave it to me."

Monika was not prepared for that answer. She had to have that ring. His refusal wasn't going to stop her. Her mind racing, she considered her situation. There was a way. A way she could get that ring without his consent. She drew up her right hand, the dagger held tightly in her fist as she slashed the blade down towards his face.

Her target was his right hand. The point of her knife pierced his flesh, just above the knuckle of his forefinger. She drew the blade with expertise across the base of his middle three fingers, the keen edge making light work of the thin bone and muscle it encountered, amputating those three digits in less than a second.

The severed fingers fell under the spell of gravity and dropped onto the bed-sheets, staining them red. A trio of spurts of blood fountained forth from the man's hand. He screamed in shock and pain as the thick red liquid splashed his face, blinding him for a moment. His other hand left its perch across his upper-body as he closed it about the wound in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood.

Meanwhile, Monika dived forwards with her own hands outstretched to snatch up one of the knifed-off fingers - the one with the ring still encircling it. Blood oozed from the cut-off end of the digit but she paid it no mind. The object of her desire was in her grasp and she felt terrific about it.

Not just terrific... She felt wonderful. As if she'd just had a sip of a magic elixir. As though a finger of sunlight had reached down from the sky to warm her from the inside out. As if somehow, from somewhere, she'd just received a burst of energy that was now flowing through the veins and arteries of her body, filling every part of her with the same lovely sensation.

Monika knew that the thrill of holding the ring could not account for the intensity of the feeling. She felt more alive, more fresh, more alert than ever before in her life. She felt full of energy. Ready for anything. This was not the excitement of a new possession. This was something beyond that... something almost magical.

The ring! It had to be something to do with the ring. Whatever it was - magic or otherwise - she knew that the ring contained an incredible power. Never before had she felt so, so... good. She slipped the metal band onto her middle finger. It was a loose fit but it seemed right.

The sensation of energy passing around her being grew in intensity, stretching to the very limits of her body until it became so overpowering that she dropped to her knees and threw back her head, lost in the most remarkable physical and mental experience she'd ever known.

She felt wave upon wave of the unknown tingling force spread like ripples on the surface of a pond from the finger that now bore the ring outwards into every extreme of her body. Her toes. The follicles of her hair. Her ears. Even her nipples. Every cubic inch of her being was being infused - no, filled - with this.. this.. feeling of power.

Slowly, gradually, Monika began to regain control of herself. Of her mind. And of her senses. It wasn't that the feeling pulsating out from the ring was diminishing - the sensations were as powerful as the first moment she experienced them. But somehow, she was beginning to manage them. To push them further and further from the foreground of her consciousness, allowing more and more room for her brain's normal functioning.

She became aware once more of her surroundings. She stood up straight once again and found that the cabin had become clear to her again. She was aware. Aware of the sound of the screaming, bleeding man. Aware of the multitudinous running feet outside that were getting ever closer...

Yet it was strange. The room looked slightly different to before. The man's screams sounded different too. She noticed other things in a rush of information through her brain. She could smell the blood still gushing from his fresh wound. She could also smell the mahogany furniture, the sea-air outside, the animal-skin rug on the floor in the far corner of the room - even the man's skin.

She found she could distinguish between the smell of his uncut skin and the smell of his wound. She could tell that some of the wood in the room was newer than the rest. Everything around her seemed to have its own distinctive scent and she could - somehow - separate any one of those smells from the others and identify it.

Even as Monika marvelled at the clarity of her olfactory senses, she realised that the information reaching her brain from her eyes was also now exceptionally detailed. Colours which she would previously have considered identical were now obviously different. She could see the grains in the wood panelling all around her; tiny cracks in surfaces had gone from being invisible to obvious.

The shapes of things, minute details, the patterns of light and shade throughout the room; subtle tones and textures, all these were suddenly perfectly visible to her, even after the briefest of glances. It was all so... so completely amazing.

Her hearing too, seemed remarkably good. Although the man on the bed was still yelling, she could somehow still detect the sound of many - perhaps even a dozen - pairs of running feet on the deck outside charging towards the door to the cabin. She could also hear the low, accelerated, thudding beat of the man's heart - even, she noted with real surprise - the calls of the birds circling the ship and the rush of the wind blowing through their wings.

The sound of approaching runners brought her back to her present predicament. She was supposed to be seeking a place to hide and instead, she was trapped in a cabin with a man who was screaming his head off. The men outside had effortlessly slaughtered her comrades. What chance would she have alone against them? Maybe she could use the man on the bed as a shield of some kind - perhaps she could put her knife to his throat and threaten to kill him if anyone tried to attack her...

But it was too late already. The door behind her burst open with an almighty crash and the shouts of a number of men competed with the agonised yells of the freshly de-fingered fellow lying near her. Monika whirled around, forgetting in the excitement her plan to take the screamer as a hostage, and saw a crowd framed in the open doorway. They couldn't all fit through the bottle-neck entrance at once, but they were managing just fine two at a time.

A pair of huge, fierce-looking men, the first through the door, rushed at her. Each carried a knife that dwarfed her own blade and a look of deadly intent. With nowhere to run, she panicked for a brief instant before she realised she had run out of options. She threw her arms up into the air, dropping her own sharp weapon in a gesture of complete surrender. There was no time to voice her capitulation, but she hoped the sight of her raised hands would be enough.

But if the two men did see her arms and if they did understand the meaning of the gesture, they showed no sign of it. The one on the right thrust his blade violently at her bare stomach, the other slashed his across her face. Time seemed to stand still for her. She saw the two blades nearing her body as if they were merely floating her way. She saw the grimaces on the faces of the two men, their expressions strangely frozen as they appeared to move at a fraction of normal speed.

Somehow, Monika felt calm. It was as though this stretching out of the moment in time allowed her to reason. Watching the knives travelling at such a leisurely pace, she couldn't believe that they posed her any threat. She felt as if she could side-step the twin attacks if she wanted.

But she didn't. She was thinking of the ring on her finger, the way it had altered her perception of the world and made her feel so wonderful. She glanced from one blade to the other. She should've been afraid and yet she felt a complete stillness inside, almost an assurance that she needn't be concerned. She was certain that it had something to do with the blue gem, but she didn't even begin to understand it. Somehow, she just knew that her life was not in danger.

The tip of one knife reached her stomach. The point touched her smooth, flat flesh, still moving amazingly slowly. She expected pain, but felt nothing. Curious, she looked and saw that the steel had not sliced into her. In fact, the sharp point of the knife didn't even seem to be dimpling her skin. A moment later, she noticed that the entire blade was actually beginning to bow. It was bending! Monika realised that the knife was being pushed into her with great force. And yet… it couldn't even prick her!

What was happening? She felt a light tickle-like touch on her cheek and realised that the second man was dragging his blade across it. Again, she felt no pain when she expected it. She could feel that her skin was uncut, but there was no question; the knife was being slashed over her mouth and nose. Could it be that she was suddenly invulnerable to knives? Had the ring done this to her?

There was a loud snap from below. She glanced down and saw that the first knife – the one being pressed into her gut – had broken in half. She couldn't tell either by looking or from the feel exactly where the point had been thrust against her skin. The man wielding it was slowly looking at his weapon, his facial expression changing at the same sluggish pace from aggression to shock.

The same transformation was occurring on the face of the second man who had drawn his knife right across her face without leaving a trace. She felt herself filling with a sense of wonder and curiosity. All notions of fear vanished from her mind, she lifted her hand towards the man with the broken knife. She was amazed to see that her arm did not move at the same snail-like speed as the two men, but rather at a normal pace.

She found she had time to think. "Maybe it's not them that's slow, but me that's fast…" she reasoned. "But why do they look slow? Can I control it?" As she completed the thought, the world around her returned to its normal pace. The two men's faces changed to show their surprise, their arms began moving as before. "Can I make it slow again?" the girl wondered, and, instantly everything reduced in speed.

The ring! It had to be magic. It had given her so many fantastic abilities. A string of questions sprinted across her mind. The first was "If I move fast while I make the world feel slow can I hit these guys before they notice?". She chose the one who had attacked her stomach. Making a fist, Monika drove it towards his belly. She heard a strange, squelching sound unlike any she'd ever heard before. The man doubled-up and then something really strange happened.

His feet came off the floor. His face turned crimson, his eyes opening wide in shock. And then he was travelling backwards, feet and hands towards her. He sailed through the air as if riding a magic carpet for about ten paces before he crashed into the crowd still squeezing into the room. Behind him, men were knocked off their feet, pushed down and to the side by the momentum of the one she had punched. Slowly, shouts of shock and pain began to waft towards her ears.

The men were still tumbling over, rolling over the floor and each other, while she was already examining her hand with intense fascination. Had she really just done that? Punched a big man hard enough to send him flying, knocking over a crowd of his colleagues like… like skittles? If she hadn't seen it, she would never have believed it. She had to confirm it wasn't a hallucination.

She turned to the second man who had rushed her. He was slowly twisting his neck to view the chaos unveiling equally slowly behind him. "Enough of this everything slow" Monika thought, and the world obliged by returning to its usual speed. She didn't bother making a fist the second time. She just placed her hand flat against the man's chest and gave a gentle shove.

Now that everything was happening at its customary pace, she didn't get to see his feet gradually lifting off the floorboards. Instead, he seemed to be instantly travelling away from her, arms and legs flailing, a yell coming from his lips. He crashed into the general melee, knocking over some of the men who were struggling back onto their feet. From the shouts, she realised some of them must've been quite badly hurt.

Monika looked at the mess of men on the floor and smiled. "I'm strong," she thought. "Really, remarkably strong." She felt an urgent need to test her theory. Glancing at the man on the bed, still clutching his profusely bleeding hand, she reached for him. Perhaps he was too absorbed by the pain from his wounds, or perhaps he was in a state of shock. Either way, he didn't try to resist as she curled her fingers around the uppermost portion of his left arm.

Something went crunch as she got a good grip on him, and he started screaming once again. She ignored it as she experimentally raised her arm whilst maintaining her hold on him. It was fantastic! Her arm came up smoothly and easily, and it brought the man's entire body upwards just as smoothly and easily. She tried raising and lowering him and found it effortless. She could barely even feel his weight. It was like lifting a piece of cloth!

She lifted her hand over her head, looking at the big man dangling helplessly from her one-handed grip, enjoying the sight. She discovered she could make his entire frame swing wildly through the air just by turning her delicate wrist. It was fascinating.

So fascinating in fact that she didn't notice that most of the other men had already picked themselves up from the floor. The two she had hit were still down, and a couple seemed to be finding it difficult to stand, but the rest had recovered and were now staring at her in a mixture of disbelief and awe.

She heard a sharp bang from the direction of the crowd and almost instantaneously felt a light tap on her hip. She turned to investigate, just in time to see a small metal object hit the floor about two yards to her side. It looked like a crumpled bullet. She pondered the sequence of events: sound of pistol, feather-light pat on her hip, mangled shot falling to ground. No… it wasn't possible…

Crack! Another shot rang out. Another tap, this one on her shoulder. A moment later, another bent lump of lead landed noisily on the decking, this time about three yards from her. All the evidence pointed one way, but she just could not believe it. Those two tiny raps she had felt couldn't have been bullets striking her… could they?

She opened her hand, realising the iron grip she was exerting on man whose ring she had stolen. No longer being held in place by her dainty fingers, he fell the four feet back down to his bed, bouncing on his rear and crying out in pain – presumably from his upper arm or his hand. Monika ignored him completely, looking over instead at the group of men at the far end of the room.

Two of them were definitely holding pistols. Two others were lifting rifles to their shoulders. The two bullets she had seen hit the floor could have come from the pistols. But how had they become so misshapen? And did those little taps she felt have anything at all to do with it?

Her wonderfully sensitive eyesight and enhanced processing abilities drew her attention to a tiny movement of a finger of one of the men in the crowd. Not just any man, but one of those holding pistols. And not just any finger, either. It was the finger curled around the weapon's trigger lever.

The sight of someone on the point of firing a gun at her was startling. The world all around her instantly slowed to the dawdling pace of earlier and immediately she felt calm once more. How could anything in such a slow universe hurt her, especially if she could move a thousand times more quickly? She had nothing to fear. Her only emotion now was curiosity.

Monika watched intently as a tiny spark appeared at the end of the gun's barrel. She watched as the spark seemed to grow in size and intensity. She watched as the first wisp of smoke curled from the end of the weapon, closely followed by her first sight of the bullet itself. At that speed, it seemed almost reluctant to leave the weapon. The tip poked out and the rest grudgingly followed until the entire slug was free of the barrel.

It was as if the thing was merely wafting towards her, floating at its leisure on a cushion of air as it crossed the room between shooter and shootee. She realised she would be able to walk up to it in mid-flight and simply pluck it out of the air. But she chose not to. She wanted to know if she truly was invulnerable to it. So she stood completely still, her arms hanging free by her sides and waited.

Slowly, slowly, the bullet made its way towards her. She wasn't sure how she did it, but she felt as if she could tell exactly where it was going to strike her. It was a well-aimed shot and it was heading straight for her heart. The lead pellet, she joked to herself, was like every lover she had ever had: it was making a bee-line for her chest.

It seemed to take an age for the bullet to reach her. When it finally did, it touched first her brief garment, quickly burning a hole clean through the material. But the sensitive skin beneath did not register the heat. She saw with her own eyes as the tip of the shot made contact with the top curve of her large breast. There was a slight sensation of something, like a fly landing on her flesh, but no stronger.

Monika stared in fascination as her generous bosom was almost imperceptively indented around the end of the bullet. Then, it got really weird. The dimpling of her flesh halted. Completely. It was as though her chest had only a miniscule give and having reached that point, it would go no further. Logic suggested the shot would have to penetrate her silky skin.

But her bounteous flesh was refusing to surrender. It didn't make sense. Having been expelled from the pistol by a controlled yet powerful explosion, the mini-missile still had plenty of forward momentum. Something would have to yield.

That something turned out to be the solid lead of the bullet itself. She gazed on, amazed, as the shot seemed to fold up against itself, widening as it shortened in length. She could definitely feel something – a very gentle pressure on her breast – but the sensation was at odds with the information being registered by her eyes.

She could clearly see that the hot, usually deadly, pellet was being squashed flat against her beautiful skin. It was transforming in shape, increasingly resembling a coin in its thickness and diameter. And then, as she continued to stare, the tiny dimple in her supposedly soft, undeniably round and unquestionably big breast started to disappear. The natural elasticity of her skin was fighting back against the pressure being exerted upon it.

To her wonder, the suppleness of her bosom proved more powerful than the bullet. As her flesh pushed outwards, it knocked the crushed lead disc away. A new dent – an exact match of the curve of her breast - appeared in the battered slug as it changed direction, floating now directly away from her body at about half the speed with which it had arrived.

She followed its new flight-path, watching it travel about three yards to her left before gravity took over and its trajectory curved towards the floor. Before it landed, she had enough time to examine herself, noting that the large area of feminine flesh now visible through the new hole in her costume did not display the slightest mark. There was nothing, nothing at all on her perfect skin to betray the fact that she had been shot. Only the big gap torn out of her garment stood witness to the bullet's impact. It certainly hadn't hurt her in any way.

The rough disc hit the floor and came to a rest. She glanced at the slowed-down men and saw the way their expressions were in transition. Shock and surprise were taking over the features on each face. "Back to normal speed!" she thought, and all the faces immediately completed their shifts to stunned amazement.

Monika glanced down at the crushed bullet and then back up at the disbelieving men and burst out laughing. She was invulnerable to bullets! This strange, beautiful ring on her finger gave her remarkable abilities – the strength of dozens of men, fantastic speed, heightened senses and, more than that, indestructibility. Two knives had failed to cut her. Even a pistol couldn't hurt her!

The men froze as the following realisation spread among them: the three bullets had all been well-aimed; each had hit the girl's lovely body, and each had simply bounced off her without leaving so much as a scratch. The third shot had hit right on one of her gorgeous big tits, tearing a big hole in her clothes but failing to harm the oh-so-desirable flesh beneath. Indeed, the ricochet lying on the floor looked as if it had been crushed flat against that delicious skin.

They were only beginning the struggle to come to terms with all that when the girl actually started to laugh. It was although she knew how shocked they all were by her invulnerability to gunfire and found it amusing. She wasn't merely laughing. She was laughing at them. They were not the kind of men who tolerated being mocked by a woman, even one as apparently remarkable and undebatably sexy as the girl standing before them.

Someone shouted "Get her!" but it could have been any one of them. They charged forward as a group, opening their throats to free blood-thirsty yells of attack, drawing knives and swords from their sheathes and pistols from waist-bands. Steel glinted in the dim light of the room.

Monika's laugh stopped. The sight of a small army charging at her with nothing but murder on its collective mind would have made anyone feel terror. Instinctively, she made it all become slow, recalling how doing so had eased her fears a few moments earlier. Any unease in her mind quickly vanished as she looked over the onrushing crowd.

The two with rifles were alone in remaining on the far side of the room. As their colleagues began to dive for the girl, they lifted their weapons, excruciatingly slowly, to firing position. She could easily tell that they would fire off their shots before the other men reached her. But everyone was moving so slowly! It would take an age before either rifle shots or blade-wielding mob came within reach.

She reasoned with herself: "If nothing hurts me when I make it seem slow, surely nothing will hurt me moving at normal speed. I just have to allow things to take place at their usual pace without being terrified…" Monika steeled herself and let it happen.

Almost instantly, there was a loud retort from one corner of the room as a rifle was fired. She didn't even have time to be concerned as the tap on her bare shoulder followed immediately. She was watching the bullet spinning away as the other long firearm went off. This time, the light rap was on her forehead. It proved as ineffective as any of its predecessors. The spent shot pinged away from her skull, passing over the heads of the crowd that was almost upon her.

One of the men at the front of that crowd was brandishing a pistol. She heard the crack as it was fired and felt an even softer pat than the rifle bullets had caused, this time on the centre of her belly. With her perception of her surroundings now at normal speed, she didn't have time to react as the little lump of lead squashed flat against her abdominal muscles and rebounded.

Monika was still looking at the new hole in her clothes as the crushed shot flew away from her. Even with its rate of travel vastly decreased by the impact against her, it still had enough power to tear into the hip of one of her attackers. The hit man fell with a yell, clutching his bloodied upper leg, even as another of his comrades fired his own pistol.

This latest shot hit her glorious chest, on the uncovered inner portion of the upper curve of her right breast. The bullet merely compressed up a little against that lovely feminine skin before bouncing off, on a new trajectory, only to impact once again on her chin. Squashed still further, the shot rebounded once more, glancing the top of her other bosom and falling onto the floor a yard to her side.

Not that the men attacking her noticed. A knife was plunged at her head. The blade pressed against her nose, bent and snapped in half without managing to leave a scratch on her face. A sword whished through the air, expertly directed in a wide swipe at her neck. It was a blow that would have decapitated any other being. But against her, it did no more than make a loud clang. The wielder of the weapon dropped his sharpened steel in shock, clasping his bruising hands to his stomach.

Others were trying to punch her. For every fist that landed on her beautiful body, there was an accompanying scream of pain. She could hear the tiny bones in the men's hands breaking on her smooth skin. Feet flew in, heavy boots swung by strong fighters, but she barely felt them. Again, her attackers succeeded only in wounding themselves. It was as if she were made of solid iron!

The men began collapsing around her, brought down by their injuries or tripping over one another. Monika surveyed the remarkable scene. So many men, trying so hard to hurt her with their weapons and their big fists and feet. And without even defending herself, let alone fighting back, she was effortlessly defeating them!

She placed her hands defiantly on her shapely hips, ignoring the blows still raining in on her body from all sides. As yet another man lost his footing and tumbled into the helpless, moaning mass at her feet, she finally understood the power she had suddenly come to possess. Throwing her head back, she began to roar with laughter.


2 days later.

Jerold pulled on the rope with all his might. It was near impossible to set the sails without the use of one of his hands, but as one of the least injured of all those on board, the task had fallen to him. The girl had threatened to kill them all if they failed in their duties on board the ship and he didn't doubt for an instant that she was capable of carrying out her threat.

He couldn't believe how his fortunes had changed in such a short space of time. He was sleeping in the hold with the rest of the men now. In fact, he was just one of the men. Like all of them, he'd already signed all his wealth over to the incredible red-haired girl. She had taken his luxurious cabin. And his rank. She had even forced the ship's Captain to renounce his ownership of the vessel to her.

This girl was now their master. She had told them as much when she had ordered the crew to assemble on deck shortly after the one-sided fight in his cabin. Her cabin, he corrected himself. The men, limping and bleeding, clutching broken limbs and hands, gathered in terror. They were defeated and exhausted. And exceptionally afraid.

She had told them they now belonged to her. And she told them of the painful death she would deal out to any of them who failed to obey her word or otherwise displeased her in any way. As she spoke, she turned her gaze from one face to the next, her expression one of smug satisfaction as she saw the effect of her words on her audience.

Now, forty-seven hours after that spine-chilling lecture, Jerold struggled with his work. He was no better than a slave now. None of them were. The young woman – the beautiful young woman – was unopposable. They could not fight her, could not stab her, could not shoot her. They had tried every weapon they had against her, without effect. Every single last fire-arm and blade on board… except…

Of course! Why hadn't it occurred to him earlier? There was one more weapon on the ship which wasn't used in the doomed fight. A weapon powerful enough to sink an entire ship. It might be enough to bring down the girl. To free him and the men from their slavery.

That night, down in the hold, when she was on the far side of the ship, surrounded by his former wealth in his former quarters, Jerold whispered his plan to the other men. How three of them would lift a solid iron ball into the ship's cannon, once a fourth man had prepared the powder-charge. A fifth member of the conspiracy was charged with waiting, with his matches ready, for the moment that the girl moved in front of the barrel of the enormous weapon.

Meanwhile, Monika sat on the big bed in her cabin, listening intently to the conversation taking place amongst her men. With the ring on her finger, a whispered discussion twenty yards away and behind walls was as clear as a bell. She heard every word, chuckling to herself at the thought of half a dozen men hushing their voices for fear of her.

Whilst they slept, she walked quietly on deck to the cannon. Beside the huge iron cylinder was the small stack of balls, each considerably larger than her head. Bending down she lifted one with two hands, surprised at how easily it came up between her palms. Balancing the ultra-dense sphere on one palm she tossed it gently about twenty feet above her head and caught it. "It might as well be full of air!" she thought to herself, in awe at how light the thing seemed. She decided to let the men carry out their plan.

The following morning, Monika strolled proudly along the deck of her ship. She smiled with satisfaction at the way her mere presence inspired an atmosphere of fear amongst the men working. Men working for her. Despite the injuries and wounds they had sustained. That she had caused. She wasn't so much their Captain, she realised, as their goddess.

As she walked, she noticed the solitary figure standing well away from the others. Hunched over the ship's cannon, he was doing a decent impression of a man cleaning the weapon. His furtive glances in her direction reduced the effectiveness of the charade. With her sensitive hearing, she listened to the adrenaline-fuelled thumping of his heart with great amusement.

Passing right in front of the huge gun, she paused mid-stroll and turned, ostensibly to look out at the sea. This left her directly facing the cannon, but she pretended not to notice it. The fake cleaner's pulse reached a new pounding crescendo and she knew he was taking the bait.

It was all she could do not to laugh when he struck a match and put it to the tiny fuse protruding from the powder chamber. But she maintained the pretence of being completely unaware, even when the firer abandoned his cover and ran, shouting, towards the other men. An enormous boom shook the ship as the gunpowder exploded. Monika watched as a cannon-ball identical to the one she had juggled the previous night tore through the smoke and flames at the end of the giant barrel. She saw that her position was perfect and held herself still, waiting for the iron sphere to reach her.

A large ball of solid metal launched into the air by an explosion of that size has so much momentum that it becomes practically unstoppable. Cannon-balls tear holes through the thick hulls of ships and break strong masts like match-sticks. But the slim red-haired girl wasn't afraid. She barely even blinked as one of those terrifying balls shot towards her.

It hit fairly centrally on her chest. It was, after all, the most prominent feature of the front of her body. For about a quarter of a second, her generous breasts yielded to the immense weight and power, her big mounds squashing very, very slightly as the huge ball pressed against them. But, as had happened with the far smaller bullets three days before, her chest seemed to fight back almost immediately.

Despite the huge force pushing against them, her breasts quickly matched and then, amazingly, bettered it as they naturally reverted to their usual perfectly round shape. In so doing they pushed back against the mighty cannon-ball, generating power even greater than that assaulting them. The ball's forward motion was first conquered and then reversed as the huge heavy chunk of metal merely bounced off her.

To Monika, it felt like a brief, friendly hug. There was no pain. One moment the cannon-ball was flying towards her, the next it was embracing her and the one after that it was travelling away from her body. On a whim, she brought her hands up quickly, catching the retreating shot between her palms and bringing it to a complete stop without having to exert herself.

The collective gasp from the on-looking men would have been audible even if her hearing hadn't been greatly enhanced. She knew the sight of herself holding the captured cannon-ball in front of her wonderful chest was rather striking and she enjoyed the moment all the more because of it. The ball felt feather-light to her and it had required no effort to catch but the demonstration was having a profound effect on her audience.

She decided to put on a show for them. Drawing her hands towards herself, she brought the cannon-ball closer to her body. Once more, her chest yielded slightly to the solid metal, her big breasts giving way for a moment. But then, remarkably, as she continued to pull the shot to her, they refused to give any more.

The air filled with a high-pitched squeal. It was as though the iron was alive and was screaming in protest at the forces being exerted on it. On the one hand, the red-head's delicate hands were driving it against her body with phenomenal force. On the other hand, her chest was successfully resisting that force.

Her breasts would not concede, so it was the cannon-ball itself that succombed. The metal started to deform, to bend and stretch to accommodate her body. Her large round bosoms dented it on two sides, the solid iron no match for the power contained in her beautiful figure. The squealing rose in volume and the ball began to loose its spherical shape completely as it surrendered to the superior strength of the girl.

She continued to press the iron against herself for a moment or two more. When she stopped and lifted the now re-moulded metal away, there was little in its shape to suggest it had once been a ball. It was wider and less tall than before and one side of it was completely dominated by two identical deep, wide depressions. Monika made sure that the men saw that.

Satisfied that she had made her point, she adjusted her grip on the lump of scrap so that she was holding it on a single outstretched palm. Then she casually bent her arm, and tossed it out to sea. She put little effort into the throw and her modifications had made the former ball much less aerodynamic than it had been. Yet the misshapen chunk soared from her little hand, not splashing down into the brine until it was over a hundred yards from the side of the ship.

She placed her hands on her hips, emphasising her dominance as she fixed the now cowering men with her gaze. "Do any of you still doubt my power?" she demanded of them. There was no response from the group. She smiled, a grin of arrogant satisfaction.

"I thought not." she said.

The men waited in silence for her next instruction. Monika paused, partly to enjoy the moment and partly to consider what she would demand of them. She knew the men were hers to command as she wished. The ship was hers, too. And anything else she desired. The beautiful ring with its strange, blue gem gave her the power to take whatever she pleased and she had no intention of ever taking it off.

  

Conceptfan, Oct. 2004.






No.8 - "The Gift"

It was, of course, the day that marked the conclusive end of the debate over the existence of extraterrestrial life. We'd spent decades scanning the galaxies for the smallest possible crumb of proof that we were not alone in the vast universe. We'd trained our most sensitive telescopes and scanners on even the most distant regions of space without finding anything. And now that proof - that irrefutable, mind-blowing proof - had come right to us. This is my account of the day it happened. In compiling this record, I have drawn heavily on my own memories to give a personal account. However, I have also made use of several other testimonies, including official histories, to provide a fuller impression of events...

It was first "spotted" by long-range radar; a small object, travelling at near light speed through space. Its presence was logged and its trajectory was calculated and noted. Up to this point, there was nothing to excite even the most enthusiastic astronomer. We got the first indication that the object was not just another bit of space-rock a few hours later. The first report might have been dismissed as an error - an incorrect reading or a miscalibration of some kind - but it was quickly followed by a series of confirmations from other observation centres. It was clear: the object had changed course.

The teams at each radar telescope location began the process of re-evaluating the object's new trajectory. Unanimously they announced the startling result: it was now on a collision course with our planet. Emergency meetings were called in which respected astronomers were questioned by government leaders. Mathematicians and computer operators were hastily summoned to begin the job of calculating both the object's exact mass and velocity. Others worked on predicting the precise location of the threatened impact and still others were charged with guessing the consequences of it.

As the object hurtled ever nearer to us, more and more data became available. Our technology allowed us to make fairly accurate assessments. We knew that it weighed about two thousand kilograms and was travelling at 150,000 kilometres a second. The experts believed it was likely to crash down into the middle of a landmass, possibly causing terrible damage.

Given the speed of the thing, our leaders knew that they could not send a manned mission to intercept it. Such an expedition requires too much time to prepare. The best defence they could offer on our behalf was to wait until the object neared and then bombard it with long-range nuclear missiles. These weapons were built and maintained by individual countries to deter each other from hostile acts. Now they were to be used by every country that possessed them against a common threat.

It was decided that the various militaries involved would co-ordinate their strikes, so that they could detonate every available missile as near simultaneously as possible. There was not much time and no margin for error. Once the object was within range, it would be just minutes from hitting the surface of our world. The combined explosions would have to succeed. There was no back-up plan and no time to evacuate the huge populations that might be affected. The missiles were programmed and launched.

Moments later, our leaders and scientists were able to view the object through conventional telescopes. Immediately it was clear that this was no ordinary meteorite. It looked manufactured. A smooth sphere that reflected sunlight, and had no comet-style tail. Those watching saw the multitudinous explosions as the great strike took place. Enough weaponry was detonated to have destroyed every single city on our planet. Even with the naked eye alone, those in the right part of the planet saw the series of nuclear blasts in space lighting up the night sky.

A few seconds later, as the last of the missiles was still exploding with tremendous force, confirmation was received that the object had, somehow, survived. More terrifyingly still, its course had not been altered in the slightest by all the forces it had been subjected to. Another series of meetings were called. This time, world leaders were asking their most senior scientists a different question: Is it possible for relatively small meteorite to survive a plethora of atomic blasts undamaged without even being blown off-course? The answer was, according to everything we know, no - it's not possible. The obvious follow-up inquiry must have been "Is it possible that this object is not a natural phenomenon?" and its answer "Yes, it is possible.". At this point, the leaders might well have turned to their military advisers to ask "Would sort of threat could such an object present?"

Of course, the general public were informed of none of this at the time. Panic was the last thing the authorities needed to be dealing with. The object's unrelenting progress continued to be carefully monitored, and the leaders braced themselves for whatever its impact would bring. Then, they received the clinching proof of its non-natural origin. Less than a second before it was expected to plunge into the ground, with the object only about a kilometre from the surface and well within our atmosphere, it stopped. Amazingly, it just suddenly ceased moving. It seemed to decelerate from a third of the speed of light to stationary in a micro-second.

The stunned decision-makers had only a few moments to come to terms with the fact that this bizarre thing was hovering under its own power in our atmosphere. Then, it started to move again. But not downwards. Instead, it moved parallel to the surface, following the planet's curve so that it remained a constant distance from the ground. It travelled so fast that even our most advanced equipment found it difficult to track. In mere milliseconds it had circumnavigated a third of the globe before once again coming to a complete halt.

Its new location was a mile above my country. It held its place for quite a while. Long enough, in fact, for a squadron of aircraft to be scrambled. They approached the hovering object from every angle, photographing it, relaying live images, probing it with sonar and radiation. Our leader was told the results of this investigation. That the thing looked like a five-metre diameter sphere of polished steel. No matter how hard the pictures were studied, no trace of a flaw or a seam could be sound in its surface. There was no sign of any sort of fixing or fastening. The other tests showed only that the thing was utterly impervious to all kinds of radiation. To our sensors, it appeared to be a solid metal ball.

But solid metal balls cannot travel across space, resist nuclear blasts and change course apparently at will. Neither can they hover silently in our atmosphere. It was clear that some unknown intelligence lay behind the object and our leader, charged with the responsibility of protecting his population, reacted with justified caution to its presence by ordering his military to be fully prepared.

Around a quarter of an hour later, the object moved once again. It came down. To the surface. One moment it was a kilometre up, the next it was completely still, apparently floating a few centimetres from the ground.

Within minutes, our military was on the scene. They set up guard in a wide circle around the object. As the minutes became hours, more and more men arrived. They brought equipment. Equipment for measuring. Equipment for testing. And equipment for fighting. Our leader and his advisors were cautious. And they were right to be so.

At first, the scientists were the only ones allowed to approach the object. They touched it, and felt it. They studied it. They used their instruments to take dozens and dozens of readings. But they could not find a single marking on its smooth exterior. Nor could they determine whether or not it was hollow; no beam or wave could penetrate even a micron beneath its surface. They could not take a sample for analysis, so they could not speculate on its composition. There was also no detectable trace of any known kind of radiation in the vicinity of the sphere; it had to have some kind of propulsion mechanism for it to move and hover the way it did, but the experts could find no evidence of it. After consultation with those in power, the scientists were permitted to try and disturb the metal for research purposes. But after a few minutes struggling with various tools, culminating in a diamond drill, they had to admit defeat. Nothing they had tried had left even a tiny scratch on the flawless object.

Half-an-hour passed until a van arrived on the scene and two scientists, aided by four soldiers, carefully unloaded a cylindrical-shaped device. It was a laser-beam generator, capable of producing, at the tip of its beam, a level of heat comparable to that found on the surface of our sun. The device was set up and powered and switched on. All those present could see the red spot it produced on the surface of the sphere and there were many observers who saw that red spot passing over a wide area of the mystery metal. But it did not melt the strange substance. Like the drill, in fact, it completely failed to leave any kind of mark.

Those in charge decided to allow a very small explosive charge to be detonated against the sphere. A tiny "bomb" was prepared and exploded with the same lack of effect as the drill or the laser. Someone - perhaps the leader himself - was becoming nervous. The military were instructed to set off a grenade in the tiny space between the ground and the bottom of the alien ball. The charge exploded; it's fragments clanging against the smooth steel-like metal as it blew a two-meter wide, one-meter deep crater in the earth directly below the sphere. But the object did not move even a hairsbreadth despite the explosion that had occurred right next to it. When the first scientist climbed into the new pit to examine the area of metal that had bourn the brunt of the blast, his report was depressingly predictable: no sign of any damage whatsoever.

It was my unit that received the next instruction; namely to fire an armour-piercing rocket targeted on the exact centre of the sphere. We had to wait whilst the area around the object was cleared and all the scientists and closest soldiers were moved away. Then we inputted the location and initiated the launch sequence. I watched the flight of the rocket through binoculars. There was no doubt we managed to achieve a direct hit. Those missiles were designed to neutralise an enemy tank with a single strike. The tip is especially dense in order to allow it to penetrate even the thickest, most resilient armour. It also contains a charge which detonates on impact. This is supposed to breech any partition so that the rocket's main explosive blows only once it has penetrated its target, thus doing maximum damage inside.

But our rocket had no noticeable effect on the sphere. It didn't even dull the shine of the metal. My commander relayed the news by radio. He paused whilst the person on the other end of the line asked him a question and answered. "No. It's survived nuclear strikes, diamond drilling, lasers and armour-tipped warheads. There's nothing more we can try. As far as we are concerned, the object is completely impenetrable and definitely indestructible. Nothing can pierce that material. Nothing at-" He never finished the sentence.

My commander, like all of us, had been distracted by a sound. A loud, creaking, almost groaning sound that seemed to be coming from the object itself. Everyone fell silent. That stillness was quickly broken by a cry from one of the men near to the object: "It's moving." I immediately grabbed my binoculars and looked. It was undeniable. A small (about twenty centimetres across) bulge seemed to have appeared in the previously perfect sphere. A moment later, the creaking noise was heard again and, even as I looked, another similar swelling appeared about a meter apart from the first.

"There's something inside!" the man next to me whispered, sounding terrified. "It's trying to bust out!"

"Nothing can get through that metal," our commander reassured us in equally hushed tones. I kept my eyes glued to the strange lumps that had appeared on the sphere. The strange noise was heard again, quieter than before, but enough to make all of us feel nervous. I suddenly noticed that a number of smaller sub-bulges were appearing around one edge of the existing protuberances. Each of these secondary lumps was about two centimetres in diameter. There was a symmetrical pattern to them too; in the left "big" bulge, four smaller bumps appeared in a line near the top of the bulge and a fifth little bump was visible slightly apart from the others, towards the side. That pattern of four plus one was repeated in a mirrored variation inside the second large lump.

Despite the unexplained, alien nature of the hovering sphere, there was something very familiar about the arrangement of the small bulges. It was only when the creaking noise grew in loudness and the lumps began to grow that I recognised what the pattern reminded me of. The bulges were arranged exactly like the fingers of a human hand. As if there was someone pushing against the metal from the inside. But everything I had seen up to that point made that idea seem ridiculous. I tried to shake the thought from my head. The bulges continues to grow and become more defined, The groaning sound rose in volume too. Then, someone shouted "Look! It's two hands!" and I knew there could be no more denying the shapes that were forming in the alien material.

Before anyone could reply or even react to the cry, there was a tremendously loud squeal from the object. The small bumps ruptured in quick succession. There, poking through what had been bulges and were now roughly torn holes, were ten small, delicate-looking human fingers. With long, apparently manicured nails. The fingers curled, as if their owner was taking a grip on the material. Then the air was filled with a scream-like sound as if the strange metal were crying out in protest.

Through my binoculars, I could clearly see that the fingers were moving downwards. The terrible noise was coming from the "space-steel" as it was being torn apart. The holes where the fingers had burst through were becoming wide channels as those digits carved their way down one side of the sphere. Still, we couldn't see anything of the owner of those hands. However, those of us with binoculars were now able to discover that the object was indeed hollow and that the "impenetrable" metal casing was about five centimetres thick. Five centimetres of a substance that could withstand dozens of nuclear missiles, and whatever was behind those fingers was ripping it open like wet cardboard! No wonder we were all shifting about nervously.

I was still trying to comprehend it all. I searched for a simple explanation that would fit the information my eyes were sending to my brain. It had to be some kind of trick. Maybe the material was somehow weak on one side and indestructible on the other so that someone could poke their fingers through from inside the giant ball, but a rocket would have no effect against the outside. I knew that theory contravened all our acquired knowledge of physics. But the alternative - that each of the ten fingers I had caught a glimpse of was more powerful than a nuclear missile - was too mind-boggling to entertain.

I was still wrestling with the implications of what I was watching when the screaming sound stopped abruptly and the fingers disappeared back inside the sphere. The two parallel channels were now each a meter and a half long, stretching towards the bottom of the object. The relative silence added to the tension all around me as we waited to see what might happen next. One of the scientists at the very inner edge of the circle that was being maintained at a healthy distance from the thing, took a step towards it and was hauled back by a man in a colonel's uniform. "Nobody moves unless ordered otherwise!" he barked. Everyone, including the curious boffin, obeyed.

Although it seemed that everything was happening very slowly, in reality only a few seconds passed before the fingers reappeared. Most of us saw them immediately, gripping the inside of each of the two channels about halfway down. We didn't have time to alert our colleagues though. An instant later, with a screech that sounded like the amplified cry of a tortured animal, the two hands moved together. The thick, mysterious material that was caught between the two palms was crushed, folding up on itself more like paper than undamageable metal. In a moment those hands had reduced a large section of it to little more than a pillar that was flared at the top and bottom like a giant apple core. At the centre between the sets of fingers, the pillar was only a few centimetres wide.

Once again, and not for the first time, I was left without time to fully digest what I had just seen. As I continued to watch, transfixed, through my eye-glasses, the mysterious palms that had been held flat to compress the metal now started to close. Fingers bent around the front of the new-formed pillar. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I saw the material dimple slightly beneath them. Before I could try and confirm what I believed I'd observed, the hands moved swiftly backwards. Once more, the sound of tortured metal accosted our ears. For a brief second, the pillar seemed to bend back like an archer's bow. The noise grew even more desperate in pitch before with a terrific Clang! it yielded to silence - just as the material stretched at its ends and finally yielded to the hands pulling on it. The pillar had been torn free and was now, presumably, being held by those hands inside the sphere.

I spent a few seconds studying the two points where the metal had finally given in. They looked like icicles; as if the thick, remarkable substance had been stretched until it had become too thin to be stable. What kind of force must have been exerted through those hands? And what kind of being owned them? A loud, metallic clash from within the sphere derailed my train of thought. It was probably caused by the detached pillar being dropped, but we'll never know. The inside of that bizarre object was completely hidden by darkness; even the large hole that had been ripped through its casing seemed to permit no light to enter.

Moments later, from that darkness, a foot emerged. It was human, like the hand, and in proportion. We gasped in collective, anxious excitement as an ankle and then a leg extended out of the black interior, as though materialising from thin air. The ankle was delicate, the lower leg hairless, long and slender with a pleasingly familiar shape. I somehow felt more relaxed; what I had seen so far led me to believe that the sphere's mystery, alien passenger was a young woman. A young woman who was turning out to be more and more beautiful the more we saw of her. And more and more naked.

Her thigh was visible now, its smooth roundness enough of a distraction for a soldier without needing what happened next. She was simply stepping out of the sphere and that action meant she was revealed to us in this particular way: after she'd put one leg through the hole she'd torn in the "unmanageable" metal case, she leant forward. Her face suddenly appeared. Her features were those of a young woman, maybe about nineteen years old in our terms. A girl! The first thing I noticed was her strong, almost luminescent, dark brown eyes. Her cheekbones were high, but not too prominent. Her lips, a vibrant shade of deep red, were lusciously thick. At first, they sat sealed expressionlessly. Then the eyes moved from left to right, scanning the scene before them. Something - or perhaps everything - that she saw clearly pleased her for slowly the lips began to curl upwards into a half-smile. The stunning eyes betrayed no hint as to the cause or meaning of the partial grin.

After that, she stepped completely out of the sphere. Her hair came into view, an electric dark brown colour that matched her eyes. It cascaded down past her neck, straight, shiny and thick. Suddenly her shoulders appeared, smooth and round, then an arm which like the leg we had already seen, was long and slim and free of any marks or blemishes. The arm swung back and the torso became visible, emerging from the darkness. Her skin was perfect; her complexion without fault. Her belly was smooth and flat, boasting an inviting deep navel at its centre. Her hips were curved and enticing. Then, I heard the sharp intakes of breath all around me as we saw her chest. Her breasts were big, especially considering the smallness of her waist, but it was their remarkably rounded shape that really struck me. They seemed to thrust out from her body as if held in place by an invisible force. As uncovered as the rest of her, her two pink nipples sat arrogantly on each fantastic mound, seemingly defying me not to lose myself in their beauty.

Her second leg was the last part of her to emerge. As it swung out into the light, we caught a glimpse of her pelvic region with its neat strip of hair. She wasn't wearing so much as a stitch of clothing! I could sense the sexual tension of the other men, even as I was forced to acknowledge my own. How could any heterosexual man not be affected by this vision of perfect femininity? Through my binoculars I watched as she took a further step away from the sphere. Her body moved with a grace and confidence that matched its appearance. I saw her casting her gaze around once more, the half-smile on her stunning face growing very slightly. I think she was pleased by the effect her beauty on us. She stood still, her shapely arms hanging free by her sides, as if pausing to savour the moment. We, in turn, stared at her in awe.

As we stared, the colonel moved away from the cluster of men he had been with and stepped into the empty space between the encircling crowd and the sphere. I've been told since that he was acting under strict instructions as he slowly approached the naked figure. He walked with his hands out in front of his body, palms open and turned upwards, perhaps to demonstrate a lack of hostile intent. He stopped about two yards from the stunning strange girl and spoke. From my vantage point, about fifty meters away, I could only just make out his words; "On behalf of all the people and governments of this planet, welcome!" He thrust out his right hand to offer it for shaking and took a single stride, halving the distance between himself and the new arrival. It was clear that he was waiting for her to match his step and take his hand.

She did step closer. I saw her looking down at the proffered hand, her eyebrows rising for a moment as if she were curious about what to do. Then, I saw her stretching her own, smaller hand towards the colonel's. Any indecision appeared to have been banished as she took his palm in her own. Even from that distance, I swear I could clearly hear the sound of bones crunching as the colonel suddenly dropped to his knees, his hand still clasped by the alien, who stood unmoving all the while. The prostrate man's scream of agony was definitely audible and it confirmed what we all suspected. She was crushing his hand with her delicate looking fingers. Through my binoculars, I could clearly see a spurt of red liquid rising between those digits.

There was confusion and a rush of movement amongst the men, particular those in the group that had included the colonel. Somehow, he managed to recover enough composure to raise his free hand and hoarsely yell "No! Stay back!" The girl responded to all this by opening her fingers. As she did, I saw that her palm was covered in thick blood, as was the colonel's arm. Where his hand had been, I saw nothing but a messy stump. She had amputated him. An awkward hush descended over us as she lifted her fingers to her face and studied them for a brief moment. I saw a lush, pink tongue extend from her mouth. Then, sickeningly, she licked her bloody palm slowly, almost seductively.

She looked down at the colonel, still on his knees in front of her and for the first time smiled fully. I caught a glimpse of her bright, pure white straight teeth as she beamed. It was as if she was pleased to have drawn his blood. A moment later, we knew that terrible assumption was correct. She brought her hand down from her mouth and swiped it lazily at the colonel's head. And that was it. The moment we all knew the alien girl's intentions. Her small hand hit his head with enough deceptive force to remove it from his shoulders in that single blow. The headless corpse at her feet spurted blood as it collapsed to the ground, even as the detached head sailed high into the air. My binoculars were not powerful enough to see where it landed, but I had stopped looking anyway. Like my colleagues, I was busy reaching for my weapon.

My attention had been so completely captivated by the scene in front of me, that I hadn't paid much notice to the noises and activity taking place behind my back. A constant stream of men had been arriving on the scene in a whole range of military vehicles. I suppose every single soldier in the country was being directed to the area. Where there had been an empty valley, there was now a mass of uniformed men. Dozens of camouflage trucks were parked around. There were a number of jeeps and I even saw a group of tanks rolling into view. A pair of army helicopters hummed overhead and every few seconds planes roared past. Everyone seemed to be focussing on the alien girl. Those who had not witnessed the colonel's death had heard about it and we were all nervous. Very nervous. But we had received no orders since the colonel's yelled "Stay back!" Since then, the alien had murdered him.

I trained my eye-glasses on her once more. She was so beautiful, it was hard to believe she had been responsible for the cold-blooded killing I had just witnessed. And even more difficult to accept the fact that the slender-framed young woman possessed sufficient strength to decapitate a man with a sweep of her hand. I studied her exquisite face. The smile was fixed on it, a satisfied grin that, I sensed, told more about the way she herself was feeling than about her intentions towards her growing audience. She took a step over the body of the colonel. The men nearest too her began shuffling, checking their weapons. Before she could move again, we were all distracted by an amplified voice from one of the two overhead helicopters. At last! An order: "Everybody down! Now!"

We were all well enough trained to hit the dirt immediately. I think we had a fairly good idea what was coming. I didn't see it, but I'm told that the girl's reaction to the barked instruction was to glance up at the chopper, roll her eyes with boredom and then cock her head to one side as if to say "Well? I'm waiting." Once I was on the ground, it took me a few moments to get my binoculars to my eyes, so I missed that. But I did hear the whoosh of a rocket being fired from the launching tube mounted on the helicopter's underside. Someone in charge - maybe our leader himself - had obviously decided that the extraterrestrial was a threat; a threat that needed to be eliminated.

The rocket exploded with a mighty boom, throwing huge amounts of dirt into the air. A ball of bright orange flames covered the area where the girl was standing, completely obscuring her and the sphere behind her for a few moments. The displaced earth began to rain down all around as the flames gave way to thick black smoke. Gradually, it began to clear. The first thing that became visible was the giant alien ball. We had already seen it to be resistant to most of our arsenal, and it was no surprise to see that it had survived the blast. A moment later, I saw the shape of the large new pit that the explosion had created. And after a few seconds more, standing at the edge of that pit, I saw her. She hadn't moved. She was still standing, hands relaxed by her sides, looking up at the helicopter that had just launched an air-to-ground missile at her. The intense heat of the detonation hadn't even made her lovely skin go a little red. In truth, the only sign that she had been right in the middle of the deadly blast was a sprinkling of earth that had fallen onto her bare shoulders. That and the fact that her smile had grown slightly bigger.

"Oh fuck, she didn't even-" the man lying next to me began to mumble, but his words were cut off by the sound of a second rocket being fired. I kept my gaze fixed on the alien the whole time and, although it was only about a second before she disappeared inside another ball of fire, I'm certain that I saw her start to laugh. Again, the explosion tore up the ground and tossed it into the air for it to eventually sprinkle down over the entire area. The flames were as bright as the sun for an instant, the boom as loud as any I have ever heard. But when the dark smoke cleared sufficiently, I could still see the girl. Once again, she had remained motionless, unmoved and apparently unaffected by being blown up with a powerful explosive. Unaffected in every way bar one; she was, undeniably, laughing.

She was also turning her head slowly, as if studying the scene in front of her. Her laughter subsided and became an excited smile. She looked like she was at a funfair, trying to decide which attraction she wanted to visit first. After a brief moment, she seemed to come to a decision. She bent over, her body moving with a fluid grace as her long arm swept over the ground, her fingers closing on an object near her feet. Through my binoculars I could just about make out that she was picking up a plum-sized pebble. She stood up straight again, the little stone enclosed in her palm, and glanced up at the circling choppers. Even as I saw her grin widen, I knew what she was intending. But I was powerless to do anything about it.

Her arm cocked back and became a blur for a moment. It all happened too fast for me to see, but I understood perfectly what was happening. Almost simultaneously, I heard an explosion overhead. I looked up, in time to see a helicopter disappear inside a billowing, orange and yellow mass of flames. She'd thrown the pebble at the chopper with such force that it had ruptured the fuel tank, creating sparks as it did so. Or maybe the stone had penetrated the engine. All I know is that the girl threw the rock and it made the whole craft explode. Pieces of it began to fall over a wide area, making us duck our heads. Flaming chunks of metal crashed out of the sky, wounding, maybe even killing some of the men.

I was lucky - not for the last time that day - that nothing fell near me. I was able to keep watch on her the whole time. To see her beaming with smug satisfaction at the destruction she had wrought. Even when a large section of the chopper's tail, still burning, smashed down directly onto her head. She didn't blink and her smile did not flicker as the metal broke in half on impact and fell at her feet. Her expression still did not change when, a few seconds later, a burst of machine gun fire brought us all back to attention. Someone much nearer to her had decided to open fire with or without orders. The air around the alien seemed to be full of darting insects until I realised that what I could see was actually a hail of ricocheting bullets. They were bouncing like raindrops off her lovely, naked body!

She turned slowly, leisurely it seemed, towards the shooter. The grin on her face undimmed, she began to walk, very calmly, towards him. At this point, all hell broke loose. Everyone started making up their own orders. A load of guys started shooting. There was yelling and running everywhere; some of the men were charging towards her, others were sprinting to take up new positions. I just decided to lie still where I was. My gun was ready, but I was holding my binoculars to my eyes. I couldn't help myself, I was so completely fascinated by the girl, I could not bear to move. I think it was the way she was strolling, so unperturbed, through a hail of bullets, her stunning body like a fashion model on a catwalk.

As she approached the nearest group of men, I saw a couple of them fall. It took a moment for me to realise that they had been cut down by bullets bouncing off her. Then, with each graceful step, the number of ricochet casualties increased. She stretched out her long arm and snatched the gun from a soldier just as he fell. The constant stream of fire continued unabated as she stopped and began studying the weapon, turning it round in her hands. A circle had cleared around her where no man could survive the deadly rebounding lead and steel, the bodies encircling her ankles testimony to that.

I guess she was looking for the trigger on the gun, because that's what she found. She raised the weapon in her right hand, pointing it in the direction of a group of soldiers firing at her. She squeezed off a few rounds and the men went down. The smile on her face brightened again as she casually turned and selected another target. All the while, countless dozens of bullets slammed uselessly against her. She fired a burst from the gun in her hand once more and another three soldiers collapsed. I then saw her laugh for a moment, utterly oblivious to the barrage she was under. Then, she turned the weapon around in her grasp and aimed it directly at her own face. She held the trigger for quite a while, blasting herself in the front of her head from point-blank range, her eyes open the whole time. After maybe a quarter of a minute of this, the gun ran out of ammo. She chuckled and then, looking about, chose a soldier and threw the empty weapon so hard it passed right through his chest.

A grenade landed at her feet and she bent down and scooped it up in her hand. She brought it up to her face to examine it just as it detonated. I lost sight of her for a second in the flames and smoke but when they cleared, she was standing in exactly the same position as before, her now empty hand still stretched out in front of her. There were a couple of bloody corpses on the ground nearby that hadn't been there before the explosion, but the girl was unmarked. Another grenade flew her way. She caught it and then cupped it in both hands. I saw a flash of light from her palms and smoke rising between her fingers - the only clue that the thing had gone off. She'd contained the blast in her hands!

More grenades appeared. Some, she simply punted back into the crowd with her toes, each one blowing with deadly force and creating horrendous carnage. Others she stepped on, allowing them to explode under her bare feet without so much as raising her eyebrows. A few she ignored completely, letting them detonate against her legs. Fire and shrapnel attacked her lower body time and again and yet she walked on whilst men much further from the blasts fell in bloodied, burnt heaps. Still, the guns continued their relentless hailing on her.

I heard the sound of rocket-propelled grenades being launched and saw one of them strike her square on the belly. She vanished in the resulting eruption of flame, only to reappear without so much as a bruise on her flawless, flat stomach. I could smell the flesh of men who had been standing five meters away and had succumbed to the heat. Her arm flashed out and suddenly she was holding one of the RPGs. She must have snatched it from the air! She glanced up. I had forgotten the second helicopter, but she hadn't. Five seconds later, flaming chunks of it were raining down over us, taking yet more lives. Above the fire and the guns and the rockets and the explosions and the shouts and the screams, I could also hear laughter. A girl's laughter.

Two guys ran at her from behind, leaping onto her back. The first fell immediately, killed by cross-fire intended for the girl. The other managed to get his arms around her head. He was trying to break her neck, or perhaps strangle her. She reached up and pulled his arm and he screamed as the limb tore from his body. She used the detached arm as a disposable club, a single blow destroying both her improvised weapon and the head of a man in front of her. Then she stretched her arm over her shoulder, grabbing the man on her back by the neck. If he hadn't been killed by her crushing grip, he would have died as she swung his entire body around in front of her, holding his corpse by a single hand, his feet dangling well above the ground. She waded into another group of men, employing the body in her grasp, thrashing it about with such force it smashed faces and bodies before it she finally tossed what was left of it at another random victim.

Men were actively running from her now. She gleefully chased after some as if she were in the midst of some playground game. Her long, shapely legs moved with a ballerina's grace, but they were deceptively fast. She seemed to be able to outrun anyone she chose to, even when the men had a ten meter head-start on her. Whoever she caught up with was doomed. Her arm flashed out, passing right through some men's chests. Or she would kick them, sending them flying up to twenty meters into the air. Some she decapitated with a wave of her hand. Once or twice, she would let a man break free of her grasp after she had caught him, only to recapture him a moment later and, smiling at her sport, kill him.

She weaved about, confusing the men fleeing from her until one of them ran straight into her. She put her arm around his waist and pulled him to her until, with a horrific crunch, his bones and organs were crushed against her body. This clearly amused her, because she did the same thing with another soldier soon after. When she trapped a third in similar fashion, he screamed at her for mercy. She grinned broadly for him and lifted her face to him. It looked for all the world as though she were kissing him on his lips. Perhaps she was. Whilst their faces were still locked together, she squeezed his middle against hers and then stepped away as he dropped at her feet. She'd almost cut him in half with her slender arms.

All this time, I remained frozen in place, lying on the ground. As I stared in awe and partial disbelief, I saw a lone man, not in military uniform, charging towards the girl from some distance away. He yelled as he ran, his arm held high above his head, a small while object clasped in it. He wasn't a soldier - he was certainly behaving like a man who'd never had a day's combat training - so I guessed he must've been one of the government scientists who had been rushed to the scene. His battle-cry increased in ferocity as he came closer to the alien, and I realised, with a chill, that amidst all the desperate and futile military action, amidst the carnage of professional fighting men, I was watching a civilian on a suicide mission.

I had no idea about the nature of the thing the guy was holding, but I was fairly certain he intended to use it against the girl. I found myself praying that it was some kind of new invention, some amazing weapon that could succeed where all our hardware had so far failed. By then, most of us knew that conventional explosives were completely ineffective against her. I clung to the hope that this man held in his hand an alternative that would end the ongoing nightmare unfolding before my eyes. I looked at the alien. She seemed oblivious to the man noisily running towards her. Maybe, I thought, she hasn't realised the threat he posed…

The screaming civilian got within ten yards of her and hurled the white thing at her. As it left his grasp, I saw that it was cylindrical in shape, but I couldn't make out any other details. The throw was good. The object hit the girl square on her back. But it didn't explode. It just bounced off her naked skin the same way all our munitions had done - and continued to do. I was distracted for a moment as the heroic scientist suddenly collapsed to the ground, hit, I assumed, by a bullet intended for the alien or perhaps one that had rebounded from her beautiful, indestructible body. Either way he didn't move again.

Something else caught my eye. A wisp of orange smoke. I followed it to its source and saw the white cylinder lying between the girl and the body of the man who had thrown it. It wasn't an explosive. It was some kind of chemical weapon. I felt a rush of hope as well as admiration and gratitude for the scientist's heroics. This was the one thing we hadn't yet tried. Surely, she had to be vulnerable to biological attack.

The girl turned around. There was nothing hurried about her movement, almost as though she were investigating the latest development purely on a whim. She started to walk leisurely towards the white thing as it exuded more and more of the brightly-coloured gas. Soon, a small but dense cloud of it had formed. When she was only a couple of paces from the outer edges of the orange fog, she stopped. My heart skipped a beat. Had she felt something? A twinge maybe, that was enough to make her hesitate? Was she afraid to get any closer?

My optimism started to evaporate slowly as I saw a familiar, if sickening in the context, grin spreading across her perfect face. It was as if she had been perplexed for only the briefest moment by the gas, but was now sure of her actions once again. The glint that the smile brought to her eyes remained as she opened her mouth, both of her full lips pouting very slightly. Her two rows of flawless teeth seemed set in arrogant defiance, a pose I could help but recognise - even at that moment - as one of the sexiest I have ever beheld. But such thoughts had to be pushed to the back of my mind.

Suddenly, I saw the previously ball-like orange cloud change shape. It was stretching, elongating, as though it were reaching out with a finger. Reaching out towards the girl's inviting, open mouth. It took me a moment to work it out. But when the finger of smoke became a stream of gas and the cloud itself began to shrink I started to understand. The alien's already prominent chest was swelling too. Once again, I found myself battling to suppress thoughts of sex as my brain and body responded to the erotically-charged sight of her large, proud breasts standing out even more on her slender frame. She was inhaling the gas! Pulling the entire cloud of it into her lungs! I felt my hopes sinking in my guts. The orange chemical wasn't harming her. If anything, her twinkling eyes, and her lustily opened mouth suggested she was enjoying the experience.

Soon - too soon - no trace of the gas remained. She slowly closed her mouth. Her cheeks were not puffed out, and it was clear that the whole cloud had been sucked into her lungs. The scientist's sacrifice had been in vain. I began to feel the weight of the moment's significance. Another of our weapons had failed. The girl was as invulnerable to poison as she was to conventional firearms. As I lay there, the full realisation of what I was witnessing still growing within me, I saw the blur of bullets and shrapnel that still surrounded her. The sound of constant gunfire and explosions all around had not diminished for a moment and neither had the unending stream of hot lead and steel striking the alien's body. And now she had swallowed the orange fog that I had presumed to be deadly.

Worse followed soon afterwards. The girl took a moment to look around herself. The obvious, mischievous glint in her eye genuinely terrified me. She seemed to be admiring the chaos all around that she had created. Perhaps she was, but I quickly learnt that her primary goal was to select a target. She stopped mid-head-turn. I'd seen her do that on a number of occasions already. Each time she located her next victim that way, she would immediately set off in relaxed pursuit. But on this occasion, she did not move. A moment passed during which I found myself waiting in dread for her next action.

Suddenly, her luscious lips parted. She pushed them out, the beauty and aggressive femininity of the sight distracting me, yet again. Sexual yearning burned in my mind, even as, to my horror, an orange coloured jet shot out from between those desirable lips. She had not swallowed the gas, merely held it in her lungs. Now she was exhaling it, in a premeditated manner; directing it through a gap in her devastatingly sexy mouth. I watched as the highly visible jet stretched from the girl's face. She appeared to be simply blowing, yet the power of it was such that the orange stream reached a group of men thirty yards from her. I could hear the roaring rush of air, even above the never-ending battle sounds, a testament to the incalculable power of this girl's exhalation.

The men near the far end of the jet collapsed a moment after the remarkable gust first reached them. It was immediately clear to me that the poison which had so totally failed to harm her was instantly deadly to our men. She began to turn her head, using the jet of her gas-laden breath as a riot-policeman would use a high-pressure water-hose. Whenever the stream passed near a soldier, he fell to ground. She continued to exhale, spreading death over a wide arc in front of her until, after what felt an age but was probably mere seconds, the orange colour began to fade. The hurricane-like noise ceased. She had closed her lips.

In front of where she stood, there was a forty-five meter deep area that had been full of men a few moments before. Now it contained nothing but bodies; soldiers and civilians who had succumbed to the fatal effects of a few cubic millimetres of the gas. I turned my binoculars from the horrendous scene of strewn corpses back to the alien. She was laughing once again, as though the mass-murder - or perhaps the style in which she had committed it - had been great sport to her. She was enjoying herself! The more we fought in vain against her, the more numbers of us she killed, the better her fun.

She turned around slowly, so that she was now in profile to me. The level of gunfire had diminished slightly with the latest massacre, but I could still see a hail of ricocheting metal surrounding the dramatic curves of her body. I saw her lips come together in a kiss-like fashion once more and froze in horror, fearing that she had not yet exhausted the store of poison gas in her respiratory system. But as she blew, and the noise of blasting wind reached me once again, I saw no trace of orange. This was simply her own breath now. But for the men within reach of her amazing lungs, the lack of man-made toxins was no consolation for being targeted. The sheer force of her blowing lifted men off the ground as far away as fifty meters from her, sending them tumbling helplessly through the air like grains of sand in a hurricane, smashing into one another and the men and equipment behind them.

She cut the exhalation short after a few moments having doubled the size of the cleared area around her. Now the number of surviving guys remaining within shooting distance of her had been reduced to just a handful. When she finished haughtily surveying the effects of her latest effortless, deadly attack, the girl threw her head back and roared with hysterical laughter. There were so few guys still firing their guns that, between the explosions of longer-range munitions, I could clearly hear the peals of hilarity from where I was, and they chilled me to the core. She was unstoppable. Just by blowing at us, she had cruelly cut so many men down. The scale of her superiority over us boggled my mind. The fact that she appeared to be enjoying herself enormously as she causally massacred us made the scene seem even more hellish still.

As her laughter died down, I became aware of the sound of approaching aircraft and my thoughts were split in two. Part of me was relived to hear that aerial reinforcements were coming to our aid. And if planes were coming, so land vehicles would also be on their way. More units, more weapons and more men were coming to join the battle. And that idea also formed the basis for the other side of my thoughts. Try as I did to salvage every possible glimmer of hope, I could see no reason to believe that those planes or vehicles would be bringing anything with them that might change the course of the fight. All I envisaged being carried to the scene were further victims of the lone, beautiful, naked alien girl.

I could see the planes overhead, flying in a column, one behind the next. The whine of jet engines rose until I had to cover my ears as the lead plane went into a steep dive. For a few seconds, I thought it was about to plough right into the ground where I was lying, but at the last moment, the pilot skilfully pulled out of his plunge to fly parallel with the earth at a height of less than thirty meters. The dirt just a few steps from me suddenly began to erupt in small bursts as the lead jet spat out a deadly rain of heavy automatic gun-fire. I watched as a curtain of falling bullets moved away from me, the lethal line passing right over the girl, spraying her with uncountable shots which simply bounced off her as everything else we'd tried had already done.

When the jet was already beyond her, the girl drew her hand back, and I noticed that her fist was closed. It was only when she thrust her arm upwards, opening her fingers, that I realised she had caught a handful of bullets in her palm - just like a child might catch snowflakes. I heard the tone of the plane's engines suddenly change as the pieces of metal tore into them. The jet did not explode immediately. It descended sharply, a billow of black smoke pouring from its fuselage. A frantic, almost scream-like noise accompanied its rapid fall until, with a boom that shook the ground, it hit and dissolved into fire. Large pieces of burnt plane crash down all around me. I heard a yell to my right and looked over just in time to see two more of my colleagues vanish beneath a charred piece of wing. The girl, meanwhile, had turned slowly to see the explosion she had caused. When she, equally unhurriedly, turned back, a broad smile was fixed to her face once more.

Despite the fate of the lead plane, the second jet in the column went into a similar dive moments later. I ducked my head, pressing my face into the dirt as it pulled up and began strafing the ground with machine-gun fire. I raised my chin just in time to see this latest burst of metallic death splashing like raindrops from the top of the alien's head, her long shiny hair hardly disturbed by the armour-piercing onslaught. I checked her hand, but saw that it was open, hanging by her side. I felt a sense of relief. It looked to me as if this second jet might be spared. Certainly, the girl had caught no bullets to toss at it.

But I hadn't seen her foot. I noticed it a moment later. Her knee was bent and her toes pointed. They seemed to be buried underneath a small piece of jagged, burnt steel. No doubt it had once been a section of the first jet's fuselage. I knew what was about to happen even before she moved her delicate-looking ankle. Yet I found myself unable to tear my eyes away as the horror I'd predicted unfurled. She flicked the front of her foot upwards and the chunk of metal was launched by her pretty toes like a surface-to-air missile. It travelled with such force and speed that I never saw it in flight. One second her foot moved and the next a deafening explosion filled the sky above her. The fire and smoke blocked everything else from view for a moment before falling debris forced me to protect my head once more.

The earth shook as a big piece of jet crashed down near me. When I finally looked up, the girl was grinning, and nothing but a few small piles of twisted, burning junk remained of the plane. I looked around. Whereas the area where I was lying had been crowded a few minutes before, now there was no-one within thirty yards of me. I realised with an increasing feeling of emptiness that somewhere amidst all the smoke and flames were the remains of the rest of my unit. And still, I didn't move. And still, I continued to watch.

The third jet in the group entered into its dive. As it neared the moment when I knew it would level out to pepper the ground with arms-fire, the fourth plane dipped its nose, following the path of its predecessor considerably more closely that the others had done. I wasn't sure if I admired the bravery of the pilots or despaired at their stupidity. Surely, everyone could now see the pointlessness of attacking the girl. But I could not look away as jets number three and four swooped low to strike at her. Number three opened fire, and I ducked for a moment, but instead of holding my head down, I looked up as soon as I felt I could. I was unable to take my eyes off the girl. I watched, even though I knew that I would have to witness the sickening sight of her destroying the two planes. I was hypnotised; morbidly transfixed to the scene in front of me.

There was no flash of her hand throwing bullets at the jet and no flick of her foot to send a chunk of steel hurtling towards it. Instead, she waited calmly until jet number three was almost on top of her, ignoring entirely the high-calibre ammunition pouring down on her. She tilted back her head, her face an arrogant study in indifference as she pouted and blew. I heard the sound of the wind she produced even above the roar of the jets. Channelled though her mouth, that wind was strong enough to knock the on-rushing plane out of its flight-path, its nose tipping back as her breath blasted it with a force far in excess of what its engines could generate. The plane turned in the air until its nose was pointing straight at the sky. At the same time it began to decelerate until, astoundingly, its bearing was completely reversed.

I nearly lost my mind trying to come to terms with the scene I was observing. The girl was pushing the plane back in the direction it had come from. A military jet, at top speed, utterly overpowered by a young woman's exhalation! I looked from plane to girl. She continued to blow and her sexy lips were still extended but no trace of any strain showed on her features. She was making it look easy! At the same time, the jet was picking up speed as it was forced ever further from her, ever higher into the air. It was then that I understood her intention. Maybe the two jet pilots realised it too. If they did, it was too late.

Jet number three rocketed under the power of the girl's lungs straight at jet number four. The farther away of the two planes swerved violently to the left in an attempt to avoid a collision. The alien moved her head a few millimetres to the side, re-aligning the stream of her breath which, in turn, steered the plane under its control into the new path of the other jet. There was no time for any further evasive action. She had won. Her will had dictated the passage of events. The two jets collided. As the orange and yellow and white ball of fire swallowed them whole, the boom finally reached me. I felt sick. Brightly glowing fingers of smoke curled outwards from the mass of flames and turned in the air, stretching towards the ground. I pushed my nose into the dirt beneath me and held my arms over the back of my head as objects of all sizes from tiny to nearly as big as me began to crash down all around. I felt a shudder and smelt burning and when I looked, a still burning piece of jet engine lay just ten meters from me. The fire had disappeared from the sky. So too had the two planes.

I was certain that there had been further jets in the squadron. I looked up through the smoke-filled air and could just about make out the shape of a couple of retreating jets. Maybe their pilots were disobeying orders. Maybe their superiors had stopped short of sending more airmen to their deaths. It made no difference. The girl clearly saw them too and decided that they would not be allowed to flee. She bent at the waist, leaning slightly to the right so that she could scoop up a large piece of twisted metal debris with that hand. I saw her hold the strip out in front of herself, adjusting her grip so that she held it with one hand at either end. Then she just tore it in half as though it were nothing more than a sheet of paper - two centimetre thick metal, ripped in her bare hands!

She let her hands come down by her waist, each holding its own half of the original chunk. She didn't raise her arms as I expected. Instead, she merely flicked her wrists, tossing the two pieces of metal underarm at the escaping aircraft. I couldn't see the improvised missiles in flight, nor did I hear the distant impacts as they hit their targets. But I did see the twin trails of black smoke from the stricken planes and I did hear the far-off crescendo of their engines as they plummeted earthwards. For once, I managed to close my eyes so I didn't have to see the double explosion as the two jets smashed down. That was small consolation as the sound of the girl's unchecked laughter reached my horrified ears, denying me the escape I craved from the unceasing horror.

If those in command had sought to spare their pilots, they did not appear to have equal concern for the rest of us. My radio crackled into life just moments after the last two jets were downed with orders for all first wave ground troops to leave their positions and attack the target. Normally, such instructions would have come from my immediate superior. But my immediate superior and most of my colleagues were probably dead by then. Command must've been aware of the situation and were issuing a blanket order for any remaining infantry on the scene, knowing that the usual chains had been not so much broken as shattered to dust.

I raised my head and looked around. I saw a man standing up from being a small ridge in the ground. Another soldier arose to my left, shaking off the dirt he had been lying beneath. Two men appeared almost directly in front of me, crawling out from beneath a pile of the bodies of their comrades. One half of this pair could barely walk, let alone run. His partner broke into a run, his machine gun spitting out streams of useless bullets long before he even came within range of the girl. The two others I had seen also charged at her. One fired his weapon indiscriminately in her direction as he sprinted. The other had probably lost his gun, or else he'd run out of ammo. Why else would he have chosen to attack the apparently invulnerable alien with nothing but his knife?

The full implication of the one-sided battle was finally brought home to me when I saw this ragged, hopeless four man army. It should have been five men, I know, but between my fear and the strange fascination I had with watching every gut-wrenching act the girl committed I just couldn't move. I was cowardly. I disobeyed orders. But when the order for all of us to attack went out, and only four others appeared from amongst the debris and the bodies, I knew that, as far as this particular command was concerned, obedience equalled death. How many of us had there been when the alien first tore her way out of her "indestructible" craft? At least two hundred. Plus two dozen or so scientists and other civilians. Countless more fighting men had joined the raging battle as they arrived on the scene. Behind me, in the distance, I could see the haphazardly parked trucks they had arrived in. And now, only five of us remained!

Even as I watched, frozen to the ground, I knew that four of those five were not going to be long amongst the ranks of the living. The first man fell when he was still fifteen yards from the girl. I couldn't see if he was felled by one his own bullets ricocheting from that stunning body or by a shot from his colleague who was charging in at an angle. Seconds later, this second soldier was dead too. There was no doubt in my mind that he was killed by his own fire bouncing back towards him as he neared to within five meters of her. She showed no reaction to either man's fate, but remained still, standing defiantly with her arms by her sides. She wasn't laughing now, just grinning smugly. I wanted to scream out to the two remaining attackers, tell them to turn around and get the hell away from her, but they were both doomed already and nothing I could have done would have made any difference to that tragic fact.

There were no ricocheting bullets to cut down the man brandishing his blade. He got close enough to the girl to draw back his arm in preparation for slashing his weapon at her. But the sharpened steel never met her perfect skin. Her arm flashed out for a moment. Less than a second later it was hanging by her side once more as the knifeman's body slumped at her feet. Only then did I see that his head had been destroyed completely by her lightning-fast strike, and that the blood on her hand and forearm was now all that remained of his skull and its one-time contents.

She raised that arm in front of her face, moving her feet at a casual pace as she positioned herself to stand looking towards the only other being on its feet within forty meters of her. The last attacker continued to limp heavily as he followed his orders. The deaths of so many others didn't seem to be deterring him as he held his gun out in shaking hands. I saw the girl beaming broadly at him. She brought her blood-splattered forearm to her mouth. Slowly, erotically, she thrust out her long pink tongue and used it to lick a long, wide strip of her limb clean of gore. She drew it back into her mouth, and closed her lips as if savouring the taste. Then, she smiled once more at her next victim. I think, but cannot be totally sure, that I spotted her winking at him at that point.

He was still about fifteen meters from her, each slow step clearly causing him great pain. I saw him raising up his gun, the weapon vibrating in his unsteady grip as he prepared to fire. The girl began to stride towards him. She moved so gracefully, her remarkable body the epitome of feminine beauty as her long, shapely legs closed the gap between them. Her perfect chest was thrust out, the two large lust-inducing mounds bouncing very slightly with each step. Her arms were swinging freely at her sides, her whole comportment one of relaxed ease. In direct contrast, the wounded soldier struggled in clumsy panic to fire his weapon in time.

He never did manage to shoot at her. Before he could, the girl's sexy stroll carried her within a long, slender arm's reach of the end of his gun. She grabbed it with a single hand and yanked it out of his grasp. In a single, fluid movement, she tossed it over her head. I did not see where the weapon landed; wherever it was, it was far out of the range of my binoculars. By then my eye-glasses were pointed once again at the mismatched duo of big, muscular soldier and petite, naked alien girl. I knew something horrible was about to happen to him, but for the life of me, I simply could not look away.

Her right hand moved between them. She kept it low and I saw the wounded man's own hands being brushed aside as he tried to push it away. Her fingers opened as they stretched towards him and then closed. There was no noise of gunfire to disguise his terrible scream an instant later. A cry of pure pain rang across the battlefield, chilling me to the core. It took a moment for me to see how the girl had caused such an extreme reaction. When her arm bent at the elbow and her victim's feet rose from the ground, his body folding double over her fist so that his hands hung by his feet and his entire weight was being supported by her feminine arm, I understood. She had grabbed him, tightly enough to lift him, by his reproductive organs.

I shuddered to think of the agony the poor man had to be suffering at that moment. For an instant, I considered leaving my hiding place and charging in, my gun firing. I knew I wouldn't cause so much as a scratch to appear on the alien's perfect body, but at least I would end my colleague's pain. I would also, I realised, be sacrificing my own life. In the end, the same combination of cowardice and morbid fascination that had rooted me to the spot throughout the carnage I'd witnessed continued to keep me where I was. To my eternal shame, I just stared, despite the horrors taking place and despite the horrors I knew were yet to come.

The girl began to raise her hand upwards, lifting the screaming man as she did so until her arm was fully stretched above her head, the wounded soldier's hands and feet dangling by her face. She held him like that as if in a demonstration of her strength, her one arm supporting his considerable bulk with no visible sign of any strain. His yells of agony continued all the while, and I can only guess that she was still squeezing him between her fingers with crushing force. I noticed that he was beginning to shake slightly. I thought at first that he was convulsing in pain and perhaps he was. But the main reason his body was jiggling about was that the girl holding him above her head was laughing. Her head was thrown back so that she was looking directly up at her latest victim as he screamed in her cruel grasp. And she was, beyond any doubt, rocking with mirth as she observed his torture.

To my great relief, the man's torment did not last too much longer. Given the cold-blooded, gleeful way the alien had spilled so much blood, I doubt that she ended his ordeal out of mercy. It seemed more likely at the time, given the manner in which her laughter subsided and then her smile yielded to a sneer, that the girl simply became bored with her latest amusement. Her arm which had been holding the soldier aloft, bent, causing his helpless body to lower about half a meter, his limbs flailing about. Then that arm shot up straight again, her fingers releasing their emasculating, humiliating grip on him. Although her hand could go no further, its rapid movement had transferred its momentum to the man she lifted. No longer held by her, there was no limit to how far he could travel. His dying scream faded to inaudible as his frame rocketed into the sky. I never saw where it landed. All I know is that it was far - very far - from where she had thrown him.

There was a moment of relative calm after that. The hellish racket of earlier had been silenced. Now there were no small arms fire, no machine guns, no grenade launchers, no planes overhead. And no screaming. These noises had ceased because the alien girl had made them stop. She had killed the shooters and destroyed the aircraft. She had caused the screaming with her violence. And she had silenced it with her violence too. The comparative quiet was a terrifying statement of her effectiveness in the battle up to that point. I observed her through my binoculars. She seemed to be surveying the destruction all around her. Her chin was slightly raised, her expression a blend of smug satisfaction and contemptuous superiority.

I stared at her stunning face and body. Contrasting it with the devastation that bore witness to her power, I realised that I was looking at a physically perfect being. Our weapons, it seemed, could not harm her. But her body, with its slender frame, elegant limbs and erotic curves hid unfathomable strength. Sufficient strength to tear apart an alien metal that our hottest lasers and hardest diamonds could not so much as scratch. Sufficient strength, I reminded myself, to kill men with a wave of her petite, feminine hand. Even her breath was powerful enough to knock a jet plane completely off course! There was nothing I thought; nothing at all that we could do against such a being.

A distant boom ended my reflecting. Someone in command obviously disagreed with my belief that the girl was unopposable. I turned to the source of the sound and saw a line of distant tanks. These had obviously arrived late on the scene, summoned from every base in the area. I realised that more and more of them had come during the chaos earlier, when I had been distracted by the carnage all around me. In the sky above them, I spotted an object in flight, speeding towards where I lay. I know immediately that it had to be a shell of some kind. The battle vehicles - I saw more and more as I trained my binoculars - had been held back as they arrived, away from the immediate vicinity of the fighting, to be used in a co-ordinated assault.

I suddenly understood why the blanket order for all ground troops to attack had been given. Command knew that the men holding positions in that area would stand no chance under a tank barrage. Our fate already sealed, the battle planners wanted us to try one last time to harm the girl. Now that Command believed there was no-one but the alien left alive, they had given the order for heavy ammunition to be used. There was no longer any need for caution. Another boom reached my ears followed by a third and then a fourth. I could see the distant flashes of light as each shell was fired from the tanks' cannons. The nearest mortar had already begun to descend towards its target. The next three were close behind. Suddenly, my hiding place had become completely insecure.

I didn't know what to do. To get up and run would have attracted the attention of the girl, surely tantamount to suicide. But to stay there and wait for a shell to blow me to bits was an equally unattractive prospect. I glanced around, desperately searching for some kind of shelter. About twenty meters to my right, I spotted a large piece of the wing of a jet-fighter. It was longer than my height and almost as wide as my body. I knew it could not offer much protection, but it was my only chance. Sticking out from beneath it, I could clearly see a boot. I didn't know if it was attached to anything, but I reasoned that even if it was, I needed shelter more than the owner of that footwear. I made a snap decision. I couldn't stand up and sprint over there as the alien would surely notice me. Instead, I started to squirm over the ground on my belly.

I left my gun behind, because I knew it wouldn't save me. My only strategy was survival. To hide and let the battle rage on without me. My hope was to remain alive until the girl, for whatever reason, was gone. In my heart I did not believe that we could kill her or even force her to leave. I clung to the slim possibility that she might go of her own accord. Where she would go, and to do what, I did not try and guess. I just prayed that she would somehow disappear. But before I could think of that, I had to get myself under the flimsy cover offered by the bit of airplane debris I was crawling towards. Anxiously, I checked the girl. There was no indication that she had seen me and so I moved on.

It was just at that moment that the first shell landed. It fell behind the alien from my perspective, at least sixty meters from me but the force of its explosion still bumped me onto my side. I saw the girl briefly silhouetted against a flash of flames, the blast lifting up her long hair for a moment but otherwise having no other effect on her. As I frantically righted myself, clumps of displaced earth rained down over me and a couple of pebbles fell onto my head, one knocking my face into the ground. I suppressed a yell of pain. My hand instinctively went to the point of impact. It felt wet. When I examined my fingers, they were stained with my blood. I put the wound out of my mind and concentrated on making it to shelter.

I didn't see where the second mortar hit, but it must've been considerably closer to me. I had almost reached my goal, but the shockwaves rolled me sideways, over and over. The ground and sky flashed past me alternatively for a moment before I finally brought myself to a halt. It took a moment for me to get my bearings. Now the broken wing was ten meters away, positioned between me and the alien. Over the tip of it, I could see the upper half of her body. Wherever that mortar had come down, it had clearly been as ineffective as the first. She was smiling once again, but otherwise nothing about her had changed. Under the wing, I noticed the protruding soldier's boot once again. I knew I had to get in there myself before the next shell hit.

I slithered for all I was worth towards the relative safety offered, but a scream overhead told me I wouldn't make it in time. I glanced up and saw the latest shell descending towards the girl. I knew I should dive for the wing, or at least protect my face and head with my arms, but that peculiar fascination she inspired in me took over once more for an instant and I actually kept my head up to watch as the mortar fell. It was well-aimed and it came to ground only a couple of meters from where she stood. For her part, the alien barely seemed to notice it fall from the sky. Even as my ears were assaulted by the explosion and the heat of it scorched my face; even as my view of her was obscured by flames; even as the ground beside her was ferociously torn up and thrown into the air, I knew. I knew she was unharmed.

As the debris poured down, I scrambled the last two meters to the sanctuary promised by the piece of jet. I noticed then that the boot I had seen was still attached to its owner. He was lying, pinned beneath the chunk of plane wing, his clothes soaked with his blood, long since dead. I had to crawl over him to get as much of my body as I could under the shelter. I pulled my legs over the corpse with seconds to spare as the fourth shell crashed to ground just a few meters away. It exploded. The noise hurt my ears, rattling my skull and the heat slightly burnt my legs through my combat trousers. Something big, hard and heavy smashed into the metal above me, pushing it down onto my back and I whispered my gratitude to the section of wing for undoubtedly saving my life. A hail of displaced ground rattled on to the makeshift roof above me in response.

There was a small gap between two sections of the broken wing and it afforded me an excellent view of the alien. Behind me, over my shoulder, I could see the row of tanks, more clearly than before. They were on the move! All along the line of cannons, I saw the flashes of light that announced the firing of another shell. In a moment of complete panic, I realised that I was trapped in a field of death. The few explosions that I'd endured so far were nothing compared to the hell-fire that was about to descend. Behind that, twenty or more tanks were tearing across the ground right towards where I was cowering. I was caught between the on-rushing war machines and an alien who had already torn apart half an army with her hands! Unable to do anything but trust in fate, I turned from the tanks to peer at the girl - this extraterrestrial mass-murderer with god-like powers who happened to have the appearance of a sexy, young, naked female girl. This physically perfect being. This cruel killer of men.

She was smiling once more, gazing up at the waves of incoming mortars as if they were nothing more than a flock of birds. To her, perhaps they were even less significant. I held no hope that the shells would succeed in harming her, only fear that, seventy meters away, I would be the one who perished. As the first mortars came in, I buried myself under the wing, my face pressed into the dirt, my arms over my head, covering my ears. The ground shook over and over again. That, and the muffled sounds of explosions and things hitting the metal above me, were all I experienced of the onslaught. I dared not move or raise my head whilst it lasted. The account of the barrage that follows comes from official reports as I didn't witness any of it.

 

"The tanks fired off rounds in rapid succession as they sped towards their target. Any attempts at observing the extraterrestrial quickly became futile as the area for fifty meters around her filled with flames, smoke, flying earth and debris. This situation lasted for the full two-and-a-half minute duration of the barrage. According to munitions experts, there was enough destructive power in that assault to raze a small town to the ground. Concentrated over a relatively small zone, there is absolutely no possibility that any known material or object could withstand such a devastating bombardment. The depleted-uranium tipped shells deployed have been successfully tested against every kind of man-made armour. The volume of high-grade military explosives employed was greater than that used in any single action on any previous occasion in history."

"Using various specialist viewing systems, such as infra-red and sonar, we were able to determine that a high proportion of shells landed on target (that is to say, within five or less meters of the extraterrestrial). All indications are that a number between eight and fourteen shells impacted directly with the target itself. Our data revealed that the temperature in the immediate vicinity reached over one thousand degrees Celsius and did not fall below two hundred throughout the assault."

"At no point could we discern any sign that the extraterrestrial was knocked down or otherwise disturbed and this is borne out by subsequent events and observations."

 

Throughout the one hundred and fifty seconds of the mortar barrage, I did not, could not move. If the report had said it lasted two days, I would not have been surprised, such was the way that time seemed to stretch out to infinity for me. The constant shaking of the earth beneath me and the terrible rumblings in my covered ears prevented me from distinguishing one explosion from the next. I expected the thin metal protection above me to fail at any moment. I don't know how I survived. The only serviceable explanation that I have found is pure luck. Why I was so blessed is a mystery. I should have been killed a hundred times on that day.

Eventually though, the booms ceased. The ground was still vibrating as I cautiously raised my head. The air was so thick with smoke and charred chemicals that breathing was almost impossible. My eyes stung and filled with water in contact with it. I blinked my vision as clear as I could and looked first through the tiny gap towards where I had last seen the alien. Visibility was poor as dust saturated the scene and I couldn't make anything out at all. Turning to look behind me, I saw why the earth continued to shake. The line of tanks was almost upon me!

Having survived the shell assault against the odds, I found myself in imminent danger of being run over by the massive treads of a fast approaching battle tank. Its massive cannon loomed almost directly above me. It took a while for my survival instincts to take over, but at the last possible moment, I dived out from under the wing, rolling over uncontrollably. I came to a stop just in time to see my former shelter crumpling like paper beneath the enormous weight of the tank's left treads. The dead body I'd been sharing it with burst as though it were an over-ripe piece of fruit someone was stepping on - a chilling example of the fate I'd narrowly avoided.

I checked my bearings and discovered that I was lying on the ground between two advancing tanks. As they passed, I twisted my head to look over my shoulder. The entire row of vehicles was continuing to advance towards where the girl had been. The dust over there was slowly clearing but it was still too thick for me to see anything. The tanks passed me completely and I was left exposed once again. I briefly considered running in the direction the vehicles had come from, but I decided against it. Lying still on the ground had served me well as a tactic up until then. I hoped it would continue to do so.

I rolled onto my belly, primarily so that I could watch what was happening. I looked up at the back of the tanks as they moved away from me. The dust cloud was still heavy ahead of them and for a moment, I wondered if I would lose sight of them in there. Suddenly, one of the tanks jerked to a halt. Then the one beside it stopped just as abruptly. All along the line, the armoured machines were pulling up sharply, the closest one about thirty meters from where I was. My attention was caught by a tank near the far end of the line which hadn't yet stopped. The back end of it suddenly tipped up into the air, rocking for a moment before disappearing from view. It had fallen over the edge of something.

I realised pretty quickly what that something had to be. All those shells had blasted a deep crater into the ground. The tank drivers hadn't been able to see the huge hole for the dust until very late, which was why they braked so suddenly. The tank that vanished must not have stopped in time. It had toppled over the steep edge of the hollow. A few moments' partial quiet followed. I could begin to make out the lip of the crater as the particles of dirt and debris in the air slowly began to settle.

And then I saw it. The tank that had fallen just reappeared. Flying. It just rose rapidly from inside the massive hole in the ground as if it had rockets attached to its underside. It continued to gain height until its treads were at least ten meters above the edge of the crater. Then it started to descend. It landed with a mighty clang directly onto the roof of another tank, snapping off the gun-barrel. The frame of the lower machine groaned as it gave way to the weight that had dropped onto it, crumpling up like an empty cigarette packet for a second or two before its fuel stores ignited. A ball of orange flames rose up, consuming both tanks. Black smoke poured into the sky from the upper reaches of the fire.

The two vehicles on either side of the inferno went into reverse, the one nearest me backing to within twenty meters of where I was lying. From my viewpoint, the space between them was filled with the burning wreckage of another two tanks I thought I could see something moving amongst the flames. A moment later and I was sure. Someone was in there, walking about in the raging fire. I wondered if it was one of the crew, but quickly dismissed the thought. A man ablaze does not walk calmly. He runs. A hollow feeling grew in my belly as realisation dawned on me.

I already knew who was strolling through those flames. I should have worked it out when I saw the fallen tank shooting out of the crater. There was only one way that could have happened. Something in the hole had thrown the huge machine back out. Not something but someone. I racked my brain, trying to remember how much those things weigh. Was it fifty tonnes? Sixty? The not-so-mystery figure was emerging from the continuing blaze. The sight of her slim, nubile body, even though it was expected, shocked me. The facts were difficult to digest. But facts they were. This petite girl had lifted sixty tonnes and tossed it thirty meters into the air. This delicate-looking young female had survived two-and-a-half minutes of sustained mortar attack.

She had walked clear of the flames now, her stunning appearance set so dramatically against a background of fierce fire. I could smell the flesh burning inside the wreckage of the two tanks. The girl continued to advance, her arms free at her sides. I could not see her face from that distance until I remembered my binoculars. Amazingly, they were still hung by their strap from around my neck. Even more remarkably, they were intact. I brought them up to my eyes and looked at her. Reacquainting myself with her stunning appearance in such detail shocked me all over again. She was so beautiful! I watched her striding so gracefully. Try as I might, I could not see a single trace of any blemish anywhere on her lovely skin. All those shells hadn't even bruised her!

She was only fifteen meters away from the two backed-off tanks. I saw the two turrets turning in opposite directions, their cannons both converging on the slow-moving target. They fired one after the other. I actually saw the first shell just about to strike her dead-centre on her flat stomach. Then it exploded, shortly followed by the other tank's blast and she disappeared into a fireball again. Seconds later, the smoke cleared. The girl had advanced about ten meters in the meantime. The twin strike had failed to break so much as her stride. All the two depleted uranium-tipped shells had achieved was to make her laugh once more.

A couple more languid, easy strides and then she paused for a moment. She looked up at the tank on her left and then the one on her right and then pulled down her pouty lower lip with a single dainty finger, making a show of choosing between the two vehicles like a child asked which flavour of ice-cream she would prefer. Eventually, she selected the one on her right. She took four more steps towards it so that she was standing directly beneath the end of its barrel, the long metal cylinder about thirty centimetres above the crown of her head.

Her long arm reached up, her fingers closing around the metal. With my eye-glasses I could see the two-centimetre thick steel yielding to her touch, the tube actually compressing beneath her fingers. In a second, she had rendered the cannon useless. Seeing the way she crushed the cylinder I could not help but think of the soldier she had lifted over her head by his groin. I shuddered involuntarily as she yanked her arm back, tearing the entire barrel clean away from the top of the tank. It had to weigh nearly a tonne and yet she held it, unbalanced, in a single small hand without any difficulty.

She adjusted her grip on the tube, holding it out in front of her with two hands. With an easy swing of her wrists, she wielded the massive thing like a baseball bat, slamming the end of it into the side of the tank in front of her hard enough to make a deafening noise and briefly lift the entire vehicle off the ground and knock it a meter or so sideways. The cannon was bent almost at right-angles by the impact, and I saw a deep dent in the side of the tank's armour.

She tossed the now banana-shaped tube to the side. I watched in awe as it flew, spinning through the air until it was too distant to see, even with my binoculars. The girl stepped up to the side her bat had dented, balled up her fingers and punched the metal. She didn't even draw her arm back, yet her little fist had enough power to do what the cannon couldn't. It penetrated the thick armour as if it were damp cardboard. With her arm inside the tank, she used it like a letter-opener to cut a meter-long, ten centimetre-high slit in the side of the vehicle, moving so casually that she made the feat look effortless. Perhaps it was.

The slender arm withdrew from the tank and she placed her hands on the two sides of the slit it had carved. Then, she just moved those little hands apart, as if opening a slatted window blind. With a metallic scream, huge sheets of heavily reinforced thick steel tank tore and wadded up against her palms as she ripped a massive hole in the tank. I could see the men inside, frantically getting out of their seats and trying to move away from the new door that was being roughly installed in their vehicle. They disappeared from my sight as the girl leaned her upper body through the massive breach for a moment. When she stood up straight again next to the tank, her hands and forearms were dripping with blood. Over her shoulder, I could see the horrific remains of at least two of the crew.

She turned to the tank to her left - the one she'd passed up before ripping the other open. The men inside must've seen her because as she started walking towards them, they fired the cannon. She was too close to be hit, however, and the shell was destined to pass half a meter over her head had she not reached up with one hand and caught it in mid-flight. Her arm moved so fast, it became a blur for a moment, before re-solidifying, clutching the shell. She brought it down, carrying it at her side as she strolled up to the side of the tank. Her free hand formed a fist and, just she had done with the previous armoured vehicle, she slammed it right through the metal, her arm ending up buried beyond her elbow.

The sight of the girl's little feminine fist carving through thick armour-plating that had cost millions to develop was breath-taking. And then, afterwards, she bent back that steel-based material and enlarged the hole she'd made merely by moving her slender arm around. When she pulled her hand out of the tank, she had created an opening about twenty centimetres in diameter. Smiling, she drew back her other hand - the one gripping the shell. I knew what she was about to do, but I was powerless to do anything but watch as she tossed the unexploded mortar at phenomenal speed through the rough hole she'd made in the side of the tank.

There was a terrible boom as the tip of the shell finally impacted with something and exploded as it had been designed to do. The blast was too powerful to be contained inside the tank. The turret was torn from its hinges and flung skyward, lifted at rocket-speed on a column of fire. Another jet of flame and thick smoke shot out of the cannon, briefly wrapping the girl in what should have been a deadly inferno. When it cleared, she was standing exactly as she had been, untouched by the extreme heat. My stomach turned as the whiff of charred bodies from within the tank reached my nostrils. I looked in hope but nothing other than thick black smoke came out of the ruined war machine. A couple of moments passed and the sound of fire died down slightly. I could hear the alien's evil, satisfied chuckling once again.

She turned and ran towards the nearest operational tank. As she charged she accelerated until she was barely visible as a blur to me. I couldn't see how she attacked the vehicle. Whether she kicked its flank or punched it, her movement was way too quick for my brain to register. All I can explain is that I heard a tremendous metallic clank and immediately saw that the entire machine - all sixty tonnes of it - was sailing through the air. It soared as quickly as a missile until it was so high and so distant that it disappeared from view altogether.

When I turned my gaze from the sky to look at the girl, her head was bent back, her eyes perhaps still able to see the ascending tank where my binoculars were no longer powerful enough to track it. She stopped looking up a few seconds later and turned towards the next armoured vehicle. It was only then that I noticed that all the surviving tanks where readjusting their cannon towards her current position. The huge guns were turning so slowly. I shuddered at the contrast between the ponderous movements of our best military technology and the young woman's lightning-quick body. Studying her, I observed her gleefully licking her lips before she suddenly vanished.

She didn't actually vanish, I learnt a second later. She had merely broken into a run at such a pace that my eyes simply didn't spot her moving. One instant she was standing still the next there was a massive bang fifty meters away and she was gone. I tuned as fast as I could to try and identify the source of the noise. I saw a tank. It took me a second or so to realise that there was a rough hole about two meters high and a meter and a half wide in the side of it. And another hole, the same size, on the other side. There was nothing between the two apertures. I was looking right through the machine. The girl had run through it, her naked body destroying the armoured steel - not to mention the men - it encountered as if they hadn't been there.

As the idea sunk in to my shocked brain, another deafening clang drew my attention to a different tank. This time, I knew what to expect. Sure enough, I found I could now suddenly see a rough passage right through the middle of it. At least the crew had not suffered any pain. The shock waves of her impacting against the outside of their vehicle would have killed them all instantly, before they were showered in supersonic shrapnel as she burst through the steel wall. Any of the already dead men she actually touched at that speed would have then been completely disintegrated. All that in the tiniest fraction of a second!

I tried to find the young woman who had caused the carnage and saw her standing directly in front of one of the remaining war machines. The end of the barrel of its cannon was about fifteen meters from her and aimed squarely at her. She had placed her hands arrogantly on her perfect hips and her head was cocked to one side. One of her legs was slightly bent at the knee and she was tapping her toes as if she were waiting impatiently for it to fire at her. A second later, a flash of light from the cannon and the accompanying boom announced that the big gun had, indeed, been fired.

Not for the first time, she vanished from my sight inside a raging fiery explosion. I could feel the blast from where I lay, some distance away. The shell had hit her directly, I assume in the head or the torso, at - in tank cannon terms - point-blank range. But when the flames died away and the smoke and the dust cleared sufficiently, I saw her exactly as she had been ten seconds before. Her cocky, defiant stance was unchanged. Even her foot was still tapping, as if she was disappointed. In response, the crew put their engines into reverse gear, backing away from her.

She started to walk towards the retreating vehicle. As it began to pick up speed, she broke into a jog. Her long legs moved so gracefully as she quickly closed the gap between herself and the tank. She reached up and grabbed its cannon, bringing herself to a halt. The tank also came to a stop. Its treads continued to work furiously at its sides, but now they only threw up dirt and pebbles from the ground. They did not carry the rest of the massive machine away from the stationary girl. Her single hand, clasped around the giant barrel tightly enough to deform the thick steel tube, held the entire thing in place.

Slowly, she drew her arm back. I watched in awe as that slender limb proved more powerful than a tank's mighty engine and the body of the armoured vehicle was pulled towards its captor. The petite, feminine frame of the alien girl was dwarfed by the giant steel beast and yet she displayed a complete dominance over it as she manipulated it with apparent ease in direct opposition to its huge motors. Furious eruptions of earth were spat up by the frantic, futile spinning of the treads but she casually continued to drag the tank closer to herself. The engines whined more and more desperately as if appealing to the forces of the universe for help in their losing battle.

The suffering of the tank's motor was short-lived. As soon as she had dragged the vehicle close enough to herself, she let go of the cannon and thrust out one of her long legs, planting her delicate foot square on the front of the machine. That single kick was enough to send the entire tank spinning end over end through the air. The girl placed her hands on her hips, and threw her head back to roar with laughter as she watched the huge war machine's enormous arc. It soared hundreds of yards on its improbable flight, finally crashing back to earth almost too far away for me to see it land.

Turning back to the alien, I saw her walking towards yet another tank. I felt a sinking feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. The fate of the crew of this latest machine seemed already to have been decided. Their destruction, I believed, was now inevitable. Would she now continue to systematically eradicate every single tank out there? What would she do with any survivors of the ridiculously one-sided battle? Would she make her way through the debris, casually executing those of us who were still alive?

A sudden darkness, as if someone had somehow found a dimmer switch that controlled the sun, made me tear my eyes from the exquisite beauty of our destroyer and look up. After all I had witnessed that day, I would have thought myself immune to shock, but I still recoiled in surprise when I saw the strange, rectangular object which is now commonly known as the "Mother-ship." Its dimensions are well documented elsewhere; suffice to say the presence of a thing, apparently made of metal, hovering in the air is shocking. When that thing is nearly a kilometre long, and blots out the sun with its sheer mass, it is quite simply awesome.

Everyone knows what happened next. I'm told that the sensuous female voice that emanated from the object was loud enough to be heard ten kilometres away. Down on the ground beneath it, I had to clasp my hands over my ears and bury my head under my arms to protect my eardrums from bursting. Still, despite that padding, I heard every syllable. At the time, I wondered why the voice was speaking in English. I have read a theory that might explain this: the aliens wanted us to understand their conversation. Perhaps they thought our humiliation was not yet complete enough. It was definitely complete a minute later though.

I'll never forget those words. "My daughter, I'm afraid the time has come for us to leave this solar system. I trust you have enjoyed your coming-of-age gift. We can return soon, with your sisters, as they reach maturity. There is enough of this planet to share between all four hundred of you."

I was so horrified by the implication of those words, I didn't look up to see, as others have reported, the beam of green light that shot out of the huge ship, illuminating our former tormentor. Seconds later, she and the Mother-ship had vanished, leaving nothing but destruction and death where, an hour before there had been a mighty army. I do not know why or how I survived those sixty minutes, but I was alive when they ended, and this has been my story. Like the rest of you, everyday for the rest of my life, I will wake wondering if the Day of Return has come.

  

Conceptfan, Jan. 2005.






No. 9 - "The List"

I didn't ask to become superhuman. I just happened to stagger into the wrong bar and pick up the wrong glass and drink it. Actually - the RIGHT bar and the RIGHT drink - I love all these great powers I now have…

It's wonderful being so much stronger than anyone else and it's even better being completely immune to harm. Perhaps my accidental empowerment was some kind of cosmic payback for all the horrid things that happened to me in the years before. All the guys that had mistreated me. Taken advantage. Abused me. Betrayed me. Hurt me.

After I'd drained that wrong/right glass, and the seven foot guy with bluish skin had raised his fist shouting "You stole my elixir, you stupid Earth bimbo!" I thought I was in for yet another beating. I'll never forget that moment when he hit me: his hand going "Crunch!" and his screaming. I wasn't sure what was going on so I kicked him between the legs. When he lifted off the floor and bounced off the ceiling, I started to realize things had changed.

I was still too freaked out by everything to fully understand it all - the green blood all around me didn't help - but I soon pieced it together. That "elixir" had made me super: stronger than fifty men, quicker than a racing car, and completely bullet-proof.

What I haven't mentioned is that I'm a real looker. That's partly why I was always getting into bad situations with guys. I can't help it, that's just the way I look. Long, dark, straight hair, large brown eyes, a cute nose, thick red lips, great teeth. And my body ain't bad either: fabulous legs, flared hips, a flat stomach - the works. ‘Course, what the guys really like are my big, firm and very round breasts. Yeah, I'm the thousand-watt bulb that moths think is the moon.

Being addicted to heroin made things all the more complicated. I had to make "compromises". The kind of compromises I regretted even before I made them. Those were bad days, alright. The elixir changed all that. It made me super and took away the need for drugs. But the memories of those times are still clear. Really, really clear, in fact, because now I have perfect recall.

One of the first things I did when I came to terms with being super, was sit down and write a list of names - all the guys who had ever done me wrong. Dealers. Landlords. So-called lovers. And, yes, pimps and clients too. I'm not proud of my past.

There were eighty-seven names on that list. I started to work my way down it. Tracking down each name and putting right some of the bad that he'd done. You might call it revenge. I call it closure. The first time I put a line through one of the names on the list, I felt as if a load had been lifted from my mind. The second, third, fourth and fifth times were just as rewarding.

Probably the most satisfying name to cross out was the fifty-third one: Eric the Fixer. He fixed things: if a girl like me needed some stuff, he provided it. Once, that is, he's slapped her around a little, screwed her and made her open her legs for a couple of his low-life associates. Seventeen times Eric "fixed" things for me. Like I said, those were bad, bad days. He called me his "Number One bitch", told me that he hated it when the other guys went with me ‘cos he wanted me all to himself, but, "business was business".

He was easy to find. Still hanging around the same crappy apartments. "Remember me?" I asked him when I walked up to him.

"Hey, I could never forget tits like those, babe." he said. "Do you want me to fix you? How about a roll, for old times' sake?" He was already reaching up to grope my breasts. I caught his wrists and held them immovably before he made contact.

"Ouch, bitch! You're hurting me." he yelled.

"I haven't even started yet." I told him as I slowly squeezed his wrists until I heard a couple of bones crunching.

"Aagh! What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"I'm fixing you, Eric." I told him. "Fixing you good and proper. For old times' sake." I pushed his wrists back, letting go so that he fell onto his ass. Before he could get up I put my foot on his chest, pinning him down and squeezing all the air out of him. I pressed the toe of my boot down until his face turned purple. Then I pressed some more and listened to the muffled pops as his ribs snapped one by one. When I lifted my foot, he frantically tried to gulp down air.

"You'll.... pay.... for..... this." he wheezed, painfully. I lowered myself over him, placing one hand either side of his head and my knees by his hips. I was wearing a low-cut top so he would have had a good view of my generous cleavage and the breasts he was so fond of as I leant over him, my face close to his.

"You're the only one paying today, Eric." I whispered. I drew my knees together, slowly squeezing his pelvis until he screamed. I silenced him by forcefully kissing him and continued to press his hips inwards until his bones gave way. Forcing my tongue through his teeth, I used it to crush his tongue so he couldn't yell.

He was still just about conscious when I broke the embrace and stood up. We both knew he was done for. I blew him a good-bye kiss, turned and slowly walked away, leaving him to a slow, painful death.

At home I took out my list and put a line through Eric's name.

The next day, I began hunting down number fifty-four.

  

Conceptfan, Aug. 2005.






No. 10 - "Clara's Destiny"

Another Time, Another Place

The crystal chamber gleamed, its pure white surfaces a perfect contrast with the black canopy of star-speckled sky above. Unseen machinery hummed inside and below the pristine walls but the sterile cleanliness of the room belied its age which would be more conveniently measured in centuries than mere years.

Inside the vast space, the two figures deep in conversation appeared almost insignificantly small. Even the crystalline space craft beside them was dwarfed by the massive dimensions of the chamber. Once, the room had been filled with people and activity - the greatest minds of a proud civilisation engaged in scientific endeavour. Now, as that civilisation entered its final moments, the pair were almost alone.

"Sor-El! You cannot just send our only daughter out into space like that, all alone through the galaxies to live on another world! She's just an infant!"

"You cannot believe that it is better to keep her here and watch her die with us?"

"But… but why must we send her to Earth? She'll be a freak there… They'll never accept her!"

"She'll be special. She'll have abilities... she'll help them. They'll come to love
her in time. And it's our best hope. There is no future here."

"Why will she help them? Without our guidance, with the abilities she will have under a yellow sun, in the moral sewer of Earth, maybe she will follow a dark path."

"No, my dear husband. She will have our guidance. I have prepared lessons for the
vessel that will take her to Earth. We will be there in spirit if not in body to educate her in the ways we hold dear and to explain what her place will be in her new home, before she even gets there."

"But-" The man's protests were cut short by a tremor that caused the entire gigantic chamber to rattle violently.

"There is no more time for discussion," the woman observed. "We must prepare the craft for launch before it is too late..."



Same Place, a short while later

The couple stood, the woman's arm reassuringly around her husband's shoulders as he covered his tear-filled eyes with his palms. She spoke, her voice calm and soothing.

"It is done. Our daughter is in the hands of the universe now. You must not cry. It was our only option."

"I know," the man sobbed, "but I can't bear to watch."

"It is for the best. At least she has... hope."

Another violent tremor ripped through the chamber, almost knocking them off their feet. A tiny crack appeared high in the crystal wall beside them, spreading rapidly downwards like a fork of black lightening. Deep, ominous rumblings echoed from the ground below as a second and then a third fissure appeared.

The man removed his hands from his face and looked at his wife. The expression on his features made his words redundant. "I'm scared," he confessed. "Hold me." Wordlessly, his wife pulled him close to her, enveloping him in her arms one last time.

Over the next few moments, the tremors grew in frequency and strength. The man pulled away slightly to look, terrified, into the beautiful, bright eyes of his wife. She returned his gaze with one of her own, a look full of tender love. A heartbeat later, the planet on which they were standing tore apart from its core outwards, shattering into a billion fragments that were dispersed into the cold emptiness of space for all eternity.



Earth, 2 years later

Wisps of cloud hung motionless in the still blue sky overhead. The couple sat on a rug on the edge of the field by the narrow road had long since learnt to enjoy one another's company without the need for conversation, and it had been a while since either had spoken. Empty cups and plates in front of them told of the meal they had enjoyed and of the impending conclusion of the outing.

The male half of the duo, becoming aware of a hint of emotion in his wife's face, broke the silence with small-talk. "This is a beautiful spot for a picnic."

"You know, when we were first courting, I used to dream of being older, having
picnics with you, out here..."

"For someone living their dream, you look so sad. What's wrong, dear?"

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just that… well.. in the dreams, there were always children running round. I know you hate to dwell on what might have been, and I mean it when I say that you give me all the love I ever need, but… I'm sorry. I can't help feeling sad about it sometimes."

The man put his hand upon her shoulder wordlessly, offering her emotional support while he struggled to find the right words to offer comfort. He was glad of the celestial distraction that suddenly presented itself. "Look!" he pointed. "Up there! In the sky! I think it's a comet…"

"Where? Oh yes. It's beautiful."

"You should make a wish."

She smiled at him. "I already did," she admitted.

"It's… it's coming down. Between those two fields!" He made no secret of his relief at the opportunity to change the mood. "Let's check it out. Maybe get our pictures in the newspaper...." Climbing to his feet he held out his hand to his wife, helping her up. They walked briskly, hand-in hand, through the young corn towards the smoke rising in a column the middle distance.

She saw it first when they approached. "Oh my word... it's... it's...."

"A child!" he finished the sentence for her. "A girl," he added, displaying a basic knowledge of human biology. "Where did she come from?" They stared, confused, at the tiny figure next to the strange car-sized glass-like object that had crashed down, tearing a long scar in the field. Smoke continued to rise from the object and the ground that it had torn up, but the infant seemed unperturbed.

The woman snapped to her senses. "Pull her out of there!" she cried to her husband. "Look at all that smoke... it's so hot the poor thing must be burning!"

The man took two steps towards the child and then stopped, shielding his face with his arms. "I... I can't get close!" he spluttered, stepping back. "It's too hot! Try and find a branch or something!"

"Where?" asked the woman, looking around at the field of corn that surrounded them.

"I don't know... try over-"

"The child!" she cried, making him snap his head back to see. "She's crawling! Look! Here! Come here! Quickly, little one, don't get burnt!"

"I... I don't think she's getting burnt, dear... Look! she's smiling... smiling at us."

"It's a gift!" the woman said, quietly.

"A gift?" he asked, confused, not taking his eyes off the infant for even a moment.

"Yes, a gift. From above. Just like the wish I made..."




Earth, 16 years later

"There's one more present." The kind-faced, grey-haired man smiled at his daughter.

"Another?" she asked, amazed. Hadn't she already opened three other gifts from her father?

"Well, it is a very special birthday, an eighteenth," he told her, handing over the package. She took it from him. The gift was rectangular in shape, about half the size of a breakfast cereal box. Just like all the others, it had been appallingly badly wrapped, bits of bright red paper sticking out from the edges, the whole thing held together with too much poorly placed sticky-tape. She smiled as she turned it over, looking for a suitable place to start peeling the wrapping. She had to be careful. With her strength, it was far easier to tear a solid iron plate in half than it was to tear open a birthday present without damaging the gift inside. Her father had never learnt to wrap properly. She assumed it was just another task her mother would have always done for him. The ways in which father missed wife and daughter missed mother were too many to count.

Using her powers of X-ray vision, she located the best place to insert her finger into the package and slice open the layers of clumsily stuck plastic tape without also cutting through whatever was inside. The torn, overly-folded paper sprung open and fell away and she carefully separated a fake-leather photograph album from the un-reusable packaging. "It's lovely, Dad," she said.

"Open it," he father urged her. She obeyed even though she'd already seen what was inside when the gift was still wrapped. She paged through the album slowly, stopping to examine every photograph he had inserted. This was more for his benefit than her own, as her visual abilities and speed of thought had allowed her to long since complete a thorough study. But the act of pausing over each picture touched her within much more deeply than her super-speed scan had done. Image after image of herself at all ages, growing up on the farm, most of them featuring her mother somewhere in the shot. Despite herself, she found tears welling up in her eyes. It was almost six years since her mother had died, and the loss was no less painful than on the day she passed away.

"Your mother would have been so proud of the way you've grown up," her father said, seeking to provide comfort. "How you've handled all the challenges your... abilities have caused you."

"What good were all those abilities when she needed me?" she sniffed, the edge of self-recrimination in her voice making her father shake his head.

"Now, Clara," he said, "we've talked about this a thousand times. Your mother had cancer.
There was nothing you or I, or the doctors or anyone could do for her. You can't live your life with your head in the past. You have an amazing future ahead of you and a unique opportunity, with your gifts, to help ease the suffering of other people, to save other lives. Your mother would want you to honour her memory by being the best person you can be, not by foolishly blaming yourself for her death."

"I... I guess you're right, dad," she choked back invisible tears. "I will make her proud of me."

"I know you will, Clara." He held out his arms, and she willingly returned the embrace. When they separated, he said: "There's something else I should give you. It's not a birthday gift. It's something I've been holding on to for years, waiting for the right time."

He left the room. She could hear his steps as he moved about the house, and could have watched his every movement regardless of the intervening walls if she had chosen to do so, but she respected her father's privacy too greatly to do that. After a few moments, he returned, clutching in his hands a large, semi-spherical red crystal. As soon as she saw it, she felt a strange tingle of excitement, almost as though the object was radiating an energy to which she was particularly sensitive.

"Your mother and I picked this up near the comet that crashed when we found you. It's the only thing I can offer that has any link with… with wherever you came from. Your mother wanted you to have it when you were old enough." He held out the object out to his daughter. She took it into her own smaller, but vastly stronger, hands and cradled it. Instantly, the crystal began to glow, softly at first, but with a steadily-increasing brightness. Neither she, nor her father, appeared particularly astonished by this.

Clara closed her eyes as the red crystal pulsated with light in her grasp. "Dad," she said softly. "I... I have to go."

"Where?" he asked, as if he had been expecting the announcement for some time

"South," she replied. "A long way South."

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke "I always knew this time would come." he confessed. "But are you sure it has to be now?"

"I have to go, Dad."

"Yes, I understand. But are you ready for the world, Clara? It's a big place. You've only known the farm and your family and-"

"-I know. But it's time. I must go."

"Clara, there are some things… some people… out there that you have no experience of. I'm worried for you."

"Dad, it's alright. I can't be hurt, remember!"

"There are more ways for a person to be hurt than just the physical… But you will have to learn that some day. You must make your own decisions. Just promise me you'll always do what you know in your heart to be right."



2 months later

In the almost exclusively white surroundings of the Antarctic, against the snow-covered landscape and snow-filled white-clouded sky, the dark-haired girl's presence provided a welcome break in the monotony. The ferocious wind whipped strands of her thick, long, straight black hair across her face. Her features were beautiful, her blue eyes bright and clear, lips naturally red and full, her complexion perfect despite the bitter cold. She appeared woefully underdressed for her surroundings, her modest jacket and jeans little protection against the forty-degrees-below-zero gale-force winds, but she showed no signs of discomfort. Her cheeks were no redder than normal. Her ungloved hand was perfectly steady as it clutched the red semi-spherical crystal her father had kept for her. Her long legs strolled briskly, despite sinking deep into the snow with every step.

From time to time, she glanced down at the crystal in her grasp. It's internal glow had been growing ever brighter since she had begun her epic journey. Now, it was giving off a light almost as bright as that reaching her from the sun. But then, even at midday, the sun had barely risen above the cloudy horizon. As if obeying an unspoken command, perhaps issued by the crystal itself, the girl dropped to her knees, her hands brushing aside the freshly fallen snow in front of her. Her fingers sunk into the cold ground, now heaving aside increasingly large piles of frost and ice. If she even felt the cold, she showed no sign of it on her face.

The snow in front of her shifted and suddenly collapsed into a deep shaft in the ground. Without hesitation, she stood up and leapt into the shaft, the red crystal still clutched in her hand. She fell a hundred feet through the shaft to land, perfectly balanced on her feet, in the centre of a cathedral-sized underground chamber of ice. Turning slowly, she took in her remarkable surroundings. It should have been dark - very dark - down there, but the very ice seemed to be glowing with faint light. The crystal glowed more intensely than ever, shafts of red light emanating from it as far as the walls of carved ice all around her. Although she had never been there before, something about the place felt familiar to her. More than familiar. It felt like home.

Without warning, a powerful feminine voice echoed throughout the chamber, seemingly from nowhere "My child. You do not remember me. I am your mother. When you hear this message I shall be long dead and you will be an adult, more at home on an alien world than the planet of your birth. The world I and your father know, where we were to raise you is gone, destroyed by a terrible calamity. We could only save one of our kind. That is why we had to send you, alone, out into the universe to make a life on another world."

The words affected her deeply. She felt a deep recognition of the voice. She knew then that she had been called to the South Pole, to this place, in order to receive her destiny.

"Although we cannot be with you," her birth-mother's voice continued, "I can still pass on to you your birthright, the uniform of your ancestors. Wear it to show where you come from." She blinked. Her clothes - her jacket, jeans and boots from the farm had disappeared. In their place, a bright, skin-tight red-and-blue outfit had appeared. It seemed to fit her perfectly; a top which clung to every splendid curve and nuance of her just-ripened body and a tiny skirt that just about protected her modesty in front and behind and little else. Knee-length, red shiny boots adorned her feet. A long, red cape flowed from her shoulders and over her back.

So accustomed to dressing modestly, she was astonished by the way the shape of her large, round breasts was so apparent beneath her tight top. Even the outlines of her perky firm nipples were visible! A logo, emblazed across the front of the top seemed to draw even more attention to that part of her anatomy, so deformed was the design by the dramatic shape of her chest. How could she go out in public in such a provocative outfit without drawing… attention to herself?

Her mother had apparently anticipated such a question. The voice continued: "You are not like the other people on your new home. Do not be afraid to be different. You are special. You have abilities and powers that separate you from those around you. Let them see that you are unique. And use your gifts in gratitude for the home they have given you. Help them. But do not interfere in their ways. Do not judge them. Protect them. Remember, under the yellow sun of Earth, you can never die. Likewise, you must never take the life of another."

A million questions began forming in her mind. But before she could give voice to any of them, her mother's voice cut her short. "This is all I can give you. You must guide yourself from now. I and your father are long dead, my child. We cannot be with you. Go now, and meet your destiny!"

In the few moments of silence that followed, the crystal in her hand rapidly lost its light, fading from brilliant radiance to a dull glow to nothing. Suddenly, her hand seemed to be clutching nothing more than a piece of dull red glass. Clearly, its function, to lead her here, had been fulfilled. She no longer needed it. She let it drop, and was surprised to see it drop past her feet and continue to fall for another yard before landing on the ground. Only then did she realise that her feet - indeed she herself - was floating on air. She had the power to fly!

Turning her face to the sky, she rose, confidently towards the gap in the ceiling so high above through which she had originally entered the chamber. She knew her purpose now. To wear the uniform of her ancestors and protect the people of her new home.

As she soared upwards, high above the world, she became aware of a tremendous feeling of power within. She had always know she was different. Always understood that she had special gifts - unique abilities. That there were things she could do that no-one else could. She was stronger, could run faster, never seemed to get hurt or fall ill. But now that feeling was hundreds of times more intense. Was it the ancestral clothing she now wore? Or the effect of her birth-mother's words, or perhaps something to do with the red crystal's radiation? Something had made her more powerful than before. Vastly more powerful. She could feel it.

Her senses too, seemed so much keener than before. Her eyes could look down on the world spread out beneath her and pick out with ease tiny details. She could pick up scents and tastes carried on the swirling wind from other continents, separate each one from the others, even determine the direction of its origin. Her ears detected a billion sounds on the air which her brain filtered. Noises, conversations, screams. It was as though she could suddenly hear every sound on the planet. The entire atmosphere was alive with cries for help!

It was her destiny to respond to those cries. She chose one and steered herself towards its source with determination, her slender body carving through the air faster and more gracefully than any object had ever done before. She found the climber hanging from the icy ledge by his fingertips. She swooped down on him, gathering him in her arms and flying him to safety. She placed him carefully back onto solid ground. "Thank you" he muttered, stunned, his gratitude addressed, it seemed to her, more to her prominent chest than to her face.

There was no time to dwell on the intended recipient of the climber's thanks, however, as further desperate shouts assailed her sensitive hearing. In a moment, she was airborne was again, leaving the climber to wonder whether his life had just been saved by a flying girl with magnificent breasts under a skin-tight costume, or whether he'd been hallucinating.

Similar stories began to be heard elsewhere. A civil airliner lost its wing to lightening but managed to land safely, according to the pilot, because of a "angel" who had miraculously held that side of the craft until it was on the ground. A train ran over a broken bridge instead of plunging into the ravine below when a "foxy chick" - the driver's words - laid her body down and allowed the locomotive and all its carriages to run over it. A bus full of school children, spinning out of control across a major road, was lifted to safety by a girl who flew like a bird and picked up the whole vehicle with her slender arms as if it was weightless before setting it down by the side of the road and waving "goodbye" to the delighted kids. A group of campers, trapped by a forest fire, spoke of a "totally hot babe" swooping down out of the sky and blowing out the flames like a candle on a birthday cake, leaving a partially charred trees hung with icicles.

As the tales multiplied, all featuring the same description of the same girl, the public's imagination was captured worldwide. Inevitably, photographs began to appear in the media - some real, others most definitely not. She was hailed as a heroine - a "super" heroine. She became an object of mass fascination. It seemed everyone wanted to know everything about her.

Some of the interest she understood, and coped with well. She would pluck some lucky individual from impending death and the grateful rescuee would ask "Where are you from?" or "What's your name?" But some of the fascination left her uncomfortable. She knew she was attractive to the opposite sex - greatly so. She had always been desirable, what with the perfection of her face and the glory of her figure. But in her costume, almost all men - and quite a few women - seemed unable to look at any part of her beyond her chest. They would try and press themselves against her when she rescued them and stare unashamedly at her curves even after she had saved their lives.

Increasingly, she felt uncomfortable with her role as a public figure, leered over by billions of males, relied upon by a whole planet to save those in trouble. She possessed the power to do anything, but her life was hard. There were times when more than one call for help came to her attention, and she had to chose who to save and who to ignore. There were huge natural disasters where she could only offer limited help to some victims, while the rest suffered and died. And there were times when people cried for help when, in truth, they did not need it. On occasions, she did not provide assistance where it was badly needed because she was elsewhere, drawn by an apparently desperate plea that actually did not deserve her attention.

Through all this, she clung to two things: firstly, her destiny as laid out by her birth-mother - to help the people of her new home. The second pillar of support was her Earth-father's words. She always did what her heart said was the right thing to do. She continued to help when she thought help was needed, not allowing her judgement of the world around her to be clouded by the lies of those who cried wolf, or by the lusty stares of those she was helping.

But the lies and the lusty stares went on unrelentingly. She continued to give tirelessly of herself to fulfil the wishes of her ancestors and honour the memory of her Earth-mother, but she derived ever less satisfaction from her role as a protector and saviour. It seemed that every act of kindness she carried out was repaid with dishonesty, intrusive questioning or base leering.

Some incidents were especially discouraging. She swooped down over a woman trapped in a car that was on the brink of a precipice and pulled the stricken female to safety, only to be berated for allowing the empty car to fall to its destruction - a fate which the woman would have also met had it not been for Clara's timely aid. Instead of gratitude, the woman shrieked "My briefcase! My briefcase! It took all night to write those notes! Don't fly off! Go after my briefcase!"

One night, she saved a young man who was cornered in a dark alley by placing herself between him and his attacker at super-speed, allowing two bullets intended for the soft flesh of the lucky fool to ping uselessly off the only-superficially-soft flesh of her own body. In a flash she ran up to the shooter, removing his gun with care before crushing it to a useless ball of metal in her small hand and then knocking its former owner unconscious with a gentle tap of her forefinger, a blow precisely measured to cause no lasting damage.

Now that he was no danger, she took off to locate the nearest police patrol and inform them of what had happened. Twice, she had to ask the two officers she found if they were taking in her words. There was no eye-contact with them. As she spoke, they merely stared, unashamedly, at the portion of her skin-tight costume that covered her breasts while leaving their hypnotic shape fully visible. She told them of the incident, and the location of the alley where they could pick up the failed assassin. After too long a pause the senior partner told her chest "OK, we're on our way," before adding with an almost drooling grin, "Would you like to ride with us?" Politely, she replied that she had her own transport. "Shame" the policeman muttered to her nipples.

Feeling anger at such disrespect, she took to the sky before rage got the better of her. Descending towards the alley to check on the man she had saved, she found him running three blocks away. She intercepted him, the soles of her red boots coming gently to the ground right in his path. "Get out of my way, bitch!" he shouted. She grabbed his arm, holding it - and the rest of the body attached to it - immovably in place. "Let go, you're hurting me!" the man spat. She knew that she wasn't. She was holding him exactly firmly enough to prevent his escape without causing any damage to him.

"Sir, you need to give the police your statement." she told him.

"Fuck you!"

A minute later, the would-be target was propped up next to the would-be assassin, both men equally unconscious. Then she had to wait for the police in order to explain the latest turn of events to them as they once again feasted their eyes on her upper torso. When she was finished, the younger officer, in lieu of giving her his thanks chose instead to ask her breasts what they were doing when his shift finished. And these were supposed to be the upholders of respect and decency!

Such events were common. On another occasion, she found herself at the scene of a major fire in a tall building. A crowd of helpless office-workers had gathered on the roof and she was doing her best to fly them safely to the ground. She grabbed two men and soared off with one held securely in either arm. Halfway to the ground, she noticed a change in the feather-light contact of the pair against her body. Glancing down, she saw one of the suited men touching the outside curve of her generous left mound. As he so blatantly groped her, his tongue protruded from his mouth. The man on the other side of her was also pressing his own chest unnecessarily firmly against the edge of her other breast. Meanwhile, she could clearly feel the points of two erections poking insistently at her thighs. This was their gratitude for being rescued?

It was all she could do not to drop the men and let them fall to their deaths there and then. "Gentlemen, please have the decency to keep your hands and your, um, other appendages to yourselves," she told them, with remarkable restraint. There was a slight shifting away from her, but no word of apology. She put the pair down on the pavement and took off immediately.

Instead of returning to the roof for their colleagues, she flew half a block down the street to a building site, snatched up an empty dumpster and carried it to the top of the burning building. She set about ferrying the remaining office workers to the ground in groups of ten inside the huge metal container, the weight of nearly a dozen people and a dumpster as nothing to her. This method of conveyance had little to do with efficiency and plenty to do with the fact that it was a good way of maintaining physical distance between the people she was carrying and her body.

On her last visit to the roof, she became aware of a news helicopter hovering close by the side of the building. Whilst the final few trapped workers climbed into the dumpster, she turned briefly to look. She only needed a split-second to take stock. Three people inside. A pilot in the front and two others in the back - one a woman in a smart suit, a microphone clutched in her hand, the other a cameraman. The latter held his all-too-familiar-to-her telephoto-equipment, pointing it right at her. "Move back!" she shouted to the pilot, when she realised that he was flying the craft too close to the building for his safety. Additionally, he had positioned the craft right in the path through which she was intending to fly the dumpster-load of office workers that she had just effortlessly lifted from the roof.

The chopper began to move away until the woman in the back, her voice perfectly clear to Clara's superhuman ears, instructed the pilot "Stay close! Stay close! We're getting some fantastic footage here!"

"Get back!" Clara countered. But she was being ignored. She had to fly the dumpster the long way around the hovering craft. All the way down to the ground, the helicopter followed her closely, the camera's lens tracking her insistently. The flames leaping from the midsection of the building licked out towards the craft, touching its blades.

"Please! For your own safety! Move away from the fire!" cried Clara

"Maybe we should pull back a-" shouted pilot.

"Stay close! I can smell Pulitzer," screamed the reporter

She had no choice. She adjusted her grip on the dumpster so that she was holding the entire container and its human cargo at the end of a single slender arm, and used her free hand to grab one set of the helicopter's landing skis. Easily overpowering the force of the craft's engines, she pulled it down, away from the burning building.

The winds generated by the rotating blades created havoc below amongst the emergency service workers tending to the fire and the people she had already brought down from the building. A short blast of frozen superbreath stopped the chopper's engines and locked its propellers in place. She touched down to the street, lowering first the dumpster in her right hand and then the helicopter in her left. She could see the tiny monitor screen inside the craft that showed the image being captured on the camera: a close-up shot of herself, zoomed out just far enough for the profile of her chest to be in picture.

The woman in the back leaned over and called out to her, microphone in hand, "Miss, our viewers have some questions they'd like you to answer." Clara ignored her and made sure that the last of the rooftop refugees was safely out of the dumpster. "Can you tell us where you come from? Are you affiliated with any particular political grouping? Are you currently in a relationship?"

Clara's could feel herself of the verge of erupting with anger. She had just saved the lives of this woman and her colleagues - not to mention the office workers trapped on the roof. Why was she being rewarded by being pestered with questions she clearly did not want to answer. She turned, walking briskly towards the reporter, her lithe, sexy body drawing every eye in range as her long, exquisite legs carried it to within a few yards of the well-dressed woman with the microphone. "Madam," Clara spoke, her voice perhaps a little too cold, "you are in danger if you remain here. Please make your way behind the safety cordon."

"My viewers have a right to know," said the reporter, pompously.

"A right?" thought Clara. "What right?" Was this, perhaps, some ancient law that set out the right of every citizen to hound her? Maybe it was another part of the same almost-forgotten piece of legislature that proscribed all men freedom to leer at her, to try and touch her chest and rub their bodies against hers whilst she carried them to safety? A law, which everyone on the planet bar her knew of, granting all those she protected and saved permission to treat her as if she was public property? And even if that was the case, what of her rights? Her right to privacy. Her right to have a perfect body and to wear her skin-tight ancestral garments without having to feel like a loaf of freshly-baked bread in a famine-stricken land? Her right to save the lives of these ingrates daily without telling them her life-story or favourite television programme.

Clara opened her mouth to reveal her thoughts to the uncooperative journalist and stopped herself at the last moment. Losing her air of unflappable civility was not what her heart told her was the right thing to do. Neither was lecturing a reporter on the frustrations of being a superheroine what her birth-parents had intended for her. "Please go back." she said, simply, before rocketing straight up towards the solitude offered by the skies.

"At least tell us your real name!" the reporter called after her as she cleared the tops of the city's buildings. She continued her ascent, not for the first time deeply grateful that she alone on this planet had the power to fly. At least here in the clouds, no other person could ask her questions or attempt to interfere with her. The relief was hollow, however, as it was tinged with the knowledge that the respite was only temporary. She should have to go amongst people again soon to save them, as was her duty. She knew that when she did, she would once more be questioned and quite likely groped. The latter she resolved to avoid forever more by no longer allowing direct contact between her body and the people she saved. She would use tools like the dumpster she had employed earlier to handle people so that they could not touch her. But how to stop the endless flow of questions?

She knew enough about Earthlings, having lived among them all her life, to realise that their unquenchable curiosity was never going to fade by itself. Should she start answering the queries that were endlessly thrown at her, just to make the questioners stop? How many times would she have to say the same things to these people? The answer to that was: more than enough times to frustrate her as much as the present situation did. She had to find a way of putting an end to the questions for good. Perhaps, if she publicly answered a few of them people would understand enough about her to leave her be...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of distant screams which was brought to the forefront of her mind by her superhuman sense of hearing. Clara was so finely-tuned to the noises of human suffering that she barely needed to listen out for them. They would always find their own way into her conscious. She turned to look in the direction that the screams were coming from. Her eyes peeled away layers of cloud, zooming in with stunning speed and accuracy on a mountainside hundreds of miles away from her. In one instant, she saw the cable-car, packed with people, that was plunging towards the rocky ground a thousand feet below. In the next instant, she began to dive, faster than any man-made machine could ever manage, towards the falling capsule.

She swooped beneath the plummeting cable-car, holding her hands up above her head and carefully adjusting her speed so that she could bring the capsule's descent slowly under control. There were only a few dozen yards to spare as she drew to a halt, hovering in the air, her slender arms comfortably supporting the steel-and-glass car and the twenty-two terrified passengers within. Gently, she floated down to the ground, placing the huge box on terra firma with a degree of control which made clear just how effortless handling such a weight was for her. Some of the people inside were already staring at her. With a finger, she pulled the car's door free of the rest of the structure, allowing the previously trapped passengers to climb out, but she did not help them out. She couldn't bear the thought of touching them, or worse, them touching her.

"Hey!" a man shouted up at her as she was already taking to the air to alert the authorities of the situation, "At least let me thank you by taking you out to dinner!" Clara groaned internally. She knew that the dinner invitation had nothing to do with the man's gratitude and everything to do with his sexual desire. She shuddered at the thought of such a liaison. Why did these fools think that she would entertain any congress between her superhuman perfection and their weak, fragile imperfection? Her mind returned to its wonderings from before the cable-car rescue. Wasn't there some way she could make it clear, once-and-for-all, to the entire planet, that she was not, and would never be, available for sex?

The answer to her question was obvious. Once she had realised that it was the only thing that she could do, it was only a question of making the arrangements. In between rescues, she flew by the offices of a major television network, hovering outside the window of its most high-profile interviewer. She signalled for him to open up, and he did so immediately. Despite being accustomed to appearing in front of millions, he seemed surprisingly nervous in front of her, fumbling awkwardly with the catch, speaking hesitantly. She hovered in the air, three hundred feet above the traffic, telling him of her plan. As she expected, he was only too keen to assist. "This is the only interview I will ever give," she explained, "and there will be certain ground rules."

"Er... yes, yes, s... sure, whatever you want."

"The first rule is that if I catch you staring at my chest one more time, the whole deal is off."

"Right... yes.. sorry, it's just that they're so... I mean you don't see ti... I mean, of course."

"The second rule is that I will not shake your hand or kiss you at any stage."

"R...right. Sure."

"Also, I won't be taking my clothes off in private or public, so save that for your own dirty fantasies. Got that?"

"Absolutely. I never would have suggested in a million years that-"

"Save your lies for someone who doesn't have X-ray vision and super-senses." she told him.

For the first time in decades, he actually felt himself blushing with embarrassment. He had thought he was immune. "Lets.. er... schedule the interview for taping next Friday evening." he suggested, keen to change the subject.

"No, the interview will be conducted live." she announced.

"Live?" he said. He never worked "live". Not since that time when he did that telethon on Channel Eight and that damn urangatang slipped his leash, climbed up into the lighting rig and urinated all over everything. Eleven years ago. And they still kept dragging that clip out for bloopers shows. He was sick of pretending how "funny" it all still was. It wasn't "funny" the first time. There's nothing "funny" about being pissed on by a monkey. No, he swore then that he'd never, ever, do anything "live" again.

"'Live', or I'll find another interviewer," the stunning woman hovering in mid-air outside his twentieth-storey window said.

"Of course, we'll do it 'live'." he agreed. "Next Saturday?"

"This Thursday."

"Fine, fine, thursday it is then. Ten o'clock, after the drama show?"

"Eight o'clock."

"But that's when we run the early evening bulletins across the network..."

"Fine. I'll find another network."

"No.. no, eight o'clock is great. Come to the studios at seven so that we can-"

"-I'll see you at one minute to eight on Thursday."

"One minute to eight it is. Perfect. Um, perhaps you could -" he never got to finish the question. The girl was already streaking away across the city.

For the rest of that week, the network saturated its schedules with promos for the "interview of the century". "Live! On this station! Thursday evening at eight! NBS' Gary Reno will be your host for the first ever interview with Superwoman! Find out what's under that famous red-and-blue costume exclusively here! (In association with Trans Continental Airlines - your "super" travel partner and Pancake Princess - it's the extra sugar that makes 'em "super" sweet.)

Whilst the television network went into marketing overdrive, it was "business" as usual for Clara. She saved a village from a volcanic eruption by blasting the advancing river of lava with cold superbreath, solidifying the seemingly unstoppable stream of molten rock in seconds. None of the villagers came to thank her when she was done, but she did spot a teenaged boy observing her from a nearby hillside. She fled the scene a second later when she noticed how he was holding a crude telescope in one hand and his sexual organ in the other.

The next day, she rescued a parachutist whose canopy failed to open; not by catching him in her arms, but rather, staying true to her intent not to allow anyone to touch her, by grabbing his pack at arms length and lowering him to the ground by it. He was still fifty feet from safety when he saw fit to extract his cell-phone from his pocket, dial a number and shout into the mouthpiece "Hey Frank! Guess which super hot babe is taking ME for a ride right now?" She dropped him the final yard and flew away in disappointment and disgust.

Hours later, Clara single-handedly averted a disastrous oil spill at sea by temporarily lifting an enormous tanker completely out of the water and welding the breech in it hull shut with her heat vision before placing the massive ship carefully back into the brine. The entire crew lined up on deck, not as she hoped to salute her or offer their thanks, but rather to regale her with a barrage of wolf-whistles and invitations to join them in all manner of degrading pastimes. Overcome with displeasure, she landed on the deck, her hands angrily planted on her curvaceous hips. "Gentlemen," she spoke, certain that she had the attention of every one on board even if that attention was focussed considerably more on the shape of her breasts than her actual words, "a little more respect is due to the woman who has just saved your cargo, not to mention the environment."

"You are quite right, madam." A single man spoke up in reply, stepping forward from the rest of the crew. His uniform revealed his rank as much as his assumed role as spokesman for the vessel.

"I am a woman, Captain." Clara chided, "Not a sex-object."

"Absolutely," responded the skipper. "Please rest assured that I shall be fully reprimanding my men for their disgraceful behaviour." She merely tutted and rose rapidly into the sky. The bulge in the crotch of his captain's white trousers had utterly negated the value of his promise as far as she was concerned.

That Thursday, at exactly one minute before eight, she strolled into the NBS television studios. A crowd was there to greet her. To cheer. And leer. And wolf-whistle. She shot them an angry glance, and followed the network executive who lead her to the auditorium. "Can I just say how pleased all of us are that you chose our network for this historic interview?" he asked.

"It'd mean a lot more if you told it to my face rather than my boobs, perv." Clara sneered in retort. For the first time in his life, the executive found himself totally at a loss for words. He was relieved when the show's producer appeared.

"Honoured to meet you Superwoman. Gary's just completing his introduction. When you hear the applause just go through this curtain." He indicated the pieces of thick hanging black fabric with a sweep of his hand. Clara strode past him to stand in front of the entrance to the hastily-rigged set.

"You'd better not be checking out my rear." she hissed.

"Of course not. The thought never entered my mind!" protested the producer, guiltily, before resuming his study of the roundest, firmest ass on Earth.

The producer did not have long to indulge his eyes. The strident, over-confident tones of Gary Reno could clearly be heard from beyond the curtain. "...as well known and loved for her looks as for her superhuman abilities." Clara groaned silently. Ray went on: "Someone who needs no introduction..."

"Why are you bothering then?" thought Clara.

"...please welcome the one-and-only, the beautiful, Superwoman!" Enthusiastic applause and cheering broke out. Music blared. Clara walked through the curtains, a scowl on her face. As she appeared on the set where the audience could see her, a number of whistles saluted her. Not wanting to show her angry face - a reaction to the behaviour of a small portion of the crowd - to the entire audience, she instead chose not to acknowledge the public in any way as she walked over to the empty chair next to the desk at which Reno was seated.

The network top brass had wanted a simple set, something to reflect the uniqueness and significance of the interview. The original plan had been for Superwoman and Reno to sit facing each other on chairs on a small raised platform, with nothing between them. The presenter had adamantly refused to entertain this. At one point he'd actually said "Either I'm behind a desk or I walk on the whole deal!" The executives gave in, assuming that their man was nervous and wanted to use the familiar set-up that had served him so well for so many years. Truth was, Gary Reno was nervous: nervous that viewers at home might get to see the obvious erection that appeared whenever he so much as thought about Superwoman. How much worse would it be, the presenter had wondered, when he was sitting opposite her in the flesh?

The interview did not start well. Reno, veteran of thousands of interviews, automatically held out his hand to shake Clara's as she approached his desk. At least he had remembered not to try and kiss her, but offering his hand was no lesser sin in her mind. Didn't this jerk remember? She did not want any of "them" to touch her. She returned the proffered palm with a steely glare that momentarily terrified the presenter. He withdrew the offer instantly, and fumbled for words for a few moments as they both sat down.

"Woman - er… Welcome, Superwoman. Sometimes it's um.. Some of our guests are… I mean some of our guests have trouble getting to the studio on time with all the traffic there is downtown these days, but -"

"-Not me. I flew." Clara interrupted, dryly, stealing the thunder from the gag Reno's writing team had come up with.

"Great! She flew, ladies and gentlemen!" A roar of clapping, cheering and whistling filled the auditorium. Tens of millions of TV viewers saw their beloved Superwoman glancing irritatedly at the ceiling. "I've got to say how great it is to have you here this evening. We're so thrilled that you agreed to come on the show!" Reno got back into gear as the audience calmed down again.

"The interview was my idea." Clara pointed out.

"Yes, of course," the interviewer acknowledged, awkwardly. "So, why after all this time have you decided to come on my show?"

"Well, I decided to do a show - not yours in particular, Gary - to answer some of the questions I keep getting asked and to put an end to some misconceptions about me once and for all."

"Well I'm just delighted you've chosen to break your silence here. Perhaps we could start by talking about your background. I mean, I gave my researcher the week off for this show, because there was nothing for her to do. Nobody seems to know anything about where you come from…"

"Look, let's gets this straight from the start. My private life is private. For the record, so that people can leave me alone, I came from another planet when I was about two years old."

"Did you come alone? Who brought you up?"

"I'm not prepared to talk about that." She met Reno's eyes with a glare so intense, the interviewer found himself swallowing hard and taking a deep breath before continuing.

"OK - some other time perhaps."

"No. Never. My private life is my business alone."

"Yes, yes, of course. I totally respect that. Um, let's move on then. You grew up here on Earth. When did you first realise that you were, um, special?"

"I've always been special."

"Well, of course you have. But, was there a moment when you realised you had superpowers, that you could do things that no-one else can?"

"No. Not really."

"O. K-a-y…. Let's talk about your role as a heroine. Um… was that your chosen career?"

"It's my destiny."

"Right. Wow. So you always knew that was what you were going to do with your, um, gifts?"

"That's what ‘destiny' means, Gary." The audience laughed nervously. Reno joined with then. Clara showed no hint of mirth on her beautiful face.

"So… um… you've never been tempted to follow a different career path?"

"Such as what?"

"Well, I'm sure you'd make a world-class model." Cheers and a host of wolf-whistles made the audience's agreement with Reno's suggestion more than adequately clear.

"Never!" Clara exclaimed, silencing the room immediately. "When will you people understand that my body is my own! I don't want to be a sex object!"

"But it is quite some body, and the costume that you wear-"

"-This outfit is my birthright! It was what my ancestors have worn for countless generations. I should be entitled to wear it without having to constantly deal with stares and remarks and-" she turned to face the studio audience directly, "-wolf-whistles."

"Well, I can see that this is a touchy subject, and I completely respect your feelings on this matter, but you must appreciate that you are an exceptionally beautiful and - I'm just being honest here - attractive woman." This time, the public signalled its backing for the statement with a strong, but somewhat sustained, round of applause.

"That's not what I am about!" Clara snapped angrily, cutting off the clapping as if a switch had been pressed.

"So, um, er," Reno, aware that he was not only dealing with the most difficult guest of his entire career but that he might also be angering the most powerful being on the planet, struggled to keep going. "what are you all about? In your own words…" The best option seemed to be to give her the platform and for him to take a back seat for a while.

"Saving lives. Protecting people. Isn't that enough?" she turned as she finished, so that she addressed the question both to the host and the audience. The public responded with a burst of applause that was warm but far less enthusiastic than earlier.

Reno was disappointed to find himself having to speak again so soon after he thought he'd bought himself some time. "That's plenty for me," he answered Superwoman's question sycophantically. "So, do you have, like, an inner drive to help people? Does it fulfil some kind of psychological need in you?"

"Are you suggesting that I am some kind of mental deficient in need of counselling?" Clara demanded, infuriated by the tone of the inquiry.

"Good gracious, no, no, no." Reno backtracked, hurriedly. "Um… let's move on.. is it time for a commercial? Not yet… right… well…" his eyes scanned the desk in front of him desperately, like a drowning man looking for something to cling on to. He found it in the form of a stack of cards. "I, er, think I've done enough damage, heh, heh - " He'd hoped to lessen the tension and get the audience on his side with the attempt at self-depreciative humour but it seemed to backfire, making the public as nervous as he was. He picked up the bundle of cards. "- can I, er.. I mean let's move on to questions set in by our viewers. Is that OK, Superwoman?"

"Sure, I'm here to answer questions, and put the record straight."

"Great, then, let's start with-" Reno narrowed his eyes to focus on the top card in the stack "How big are your br- Er… no, not that one." He moved on to the next card "What's your favourite se- Perhaps not." He began shuffling through the cards, briefly reading what was on each one, and rapidly moving it to the back of the stack.

"Hurrumph!" snorted Clara. "I can see what's on those cards, you know. I have X-ray vision. Why are people so obsessed with my body?" She turned and looked sternly directly into the guest camera. Her face stared angrily, full-on, from millions of televisions. Millions of men subconsciously crossed their legs.

"Cannot you all not just accept me as a saver and protector of lives?" she went on. "Why do you find it so hard to respect me? Look, you want answers, I'll give you answers, tonight and tonight only and this is the last I ever want to hear of it. Mr. C. Smith of Baltimore: 38DD. Mr. S. Peabody of Chicago: I don't have a boyfriend or a husband and I never have and I never will. Mr. T. Radski of Atlanta: I don't have a favourite sexual position. That's because I don't have sex. Did you all hear that? I don't have sex."

"Listen." She seemed to be calming down, as if finally getting the frustration off her - fabulous - chest was immediately therapeutic. "This is for the men: I know your genetic programming makes it very hard for you to ignore the shape of my body. I know you desire more than perhaps anything else to go to bed with me, but understand this: I do not want to go to bed with you. Any of you. Not now, not ever. We are different species. Incompatible."

"You mean…" Reno asked, sensing the partial lifting of her anger, "..that you can't have sex with any man on Earth?"

"Exactly."

"You've no idea how many million hearts you've just broken, Superwoman." Reno chuckled, still desperately trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, perhaps now, people - men especially - will accord me a little respect. Now, do you have any further questions, Mr. Reno? I think we've covered pretty much everything I wanted to cover."

"Um, well…"

"Good. Well, if you'll excuse me, there's a plane in trouble over the Rockies." She didn't bother waving to the audience, let alone shaking Reno's hand as she stood up and walked briskly off-stage.

"Great interview!" cried the network executive as she strolled past him. "Thank you so much for choosing our network to -"

"-Goodbye." Clara cut him off, as she pushed open the fire-exit door, her feet already leaving the ground. Two seconds later she vanished from sight amongst the clouds. Twenty minutes after that, she was carefully lowering a fully-laden 737 to the ground to the cheers of the grateful passengers and a suggestive wink from the pilot that made her think for an instant about incinerating him on the spot with her heat-vision before she thought better and took off for the refuge offered by the sky.

Her interview did not pass unnoticed. She was congratulated in many quarters for speaking up for her sex and demanding respect. Elsewhere, however, her performance did not have the effect she had desired.

"So, Superwoman told Gary Reno on network TV that she can't have sex with any Earthman because we're not compatible…" that was how a stand-up comedian began his set on another chat-show the following evening. "…Well, I have sex with her all the time - in my head. In fact, I'm having so much sex with her in my head that I'm losing my eyesight and I think I'm getting a repetitive strain injury!" Cue much laughter.

"But seriously, what does she mean by ‘incompatible'? I mean, what the hell has she got down there? Some kinda weird alien ray gun?" More laughter. "Frankly, most guys I know wouldn't mind. I mean, you don't really care about the fireplace when you're admiring the ornaments on the mantelpiece, do you? Know what I mean, guys?"

The print media were worse. Seizing on the comedian's question, magazines appeared with her portrait on the front with a large question-mark super-imposed over her groin. "Just what IS under the suit?" said the headline. And then, in a smaller font: "Our panel of sexperts give their opinions."

Magazines featuring female nudes began comparing the statistics of their models with those given by Superwoman: "Lovely Larissa is a 36E, making her a full cup-size bigger than Superwoman". "Cianti's 40F mammoth melons put even Superwoman to shame". And "At 36C, Katie's no match for Superwoman in the bra department, but the good news is that she'd like to assure readers that she is FULLY compatible with earth men."

A columnist in one men's magazine wrote: "I don't know just in what way she thinks I'm incompatible, but like many of you reading this, I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to make myself 100% compatible. Let me know what needs doing, Superwoman, and I'll be waiting outside the plastic surgeon's office before he arrives first thing in the morning."



One month later

"Everyone's talking about Superwoman!" her Earth father wheezed with a smile that could not have been easy in his condition. Clara was visiting him incognito, playing the dutiful daughter as he lay in a hospital bed, his breathing laboured, counting down his final days.

"I hate it, Dad. Why can't they just talk about all the rescues and heroics and not about… other stuff?"

"Oh, my little girl! You grew up so isolated on the farm with us. You never got to see the big bad world until you were eighteen. You must understand that no-one means any harm by any of it. It's just the way men are. You should enjoy it."

"But… I don't!"

Her father coughed, painfully. Clara felt a wave of guilt. She shouldn't have been weighing him down with her troubles at such a time. But who else could she talk to? Certainly not Gary Reno!

"Clara," her father was clearing finding it increasingly difficult to speak, "doing what your heart says is right means listening to your heart first. Do that and I promise, you will find happiness."

There were no tears on Clara's face, because tears were not a feature of her race. But she was weeping in her own way. She knew she was about to lose not only the last of her family, but also the only person on Earth whom she could call a friend.

"Take…care...Clara…" he wheezed. And then she was alone. An alien, utterly alone on a planet of six billion souls.

She should have hidden away for a while. She should have gone to her chamber in Antarctica or maybe into outer space for a couple of days. Somewhere she could have grieved for her father in peace. She should not have thrown herself back into her superheroine role so quickly. But it was all she knew. She thought it would be a good distraction. She had powers beyond the imagination of most humans. But she lacked wisdom…

She'd already rescued a pair of stricken balloonists by carrying their basket to the ground at arm's length and stopped a leak of poison gas at a factory by sucking nearly a million gallons of toxic emissions into her lungs - all in the space of an hour. From high up in the atmosphere, her remarkable eyes spotted a crowd gathering at the foot of a tall building in a city far below her. An even more impressive feat of vision revealed the reason for the crowd. A man was standing on the edge of the tower's roof. It seemed he was preparing to jump.

She swooped down, hovering static in the air a yard in front of the potential suicide and a hundred yards above the crowd below. The man's eyes shifted instantly from their downcast gazing on the scene at ground level to a much wider gazing upon the contours of her body. "Leave me alone," he told her chest, "I don't want to be saved."

"I can't let you jump." Clara informed him. "Why don't you just step back from the edge…"

"I said ‘leave me alone.'"

"I can't do that."

"I want to die. Go away and save someone who wants to live."

"No. I'm going to save you."

"I don't want to be saved. Go away!"

"I.. I can't do that."

"Why? Why can't you?"

"I… I have to save you. I have to save everybody. It's what I do… It's what I have to do."

"But… I don't want to be saved."

"But… I have to save you."

"Why do you have to?"

"Because… because it is my destiny. It is what I was sent to this planet to do. It's what my parents wanted me to do."

"So that's why you do it? Because other people said you should? Don't you like saving people? I thought it's what you loved."

"That… that's none of your business. I'm here to save you. You should be grateful!"

"Yeah, well, I already told you I don't want to be saved. And I reckon you don't particularly want to be saving me, either. I can't believe with all your superpowers you gotta do what your parents tell you to do. What are they, like, super-superheroes or something?"

"They're dead." Clara answered, angrily.

"Then why are you still doing what they wanted you to do? I'd have thought you could do whatever you wanted!"

The sound of an approaching helicopter engine made Clara turn around for a moment. There, in the distance, but nearing all the while, was a familiar white whirlybird with "Channel 8" painted on the side. She recognised the three occupants immediately. The same cameraman, zooming his telephoto lens in on her body. The same pompous female reporter clutching her microphone.

"Tell me one thing before I jump," the suicide requested, causing her to spin in the air to face him once more.

"You're not going to jump. I'm going to save you."

"Yeah, yeah, ‘cos dead mummy and daddy said you have to. Well, why don't you grow up and do your own thing. And let me do mine."

"Who are you to talk to me like that?" Clara demanded, planting her hands on her hips, her crystal-clear eyes full of fury.

"Touched a nerve, did I? What're you going to do about it? Kill me? Well, go on then!"

"You… you…. bastard!" she yelled, her voice more than loud enough to drown out the sound of the hovering chopper.

"Superwoman! Over here! I'm Carol Thomson from Channel 8 news." Clara threw her head over her shoulder to see the ungrateful reporter whose life she had saved the last time they had met. She was leaning dangerously far out of the side of the craft, shouting into her microphone. "What's happening here? Why haven't you brought this man to the ground yet?"

Clara could not believe it. The woman was putting herself in serious danger - no doubt assuming that "Superwoman" would save her if she fell - merely to pester her with her pointless questions when she was trying to save someone's life. She had enough trouble dealing with the arrogant suicide. The last thing she needed was the kamikaze Channel 8 news crew.

"Get closer to her!" the reporter screamed at her pilot.

"I can't! We're too close already!"

"Get closer dammit or I'll make sure you're out of a job before we even land!"

The pilot obeyed, nervously edging the helicopter closer to Superwoman. The man standing on the roof was suddenly buffeted by the powerful wind, lost his balance and toppled forward. Clara dived after him, catching him by the back of his jacket, still dozens of floors above the gasping crowd. Already, the new chopper was descending towards them.

"Let me go!" the suicide screamed up at her. "Screw your parents! I want to die!"

"Superwoman!" the reporter was practically dangling about of the side of the chopper. "How does it feel just after you've saved someone's life like that?"

"Back off!" Clara shouted up at the news crew. The suicide wriggled at the end of her hand, and, taking advantage of the incomplete hold she had of his actual body, and managed to slip his arms out of his jacket. She was left holding the empty garment as its former wearer resumed his groundward plunge.

Once again she took off after him, this time catching him by his ankle and letting him hang, upside down and at arm's length, from her small fist.

"Why won't you just let me die?" the suicide screeched.

"Sssuuuupppeeerrrwwwooommmaaannn!" Clara looked up just in time to see the reporter tumbling helplessly out of the helicopter and falling fast towards her. She couldn't move fast with the suicide hanging from her grasp, but she did well to catch the reporter's ankle in her other hand. In silent fury, she carried her dual cargo down to the waiting crowds below.

"Superwoman! Can you answer a few questions for our viewers?"

"Let me go! Let me go! I want to die!"

"Shut up you, I'm trying to do an interview!"

"No, you shut up bitch. I'm trying to kill myself here!"

"Superwoman, how does-"

"Fucking let me die!"

"Superwoman, can you shut this guy up so I can record an interview with you?"

"Let me go now before we get too close to the ground."

They were only a few dozen feet up now. People in the crowd began to shout up to her.

"Superwoman! Can I have your autograph?"

"Superwoman! Over here! I love you Superwoman!"

"Hey Superwoman! I need you to save me!"

"Can't you all be quiet? I'm trying to do an interview here!" the reporter called out as she came to rest, lying on her back on the ground, moments before Clara's booted feet touched the pavement. The suicide lay on his back on the other side of her. She was still holding the two ankles in her fists.

"Hey! We're down now! Let me go so I can go and kill myself!"

"Superwoman!"

"Superwoman!"

"Superwoman!"

"Superwoman!"

Clara opened her hands and let the two legs she had been holding fall. She placed her palms over her ears and closed her eyes. Then she screamed "Will you all just SHUT UP!!"

The force of her voice sent the entire crowd reeling backwards. Windows smashed on the far side of the street. People cried out in shock.

"Superwoman! Help! I'm bleeding!"

"Superwoman! Over here! I've hurt my leg!"

She glanced around at the scene in front of her. Some people did look as if they had, genuinely, been hurt by the power of her shout. She was shocked by what she had done. Why had she allowed herself to be driven to this? Why hadn't she allowed that idiot to kill himself and avoided all this? Why did she feel she had to save him, even against his will? Why did she always have to save everybody? What about what she wanted to do? What DID she want to do?

"Superwoman! Help! Help me please! I'm trapped! Please help me!" Instinctively, she turned to see the source of the male scream. A middle-aged man, well-dressed, sitting on the road, with one of his legs underneath the front of a car. She used her X-ray vision to examine his foot. It seemed OK, his toes barely brushing the vehicle's chassis. Was he really trapped? It was impossible to tell with people. They were so weak, so fragile compared to her… Always in need of her help. Even when they had just one foot hardly even touching the underneath of a car.

She rushed over to his side. "I'm so glad you came!" he said as she bent, preparing to lift the vehicle carefully off him. "I'm the editor of a highly respected gentlemen's publication. I can offer you a million dollars to pose nude for us."

"What?" Clara shouted. "Are you even stuck at all?"

"Well, no, but, hey! I had to get your attention somehow, beautiful!"

"You pig! How dare you! I am a saver of lives! A gift from another planet for all mankind!" She felt the rage rising within her as she spoke.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was crass of me. Two million dollars."

"Is that what you want from me?" She stood up to her full height, her hands on her hips and floated a few feet off the road. "Is that what you all want from me?" she yelled, loud enough to knock people off their feet thirty yards away from her. Those nearer, including the man under the car, clutched their hands to their ears. But it was too late to save their hearing.

"Is that all that matters to you people?" She continued to shout, the shockwaves of her voice breaking more windows, sending those already on the ground rolling further away from her. "I keep saving your miserable lives and all you care about is my body! Is that what you want? My body?" She gripped the seam of her skin-tight costume between her fingers. "Don't you care how many of you are still alive because of me? Is that it? Do you want my body more than you want to live?"

With one long, glorious movement of her hands, she pulled her ancestral garments from her body and tossed them into the air. Suddenly, she was completely naked, surrounded by a staring crowd. "There!" se yelled. "There you are! That's what you want! Take a good look! See my breasts! My big, perfect breasts! Are they as good as you hoped?" She looked down at the man who had made her the preposterous offer. "Well, are they?"

His eardrums permanently damaged by Superwoman's yells, the magazine editor could not hear her question to answer it. All he could do was stare in shock and lust at the two most magnificent, round, firm globes of flesh on Earth. "Well, do you like them?" she demanded, floating towards him. "Do you? Do you?" She arched her back pushing out her amazing chest towards him. "Answer me! Do you like them! I said answer me!"

She was no longer in full control of her actions. She was dimly aware of the moment that she felt the contact between her breasts and the editor's face. Her anger drove her on. "Are you happy now?" she asked of him. She felt him momentarily stiffen and then go limp. Surprised, she moved back, away from him. His face was bruised purple, his nose, crushed almost flat, was bleeding profusely. She had killed him.

For a moment, nothing happened. She didn't know what she was expecting - a bolt of lightening sent across the ages and the universe from her ancestors? The voice of her Earth-father calling out in admonishment from beyond the grave? Instead there was nothing. Nothing but the silence of a thousand on-lookers still staring. Still gawping at her body. Why should she feel guilty about taking the life on one of these… these pathetic creatures?

"So now you know what my body will do to yours!" She spoke firmly, no longer shouting, more in control of herself now. Her voice was strong enough to be heard by all those who sense of hearing was still intact, but it did not break any more windows. "That is why we are incompatible! Look! Between my thighs! There it is! She bent her legs, so that she was almost sitting on the air, opening her knees, showing her most intimate space to the world. Slowly, she rotated, hovering with her sex exposed, so that every last gawping fool could see it. "See! It looks just like yours! That's what you've been obsessing over! But you're all too weak, too soft to get inside. It would crush your pathetic pricks if you tried. Come on, take a good look at the place you can never, ever go!"

Dozens of flashbulbs flickered around her. Men stared, jaws open, some tongues even hanging out. No-one said sorry. No-one begged her forgiveness. No-one broke down in tears, telling her they were not worthy of her. Instead, they took photographs. And stared.

She flew too quickly to be followed up to a man in his late forties with a camera in front of his face. A sweep of her hand knocked the machine clean out of his grasp and smashed it into a million pieces. "You want a souvenir?" she asked.

"I… I… I…"

"Here!" she said, pulling his face down hard to her chest, smashing his skull against her feminine perfection before pushing his suddenly lifeless body away from her. The crowd withdrew nervously all around her.

"Who else?" asked Clara. "What about you?" she demanded of a teenaged boy. He turned to run, but she flew over his head, turning in the air to land right in his path. Before he could react, she had grabbed the back of his skull and ground his face to pulp on her proud, erotic breasts. "And you?" she enquired of an older man, frozen to the spot nearby.

"P…P…" he started, terror robbing him off both the ability to speak and the ability to move.

"There you go!" Clara said. "Live your fantasy!" She placed her palm on the back of his neck and used it to press his head into her cleavage. She released him a moment later, to fall in a heap by her feet.

And then, to her surprise, she found herself smiling. She felt… good.

She felt no shame at breaking the code of her ancestors. Only a sense of utter liberation, as if a huge burden had just been lifted from her shoulders. She was free. Finally. She had listened to her heart. Found what she really wanted to do in life, what truly gave her joy. It was time for her body to take its revenge on all those who had stared at it and obsessed over it. Removing her accursed costume had freed her. Freed her body. To do what it really wanted.

She rose up above the now panicking crowd, placing her hands on her hips and looked down on the people scattering all around her. So weak. So ungrateful. They did not deserve protecting or saving. Proudly, she thrust out her magnificent, murderous breasts, licking her lips as she gleefully selected their next victim…

  

Conceptfan, Dec. 2005.






No. 11 - "Candlelight"

The gentlest of evening breezes tickled the candle-flames before going on to ruffle the palm-tree leaves behind him. Overhead, countless bright stars looked on from the cloudless black sky.

He thought of other times he'd tried to impress a woman. The nerves he had felt, looking over at the girl he was desperately trying to impress. The gnawing worry that he might do something wrong, displease her and ruin everything. This time, it was a thousand times worse.

He looked at her across the flickering candles and recited a silent prayer that everything - the place, the candles, the music - would please her. It was no small ask, to please a woman like her. So much thought had gone into each detail of the evening. He could only hope that the correct decisions had been reached. After all, there was only one chance to get it right.

So far, he had been unable to tell if she was pleased or not. He tried to study her stunning face in the dancing, orange light, but could not read satisfaction or displeasure on its perfect features and so instead, he reflected on how smoothly everything seemed to be going. Surely, she would appreciate the efforts that had been made.

 

She gazed down over the candles. There was no doubt, they made a beautiful sight. So pretty in the dark night and so carefully arranged. It must have taken a great deal of planning. Beneath the twin arcs of her perfectly symmetrical, thin eyebrows and long, lush lashes, her large, clear brown eyes drank in the scene. There was so much to see, but her beautiful eyes could see it all. Nothing could hide from her gaze.

Likewise, her pretty, immaculately-proportioned nose detected every odour for miles around. Long, straight dark hair fell either side of her face, obscuring her ears but not blocking their ability to hear even the beating wings of tiny insects. Or the beating of hearts. Nervous hearts.

Turning her head to take in more of the view, she noted more details of the remarkable display of candles. So much care had been taken over the positioning of each and every flame. She smiled. Her full, deep red and slightly pouting lips parted sensuously, displaying her lovely teeth, so flawlessly white, so straight and square. Her superhuman eyes, ears and nose detected the various immediate reactions to the change in her expression. She loved the way her beauty could both awe and arouse.

She was wearing a simple black evening dress for the occasion. Thin straps ran over each of her smooth round shoulders. Both her long, shapely arms were bare, but for all the exposed flesh, not a single blemish was visible. The gown was cut low. The tan skin of her neck was as flawless as that of her arms, and as flawless as the visible portions of her torso.

But it was not her complexion - as perfect as it was - that hungrily drew attention to that area of her body beneath her chin. Her breasts were beyond compare with any other woman on the planet. Their generous size, particularly given their unworldly firmness and the way they stood out so high and so proud on her chest, would have made any female into an object of uncontrollable lust. On a frame as slender as hers, they appeared even more dramatic, even more erotic.

The outlines of their perfect roundness were clearly noticeable beneath the black fabric, as was the prominent shape of a large nipple at the exact centre of each of her magnificent globes. The cut of the garment left the inner part of her bosoms on display, an acre of firm, immaculate cleavage bordered by the most luscious of luscious curves.

The tight dress also showed off her remarkably flat waist, its narrowness made all the more obvious by the way the sides of her body curved so wonderfully inwards beneath her bust and then, equally majestically, flared outwards at her round hips. The stunning undulating lines continued down her body, defining her firm thighs. The gown's hem was above her knees. More immaculate flesh could be seen beneath, her beautiful legs tapering into delicate-looking ankles.

The candles continued to flicker, although their combined glow could never hope to compete with her natural radiance. But competition was not the purpose of the candles. Neither was illuminating the dark. Her lovely eyes could penetrate even the blackest night without trouble. The candles were there for an altogether different reason. They were there to praise her. All fifty thousand of them.

 

He continued to hold his candle aloft, still hoping that she would like what she saw. Casting anxious glances to the sides, he observed the flame-bearers to his left and his right and those in front of him. Everyone was exactly in place, just as they had rehearsed so many times over the past few weeks. And everyone was scared. Scared that she might not like her birthday salute.

Fifty thousand flames flickered on the side of the hill, arranged with meticulous care and practice so that, from where she stood on the balcony of her palace, the dots of light spelt out, in immaculate, calligraphic letters, the words "Happy Birthday to our Goddess."

Along with forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other candle-bearers he prayed that the display would please her.

 

She swept her eyes over the worshipful crowd once more. So many of her subjects, all determined to ensure that their performance was worthy of her. And such a pretty result. The effort, the pre-planning, the scale and the beauty of it was a fitting tribute for an occasion as auspicious as this one. She was satisfied with her birthday salute.

All that remained was for her to blow out her candles. She smiled broadly in wicked anticipation as she inhaled a mighty lungful of air, pushed out her gorgeous lips and began to blow…

  

Conceptfan, Mar. 2006.






No. 12 - "Be Careful Where You Point That Thing"

Jason and Phil usually meet before classes a couple of streets away from college. This morning, Phil is holding a strange-looking object, reminiscent of a prop from a 1950s B-movie.

"Looks like a kid's pretend laser-gun" Jason opines. "Where'd you get it?"

"From a pile of junk they cleared out of a house on my street," explains Phil.

"Does it make a noise or flash or something?"

"Dunno. Haven't tried yet."

Phil is about to press the trigger when he is distracted by Amanda Groves walking on the opposite pavement. Amanda is the hottest girl in college by a mile. She has long, silky brown hair that shines even on a grey day, big green eyes that sparkle like polished emeralds, a cute nose and sexy, pouty lips that occasionally stretch and part to uncover a smile as bright as ten galaxies.

Amanda's body is the subject of the frantic daily fantasies of most of her male colleagues. Her waist is remarkably slim, accentuating both the alluring curve of her hips and the drool-provoking swell of her stunningly round and inescapably big bust. This morning, her ripe breasts are being contained by a tight white shirt. Her limbs are long, exquisitely shapely and slender in a gorgeously feminine way. She knows she's hot and she doesn't try to hide it. When she walks down the street, the instruments of her allure do not merely bounce and sway in loose harmony. They make a symphony.

Today, Amanda's erotic orchestra is playing for Steve Gibson, her boyfriend. His eyes light up and he catches his breath when he sees the vision in sex walking towards him. Steve is six-foot-two, handsome, fit and muscular. Amanda throws her long arms around his neck and they kiss.

"What's so special about that bastard?" Jason asks, as he and Phil stare in pure envy.

"If this was a real laser, I'd zap him right now," says Phil, pretending to shoot Steve with the toy.

"What the fuck?" both boys exclaim. A thick purple beam flies from the end of the gun towards the kissing couple. Just at that moment, Steve lifts Amanda from the street and spins around with her, laughing. The purple light clearly hits the sexy brunette's back. For an instant, she's bathed in magenta, then the beam vanishes.

Amanda throws her head back. Steve loses his grip on her and she falls, knocking him backwards off his feet onto his rump. "Yes!" cries Amanda, as if in the throes of an orgasm. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" She starts to shake and falls to her knees, straddling Steve's legs. No-one sees that the pavement under each of her kneecaps has cracked.

"Amanda! Are you alright?" Steve asks. Amanda's eyes are shut. Her mouth is open and she's panting and trembling.

"Oh god yes!" Amanda moans. It really is as if she's cuming. Steve tries to extricate himself from between her thighs and is shocked to find he's wedged. He tries to push her off him and somehow can't.

"Amanda!" yells Steve. She doesn't register. She'd squeezing his legs uncomfortably tightly.

"Oh!" she yells. "Oh... my.... ggggoooodddd!" Suddenly, her knees close in a violent, involuntary spasm. Steve screams. Amanda's sexy firm thighs have crushed his hips, and crumpled his pelvis. Steve's eyes roll into the top of his head and blood comes out of his mouth. He's no longer screaming. Or breathing.

Gasping, Amanda recovers herself. "What the hell just happened to me?" she asks. "Steve, did you do something?" Finally, she opens her eyes. "Steve? Steve!!!" Horrified, she jumps to her feet, and notices Phil and Jason staring, open-mouthed, on the other side of the street. Phil is still holding the purple-beam-gun.

"You!" shouts Amanda. Her voice is so loud it knocks the boys back a step and rattles windows. Angrily, she points at Phil. A green beam of light shoots from her finger, engulfing him. Instantly, his feet leave the ground. His arms and legs thrash about like an overturned beetle's and just as hopelessly. He can't move. He's being held in place, three foot above the ground, by the green energy from Amanda's finger.

"What the fuck?" asks Amanda. She shakes her hand to try and stop the beam. The green laser follows her movements. Phil is lifted high into the air and then slammed down into the street as she redirects her digit. By the time she's worked out how to shut off the beam, he has been dashed to a pulp.

"What's happening to me?" she yells, semi-hysterically. Jason just stares back. She examines her finger, narrowing her eyes at it. This time, two red lasers shoot from her eyes. They pass right past her finger without effect, but her sleeve, several inches away, catches fire. To her shock, the red lasers melt a deep bore in the street by her feet. She blinks and they vanish.

Panicking as she notices her burning sleeve, she moves to blow out the flames, pushing out her thick lips and exhaling. The air leaves her mouth with a roar. All the dead leaves and bits of litter on the street rise and fly away from her. Amanda blows so powerfully that Jason also rises, like the leaves. He yells as he is thrown by the hurricane into the wall of a house thirty yards away.

People are coming out on to the street now to investigate the commotion. There's screaming as the carnage is seen. A man rushes up to Amanda, putting his hand on her shoulder. "What happened?" he asks. "Are you alright?"

Amanda is still freaked out and the hand on her shoulder unnerves her. "Get off me!" she says, trying to brush the man away. Her thin arm smacks his midriff and hurls him across the road, still rising as he disappears over the roofs on the far side.

"Oh my god!" she exclaims, as the realization finally dawns on her. "I've got superpowers!"

  

Conceptfan, Nov. 2006.






No. 13 - "Space Girl"

A series of Haikus with a SciFi theme. Written as "Valentine's Poetry" (because it expresses love for a trope).


Beauty unsurpassed
From a far distant planet.
(She's super-powered)


Omnipotent girl.
Invulnerable goddess.
Here to conquer Earth.


Manicured fingers
On a slender up-stretched arm
Hold packed bus aloft.


Cruel grin, slow wink.
Easy toss launches vehicle.
She throws it a mile!


Bullet strikes her chest.
Lead bends, flattens, ricochets.
Her breast is unharmed.


Faster than our minds,
The girl moves near speed of light.
None can escape her.


Effortless gesture.
Flick from feminine digit
Sends soldier flying.


A frozen kiss blown
Seductively turns dozens
Into solid ice.


She laughs as tank-shells
Explode against her body.
Nothing can hurt her.


Lovely eyes glow red
Beams vaporise their target
Her powers don't end!


Futile metal screams
As she tears a tank in half.
Men spill at her feet.


Gorgeous pouting lips
Slowly part. Teeth flash. Pucker.
Then she blows us away.


Hands on hips she gloats,
Magnificent chest thrust out,
Admiring her work.


Her conquest complete,
Her power unstoppable,
The planet now hers.

  

Conceptfan, Feb. 2019.