III
SG awakened to a gentle knock on the bedroom door.
"Time to rise and shine." It was Michael. "Breakfast is almost ready,
and we've got a busy day ahead."
She put on the sweater she had worn the night before but decided on
jeans instead of the pleated skirt. It didn't take her long to find a pair that
fit, though getting them past the shackles on her ankles proved difficult.
In a breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen, Michael had laid out a
plateful of French toast, topped by slivered almonds and powdered sugar, and
small bowl of raspberries.
"Orange juice?"
"No thanks, but I'd love a cup of coffee. This is wonderful. Did you
cook it yourself?"
"Yes," said Michael. "I'm actually a very good cook, at least when it
comes to breakfast. I only have Margaret come in to prepare dinner because I
don't like to have to figure out a meal after a long day at the office."
"What do you do?" SG asked. "What's your business?"
Michael hesitated. "I'm a contractor. We build things."
"What kind of things?
"Well, roads and parking lots. That's why I was at Marston yesterday. We
made a bid on resurfacing all of their parking areas and interior streets."
"Oh," said SG. She looked out the window and changed the subject. "What
a lovely view. Looks like it's going to be a nice day."
Michael was relieved. She hadn't connected her long hibernation with the
company he now headed. Maybe she had been so out of it during the few hours
before she was buried that she didn't remember who did what to her - or how she
ended up on Doberman Road. He had read the report Chief Patterson brought him
with great thoroughness. He was especially interested in this warning: "Subject
may revive and try to escape at some point in 1973. If so, she may seek revenge.
All parties who were witness to or involved in the interment of subject should
be notified promptly of any changes to the surface of this stretch of Doberman
Road."
Michael decided to test her memory. It was risky, but he needed to have
some idea of what she knew, and what she wanted.
"First thing after breakfast, we're going to get those shackles off of
you. I have a friend who has a machine shop. He can do the job safely."
"I don't know," said SG playfully. "I was sort of getting used to them.
And the chain could come in handy was a weapon."
"No. We're taking it all off, even your collar, which I find very
alluring. All that stuff draws attention to you - the wrong kind of attention.
I'm worried there are people out there who mean you harm."
SG looked at him thoughtfully. "I guess you're right. But the truth is,
I intend to do some harm myself."
"To whom?" he asked.
"To Dean Toopermann and her sister. To a student at Lackanooka J. C.
named Louie Ungtjur. To some other people whose names I can't remember. I don't
even remember their faces. I just remember the day I was . . . ." She hesitated.
"The day you were buried under a road east of town," he said.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"It was in the newspaper yesterday. About how a naked woman popped up
from a hole in Doberman Road and got hit by a truck. And disappeared."
"It was in the papers? What else was in there?" SG felt a surge of
panic. Did they know about the hobos she had murdered?
"Nothing else," said Michael. "Except that the truck driver said the
woman's wrists and ankles were shackled."
"Can I see the paper?" she asked.
"Sure." He rummaged through a stack of papers on a counter and pulled
out the previous day's Lackanooka Ledger. The story about the strange accident
on Doberman Road was on the front page.
So was a smaller story about two homeless men found dead by the
Lackanooka River. One's skull had been crushed. The other had drowned. His body
had been found a few hundred yards downstream from the first one's. Police
speculated that the second man had killed the first during a fight, then had
fallen exhausted into the river and drowned. But they admitted it was just a
theory, and they hadn't found the murder weapon.
Michael's voice interrupted her reading. "Okay, we'll get the shackles
off, then we'll find out about this Dean Toopermann and Louie what's-his-name.
And while we're driving to my friend's house, you're going to tell me who you
really are and how you managed to survive being buried for 17 years."
SG looked at him sharply. "How do you know I was buried for 17 years?"
Michael tried to keep his composure. He wasn't prone to blushing, so he
assumed his face betrayed nothing.
"I don't know," he said. "I thought you mentioned it."
"I didn't," she said firmly.
They looked at each other in silence.
Finally, Michael said, "Okay, I've got a confession to make. I know who
you are. I know how you ended up buried under asphalt. The crew that buried you
worked for my grandfather. The job was done by the company I now run."
"Is that why you were at Marston College yesterday? To find me? To
figure out how to put me back underground?"
"No," Michael said. "Absolutely not. I was on campus yesterday for
exactly the reason I told you, to bid on a job. And I didn't know anything about
your background until last night. While you were sleeping, the police chief came
over. He had a file on you, a very thick file. You can read it if you want to.
It's in the study."
"No. I don't want to read. I just want to know what you know."
"I've told you what I know. As far as those people you want to get even
with, I don't know anything about them. Seventeen years have passed. They might
not live in Lackanooka anymore. They may not even be alive."
SG thought this over. "Did you tell the police chief I was here, in this
house?" she asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I wasn't sure where he stands in all this. One of his
predecessors was involved in having you put away. Some of the most powerful
people in town were involved. I thought the safest course was to keep quiet
about you."
"When were you going to tell me about all this?"
"I don't know. Maybe never. I found it all so hard to believe. I still
do."
"That I'm . . . Supergirl?"
"Yes. That you're Supergirl - and that being Supergirl didn't protect
you from ...." He fell silent.
"From what?" SG asked.
"From being raped and beaten. And not just the day you were buried
underground. It appears a lot of people had fun at your expense. Repeated rape.
Sexual torture. General mayhem. It's all in the file."
"The file is true," SG said quietly. "All those things happened to me."
"But if you're Supergirl, how could they do it? Why couldn't you stop
them? Was everybody in town running around with kryptonite dildos?"
SG thought carefully about how to answer him. She wanted to be truthful,
but she wasn't even sure she knew the truth.
"There's something wrong with me," she said at last. "Something I don't
understand. At first I submitted to the abuse because I didn't want to blow my
cover. Then I discovered I liked it. It's very difficult for me to talk about
this."
"I understand," Michael said. "I mean, I understand that it must be
difficult."
"But you don't understand my . . . what shall we call it? My
perversion?"
"Hey, I'm not being judgmental. It's the '70s. Anything goes."
"Why do I not find that reassuring?" SG asked, with an edge to her
voice. "Oh, well, whether you understand it or not, I like rough stuff. I get
turned on when men abuse me - and not just men. Dean Toopermann and her dyke
sister did terrible things to me. I hated what they did to me. Yet I craved it.
How can I possibly explain?"
She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Michael, not knowing what to say, said nothing. He wanted to embrace
her, but something held him back.
"Is that why you didn't have an orgasm yesterday afternoon?" he finally
asked. He was surprised by his own question.
"I guess so," SG said quietly. "You were so good, so considerate, so
competent and confident. And yet . . . ."
"And yet what you wanted was someone to beat the shit out of you or hook
you up to some electrical torture device." He spat out the words with a
vehemence that he instantly regretted.
"That's right," she said, with a hint of defiance. "I wanted someone who
was less interested in pleasing me - in doing what pleases ninety-nine women out
of a hundred - than in someone who would treat me like an object, a whore. Not
even a whore - a cunt."
Michael sighed. "What rotten luck! That's something I just can't do.
I've always prided myself in knowing how to make women happy in bed, then along
comes the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I leave her cold."
SG laughed through her tears. "And I've always thought I wanted a man
just like you - good-looking and smart and kind and with a healthy attitude
toward sex. And instead, all I really crave is to be treated like a slut."
She went to him and they embraced tenderly. She felt tremendous
affection toward him. She loved him . . . like a brother.
# # #
Michael's friend at the machine shop looked at SG's manacles and
scratched his head.
"Never seen anything like this before," he said. "No locks. It seems
they fitted the half-circles together and welded them in place. If you don't
mind my asking, m'am, how'd they do that without burning the hell out of you?"
"Tony," Michael said, "Remember. No questions."
"Okay, okay. No questions. But this is going to be difficult. I'm going
to have use a vise to hold each shackle steady, then saw through it."
He looked SG in the eye. "You've gotta stay real, real still, cuz if
this goes wrong, you could end up with a nasty cut."
SG stayed very, very still. Nevertheless, while he was cutting the
shackle off her left ankle, the saw did its job more efficiently than he
expected, and the blade sliced into her skin.
At least, it seemed to slice into her. She flinched in pain, and Tony
instantly pulled back. He expected to see blood gushing from her leg, but there
wasn't a drop - just a white line where the blade had struck, and it quickly
disappeared.
"Fucking amazing," Tony said, in awe.
"Yeah," said Michael. "There's a lot about her that's fucking amazing.
And you're not going to mention any of it to anyone, right?"
"Absolutely, Michael. I never seen the broad - pardon my slang."
SG smiled. "That's okay. I've been called a lot worse."
# # #
They had lunch at a sandwich shop on the edge of town. The assistant
director of the public library, an attractive woman named Maria, met them. She
had graduated from Marston ten years earlier and knew just about everything
there was to know about town and gown gossip.
"Toop is in a retirement community down in the Florida panhandle, senile
and dying of cancer," she told them. "Her sister, the wretched Regina, choked to
death on a piece of cucumber. I know it's terrible to speak ill of the deceased,
but she really was an awful person."
"I agree," said SG.
"Now, as to Louie Ungtjur, he went to prison. He had a habit of roughing
up women, and he finally went too far. She was a Marston student and the
daughter of a big-time journalist in Cleveland. He killed her while they were
having sex. It wasn't clear whether what was going on was rape or consensual,
but he killed her, and that was enough to send him to the pen for 25 years. He
came up for parole last May, but got turned down."
"His uncle at the bank couldn't help him?" SG asked.
"Nope. The bank folded in '62, and ole Uncle Oscar went to the pen even
before Louie did. Cooking the books and embezzlement."
SG's look of disappointment prompted Michael to say, "Well, it sounds
like everyone got pretty much what they deserved. Good riddance to them all."
"Sure," SG said with a tight smile. "A happy ending."
After Maria left and they were walking to the car, SG said, "And what
about your grandfather? He's the last piece in the puzzle, isn't he?
Michael felt as if he had been punched in the stomach.
"He was just doing what he was hired to do," he said. "It was just
another road contract."
They got into the Jag, and Michael headed back to his house. The most
direct route would have been through town, but he was worried about being seen
with SG. So he took a couple of county roads that got little traffic.
After a few turns, he realized that he was being tailed. It was a big
white Ford. All three of the police department's unmarked cars were big white
Fords. Everyone in Lackanooka recognized them.
When he was within a few hundred yards of his house, Michael saw that
three more cars were parked in front of it. Two were regular patrol cars. The
third was the chief's. He could have tried to make a run for it, but eventually
he would have to come back home. If the young woman beside him really was
Supergirl, she should be able to handle half a dozen or so Lackanooka cops.
He pulled into the driveway, and the car that had been following him
pulled behind him. No escape now, Michael thought.
He expected a civil greeting. After all, he and the chief were social
acquaintances, if not friends, and there was no reason for any rough stuff. It
wasn't as if SG was wanted for some crime.
He stepped out of the car as Patterson approached, but instead of a
handshake he got a punch in the gut. "That's for not telling me you were hiding
Super Slut," Patterson said. Then, as Michael sank to the pavement, Patterson
kneed him in the jaw and added, "And this is just a reminder that your grandpa
is a sick old man who no longer counts for shit in this town."
SG had opened the door on her side and found herself facing three
officers with drawn pistols and a fourth armed with a shotgun. She considered
what to do next. The bullets and shotgun pellets wouldn't do her any permanent
harm, but Michael was just a few feet away, on the other side of the car, and a
stray round could kill him.
"Turn around and get your hands behind your back," a beefy sergeant told
her.
She did as she was ordered, and he quickly handcuffed her. No problem,
she thought. She could break these easily enough.
But the sergeant's next move was a problem. He yanked her head back, and
she found herself pressed against him. Her hands, cuffed behind her, were
against his manhood. She squeezed it and considered tightening her grip and
disabling him. But suddenly his right hand, which held a sponge, was covering
her nose and mouth.
Chloroform? No, she thought, there was no smell. Then all thought
disintegrated, and she lost consciousness.
"It worked," said the sergeant. He held her by one arm, and another cop
grabbed the other. Her body had gone limp, and her head rolled back and forth as
they jostled her. "But I'm kinda sorry it did. She gave my prick a nice little
squeeze before she blacked out."
"You're lucky she didn't turn it into hamburger meat," said Patterson.
"Now what?" asked a lieutenant.
"Now you and Parker bring the big cheese's grandson down to headquarters
and book him for resisting arrest. That'll get him out of the way for 24 hours.
Meanwhile, we're going to take this flying cunt out to the quarry and have some
fun until her cousin arrives."
"Who's her cousin?" the lieutenant asked.
"Now, who in the fuck do you think her cousin would be?" Patterson said
in exasperation. "She survived 17 years underground, survived getting hit by a
truck, evidently flew from the accident scene all the way to town, and now she
crumples up like a wet Kleenex when she gets a whiff of ground kryptonite."
The lieutenant looked at him blankly. "You mean her cousin is Batman?"
he finally asked.
"No, asshole, she's Supergirl. Her cousin is . . . . Oh, forget about
it. Just get lover boy here down to headquarters."
# # #
Patterson and his driver and two other cars with two officers each
headed northeast. SG was unconscious in the back seat of the chief's car. They
were well beyond their department's jurisdiction, but the city owned 22 acres of
land in the country that officers were supposed to use for training. An
abandoned limestone quarry had been turned into a lake, and there was a firing
range, a lodge and three cabins.
Superman and the Defense Department officials weren't due to arrive at
the county airstrip until 8 o'clock that evening. It was now only 3:30. Plenty
of time to have some fun with Miss "Sallie Gale."
They parked in front of the lodge, and Patterson slipped a noose made of
nylon cord around SG's neck. He yanked the cord, and she tumbled out of the car.
He dragged her up the wooden steps of the lodge and into a big, high-ceilinged
room with wooden rafters. There was exercise equipment on the far side of the
room, a ping-pong table to the left, and a fireplace and big sofa to the right.
Patterson looked around, then sniffed. "It's musty in here. Let's get
those windows open."
"What if she starts screaming?" an officer asked.
"So?" Patterson asked. "We're 20 miles from town. Nobody lives anywhere
near. Anyway, I don't think she'll be making much noise. In fact, let's give it
a test."
SG was lying on her side, near his feet. He kicked her savagely in the
stomach. Her breath rushed out, and she curled into a tight ball.
"See, no screams. Now, let's strip her."
They pulled off her jeans and ripped her sweater to shreds. Then
Patterson pulled her upright with the noose, and the others looked at her with
mouths agape.
"Shit. What a body!" one whispered.
They bent her face down over the ping-pong table and raped her one by
one. When she moaned and seemed to be regaining consciousness, Patterson slammed
her on the back of the head with a billy club.
After they had finished, Patterson dragged her to the middle of the big
room. "Watch this," he said.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small bottle
of smelling salts. He had found it in the same safe where he had found the file
on her, and the powdered kryptonite.
He opened the bottle, then grabbed her hair and lifted her head. Barely
had he put the bottle under her nose than she began coughing and her eyes
fluttered open.
"Do you know who I am, bitch?" he whispered.
She looked at him without comprehension.
"Do you know where you are? Of course not. Well, let's just say you're
in purgatory. You'll be out eventually, but while you're here, you're going to
suffer." He leaned down until his face was inches from hers. "And you're going
to enjoy it." He had read her file very carefully, especially the comments of
young Louie Ungtjur about how much she seemed to enjoy being gang raped at
Lackanooka Junior College, and Dean Toopermann's on what she perceived as SG's
sexual perversion.
He pulled SG up to a kneeling position, opened his fly and put his prick
inches from her mouth.
"What are you going to do with this?" he asked.
She said nothing.
He yanked the cord hard, and the noose tightened around her neck.
"What are you going to do, bitch?"
"Suck it," she croaked.
"That's right. You're going to suck it til I cum, and you're going to
swallow every drop. Then you're going to do the same for my men. Every one of
them. And why are you going to suck them?"
"I don't know," SG whispered.
Patterson kicked her in the groin, but before she could fall to the
floor one of his men yanked the cord and pulled her back onto her knees.
"Why are you going to suck us all off?" he demanded.
"Because I'm slut," she said, almost inaudibly.
"Because you're what?" he shouted. "Speak up, bitch, so the rest can
hear you."
"Because I'm a slut." She spoke loudly this time, in the tone of someone
completely defeated.
She sucked all six of them, starting with the chief. And when she was
finished, they took turns testing her ability to take a punch. One would hold
her from behind while another hit her as hard as he could in the stomach.
The blows were painful, and she begged for mercy. But she didn't
collapse or lose consciousness -- even when the chief slammed her midsection
repeatedly with his club.
"She's tough," the sergeant finally said. "Is that why the Defense
Department is interested in her?"
"I guess so," Patterson said. "All I know is that someone brought it to
Washington's attention that she had come out from under Doberman Road. I get a
call from the Pentagon saying they're coming to pick her up. Some important
project. And Superman's going to be with them."
"Won't he be pissed that we've raped and beat up his little cousin?"
"Guy from the Pentagon said we could do whatever we wanted with her.
They plan to do a lot worse. And it's all okay with the guy in the blue tights.
It seems he thinks it's his patriotic duty to sacrifice Super Slut if it'll
enhance national security."
SG lay on her belly, conscious but limp. Patterson slipped his shoe
under her and flipped her onto her back.
"She really is a honey," he said softly. "All the punishment we put her
through, and she still looks like Sleeping Beauty."
"Only there ain't no prince gonna kiss her pussy and make a happy
ending," said the sergeant, to everyone's amusement.
(To be continued.)
