Chapter 6: Birdman
It took two hours and several showers before Betty and Flag Girl recovered from
the pheromones. Ludwig himself got too close to them before the hoses arrived
and had to be restrained by four other guards from joining in the sex party. The
buzzard, left to his own devices, hopped around the Garden looking for
something, anything, to fuck. He had to settle for a mallard that had strayed
too far from the lake.
"I'm not sure we need to use the wand anymore," Bohner said. "This pheromone
concoction appears to be just what we need to turn Ms. A into a groveling slut,
begging to be fucked."
"I'm afraid not," said Moulton. "It's dangerously indiscriminate. Rub it on her,
and she becomes a hazard to anyone near her. What's more, the effects are
temporary. Once the gel is washed away, the person, or animal, smeared with it
returns to normal. The wand, on the other hand, appears to do long-lasting
damage to a young lady's sexual scruples."
"Well," said Bohner, "I don't mind applying the wand. In fact, I thoroughly
enjoy it. But I would like a jar of that gel to bring back to Delta-City - for
scientific purposes."
"Yes, of course. Mustn't stand in the way of science. I'll arrange for you to
have a gallon jug when you leave. But be very, very careful. Drop it in the
city, and you could provoke a rape riot. Ho, ho, ho."
# # #
It made no sense and was terribly unfair, but Betty blamed Flag Girl for what
happened in the Garden. Betty's loss of control and moments of sexual abandon
became another strike against the blonde bimbo.
At every opportunity, when no one was looking, she would punch the poor girl in
the belly, or trip her, or slam her face into a wall. The injuries became so
noticeable that Bohner at one point asked Flag Girl if they were self-inflicted.
Flag Girl shook her head no but declined to blame Betty. She was afraid of what
would happen if word got back to her tormentor. She didn't trust Bohner to
protect her.
For once, she had the situation figured out right. Bohner felt he had an
investment in Flag Girl, and he didn't want that investment endangered. But he
had an old and close relationship with Betty, and he would have been reluctant
to confront her had Flag Girl complained.
So the bullying continued. It reached a crescendo one afternoon when MA was
dragged to the recreation room for a resumption of abuse by the wand. Flag Girl
was in the room, tied to a chair and forced to watch while Bohner and Betty took
turns driving MA to the edge of mental and physical destruction. Betty had just
thrust the silver sphere into MA's vulva for the fourth time when Flag Girl
cried out, "Leave her alone, you dyke bully! You and Dr. Bonehead and old Mr.
Limp Dick are nothing but a bunch of perverts and cowards."
Betty left the wand stuck in MA's pussy, turned to Bohner and said, "You take
over. I'm going to teach Flag Fuck a lesson."
"Not too rough," Bohner warned. "Remember, she's going to help make us rich."
"Sure, sure," said Betty. "I'll be real careful."
She untied Flag Girl but threw a loop of rope around her neck.
"Come on, baby, we're going for a walk," she said through clenched teeth.
They went outside, and Betty, through yanks of the rope and bodily shoves,
forced her into the Garden.
"Let's have a bit of privacy, slut," she said, dragging Flag Girl behind a
large, glassy blue sphere.
"What are you going to do to me?" Flag Girl asked, her voice quavering.
"First, this," said Betty, with a savage punch to the bimbo's left breast.
"Ow!"
"Then this," said Betty, slamming a fist into her right tit.
Flag Girl dropped to her knees in pain.
"And don't forget this!" Betty grabbed the back of Flag Girl's head and drove
her knee into the girl's throat. The little heroine wannabe fell over on her
side, gagging.
Betty finished up with several kicks to Flag Girl's guts.
Betty leaned down and put her mouth close to Flag Girl's ear. "I don't think
you'll be calling me names anymore, will you? In fact, with a broken windpipe,
you'll be lucky just to keep breathing," she said. But Flag Girl clearly heard
not a word. Betty straightened up. "You'd better not die on me, bitch," she
said. She looked up at the sky. "But if you do, I hope those buzzards get you
before anyone finds you."
She walked around the blue sphere and made sure no one had seen her. Bohner
would be pissed, of course, but she could handle him. Moulton was so fucking
rich, he wouldn't mind losing out on a chance for another million or so. No,
nobody was going to really care all that much if Flag Girl was beaten to death
and devoured by scavengers - except Ms. A. That thought hit Betty like an arrow
through her heart. One more reason to hate this damned dumb bunny.
# # #
"What have you done with Lydia?" MA asked when Betty came to her room to fetch
her for dinner.
"Lydia?" Betty looked puzzled. "Oh, you mean Slag Girl. Wow, that's great -
Lydia. With just a little adjustment, it becomes Lydiot, as in 'Lydiot, the
Idiot.'"
"What did you do to her?" MA's voice was low but firm.
"What the hell difference does it make what I did to her?" Betty said angrily.
"She doesn't have the IQ of a cucumber. Are you queer on her, is that it?"
MA, who had been sitting on a window ledge, got up and advanced toward Betty
with fire in her eyes.
Betty crouched and prepared to defend herself.
"Don't be a fool, Brenda. You know you'll get your ass kicked."
But MA wasn't intimidated. She threw herself at Betty, and the two women were
instantly on the floor, wrestling.
Betty's advantages in weight and strength were more than enough to counter MA's
grit and determination.
Betty sat on MA's chest, grabbed her ears and slammed her head against the floor
again and again, until the former superheroine lost consciousness.
"Shit," Betty said. "Shit, shit, shit. Everything I do turns to shit."
She picked up MA and dumped her on the bed. She wanted to make love to her while
she was knocked out. But she also wanted to kill her, to ruin her beauty, to do
whatever it took to stop loving her.
She no longer cared about what Bohner and Moulton and the rest of them thought -
or what they'd do to her if she destroyed their multi-million-dollar investment.
She certainly didn't care about her share of the promised loot.
She grabbed a pillow and pressed it over MA's face. She leaned on the pillow,
putting all her weight on it.
The door opened, and Bohner stuck his head in.
"Jesus Christ!" he yelled.
He lunged and knocked Betty off the bed, then his momentum carried him forward
and he landed on top of her. They battled on the floor, while in the bed, MA lay
very still, her face purple and her eyes rolled back.
# # #
The strategy session was in Moulton's study, a comfortable, book-lined room with
a well-stocked wet bar and lewd paintings and engravings by 18th Century French
and English artists.
"So she'll make a full recovery?" said Moulton.
"Yes," said Bohner. "I was worried about brain damage, but we did some tests and
it appears there was no permanent harm."
Moulton grunted. "Well, of course, it's not really her brains that bidders will
be most interested in, but you don't spend twenty or thirty or forty million on
just tits and ass. The prize here is her humiliation. She has to have enough
brainpower to appreciate how far she has fallen. That's what they'll pay for."
"Yes, of course," said Bohner. "Now, about Flag Girl. Betty wouldn't tell us
what she did to her. Even after a pretty big dose of sodium pentathol, all she'd
say is that she beat her up and dumped her somewhere in the Garden. But your
security force has combed the Garden and found no trace of her."
"Most unfortunate," muttered Moulton. "I was just feeling recharged enough to
have another go at her. Disappeared, eh? Well, I doubt she got off the estate.
Not after taking a beating from Betty."
"I agree. I think she's on premises somewhere. But you have over 300 acres, and
it's dark. I guess we'll just have to suspend the search until morning."
"What about the aquarium?" asked Tasher. "Ms. A ended up there. Maybe Flag Girl
is in one of the tanks."
Moulton shuddered. "Now there's a thought," he said.
He picked up a phone and punched in two digits. "Oliver? I want you to send
Ludwig or Stan to check the fish tanks - both of them." He paused. "Yes, I
agree. There might not be much left if she's in there, but get someone down
there right away."
He hung up and glared at Bohner. "It's so goddam hard to get good help. As you
should know. Betty was yours, wasn't she?"
Bohner nodded. "I hired her. I trusted her. And I'm profoundly sorry I did."
"Where is she now?"
"Locked up in a room in the basement. I asked Taggart to put her there."
"Fine, fine," said Moulton. "We'll figure out how to dispose of her tomorrow. My
own inclination is to chop her up and feed her to the sharks, but the
professionals who run the aquarium might not approve."
"Yes, well that's outside my area of expertise," said Bohner. "I'm less worried
about how to get rid of Betty than in finding Flag Girl. If she gets out and
somehow gets to the press, the results could be pretty embarrassing."
"I wouldn't worry too much about that," said Moulton. "The Delta-City Democrat
is owned by my brother-in-law. WUSS-TV is owned by my nephew. The radio stations
have more independence, but their routine sensationalism undermines their
credibility. Besides, I'm sure the little strumpet hasn't escaped."
# # #
Moulton was right. Flag Girl had not escaped.
Minutes after Betty had left her, she felt herself being lifted off the ground.
She didn't know who or what was carrying her. She didn't care. For the moment,
just breathing required all of her concentration. Then, even that became too
difficult, and she descended into blackness.
When she regained consciousness, the first thing she became aware of was that
the pain in her throat had subsided to a dull ache and she no longer had to
struggle to breathe. She opened her eyes. She was in a small, circular room. The
only light came from an oval window, in front of which stood a naked man, his
back toward her.
She tried to move and realized that she was lying on something soft, moist - and
alive! She rolled off of it, onto the floor. The mattress or futon or whatever
it was she had been lying on was grayish pink. It looked like a huge tongue.
She shuddered. A slight noise behind her caused her to turn. The man at the
window now faced her.
She screamed. He had the head of a bird - a bird with a large, down-curved beak,
like a parrot's.
She tried to get to her feet and fell backward onto the tongue. This made her
scream again. She jumped off, looking for a way out. There was an oval doorway
in the pink wall, but the door was shut and there was no handle.
She felt something and jumped back. The man had reached out and touched her. He
was making strange, small, squeaky noises and had a concerned look on his face -
if a bird's face the size of a man's could be said to look concerned.
He backed away, as if to reassure her he was no threat. The room was small, and
staying away from both him and the big tongue meant pressing her back against
the wall, next to the doorway.
After a few minutes, the birdman turned from her and resumed looking out the
window. Occasionally, he made a little chirping sound, and she could hear a
similar response from outside.
She felt cold and hugged herself as she leaned against the wall. She was
beginning to fall asleep. Or maybe she was already asleep, and this was all a
dream.
If it was a dream, it was a very vivid one, because just as she was dozing off,
the door opened and bumped into her elbow.
She jumped backward, and a fish looked in. Actually, it was a human body with a
fish's head. Flag Girl noticed that the body was that of a woman, but that
observation was swept aside as she tripped and landed back on the tongue.
It was all too much. Flag Girl curled up in a tight ball and began to cry. She
had never been so frightened in her life.
The fish and the bird were conversing a few feet away. The noises they made did
not sound menacing. In fact, they sounded worried.
A hand touched Flag Girl's shoulder. She flinched but didn't try to retreat. She
looked up into a fishy eye.
"Don't hurt me," Flag Girl whispered.
The fishwoman went to the window and gestured to Flag Girl to join her. She did,
cautiously. When she looked out, she saw Moulton's security guards walking
through the Garden. They were carrying guns, and they looked like they meant
business.
The birdman pointed outside, then at Flag Girl.
The men outside were searching for her. Suddenly, she understood that these
strange creatures were trying to protect her.
She nodded and moved away from the window.
Outside, she heard the voice of Ludwig, one of the men who had repeatedly raped
her - the one she had trusted the night she arrived. "The bitch has just
vanished," he said.
Another man said, "This place gives me the creeps. If I see one of Moulton's
monsters, I'm going to shoot it - I don't care if the old son-of-a-bitch fires
me."
The voices moved away.
Flag Girl lay back on the gently undulating tongue and tried to forget it was
alive. Soon she was fast asleep.
[To be continued.]
