By B. Ferrett
"It's a lucky thing for us that you came along when you did, HatChick," the policeman said. "It sure looked like things were getting out of control for a while."
HatChick laughed: "I don't imagine we'll see this one on the net any time soon," she replied. "No fighting, no blood, and no sex."
The young officer colored slightly, and HatChick realized he had been surreptitiously checking her out in her form-fitting superheroine uniform. "Okay, scratch the bit about no sex," she thought to herself.
"It's interesting that the bad guys were fans of the show," she said, to cover his embarrassment. "I'm just glad they were willing to give up for the price of a few autographs."
"Don't discount your own fame, HatChick," the officer replied. "Until you arrived, they were just looking at five to ten, unless they decided to shoot their way out. With you, they got their fifteen minutes of fame - and then five to ten.
"And I'm not surprised they were fans. Even bad guys need someone to look up to."
"Or just look at," she thought, catching his roving eye again traveling up and down her long legs and taut curves. She smiled, cocking an eyebrow at him until he blushed again and brought his gaze back to her eyes.
"We will need you to come to the station, HatChick," the officer said. "My squad car is filled, but we can get another officer to - "
"I can take her," said a tall, auburn-haired female officer. "Mid-town station, right?"
"Uh - right," the young male officer answered. "I don't know you - officer?"
"Rubin," she said. "Billie Rubin. I just transferred in. Come along, HatChick." She turned smartly on her heel and strode officiously away. HatChick had just a moment to quickly thank the handsome young policeman and chase after Office Rubin. "I didn't even get his name," she thought.
The young policeman watched with real regret as the tall, lithe teenager weaved her way gracefully through the after-incident crowd of police and reporters. He was just out of the academy, and not much older than the blue-eyed superheroine. "Under other circumstances," he mused - and had to drop the thought. Duty called, in the form of a squad car full of incompetent but star-struck bank robbers.
= = = = =
"I'm afraid you'll have to sit in the back, HatChick," Officer Rubin said, opening the door to her squad car. "Regulations - you understand."
"Of course." HatChick ducked down and slid onto the vinyl bench seat, tucking her long legs beneath her. She was still teenager enough to be interested and slightly thrilled at getting a ride in a police car, and she briefly considered asking the young policewoman to turn the sirens and lights on for the trip to the station. But one look at the stern visage of the officer in the rear-view mirror dissuaded her from trying; this cop looked like she was all business. HatChick sighed and settled back, trying not to think about past occupants of the back seat - or their levels of personal hygiene.
The back-door locks clicked down as the engine roared to life. "Don't be alarmed, HatChick," Officer Rubin called back through the grill-work separating the front and back seats. "That's an automatic setting. This car's used for perp-transport; we don't usually chauffer 'famous crimefighting teenagers' in squads."
HatChick noted the change in Officer Rubin's voice at the phrase 'famous crimefighting teenagers', and recognized it as a quote from a recent "Persons" magazine feature, "HatChick and Commitment Girl: Kicking Butt and Taking Names While Looking Great". The piece had been a little embarrassing, but it was still exciting to have their names and pictures in a glossy national magazine. This was the first indication of professional resentment HatChick had encountered from the piece. She shrugged it off mentally, and turned her attention to examining the inside of the squad car.
The back-seat compartment was a miniature jail cell. There was a thick metal mesh between the rear seat and the front. The inside door-handles had been removed, and the lock buttons, once recessed, could not be grasped. The back of the front seat was thick-gauge metal, extending right to the floor. There was very little room - HatChick's knees almost touched the cold steel of the seat-back.
Inspection done, HatChick sat back and let her mind wander back to the handsome young policeman at the bank-robbery. The fact that they had met while she was in-character precluded their having any kind of relationship. Despite the fact that the network would surely love such a complication, it could server to endanger them both. Still, it was nice to take a moment to think about him; she got little mental "down-time" for just fantasizing, and she couldn't imagine a safer place to indulge than locked in the back of a police cruiser, with an armed officer for an escort. "Not much chance of interruption here," she told herself.
But interruption came, in the form of a metallic whisper from the floor near her feet. She opened her eyes to see that a small door had opened in the seat-back on the passenger side, revealing a dark recess under the front passenger seat. HatChick leaned forward to peer into the space, bending over awkwardly in the cramped confines . . .
Her heart leaped into her throat as she came face-to-face with a pair of heavy-lidded eyes. The pupils were vertical slits, and even before the tell-tale shovel shaped head slid smoothly out from the shadows beneath the seat, HatChick knew with whom she was sharing her ride:
"Snake."
She backed up against the driver's side door on the seat, pulling her legs up beneath her. She looked to the front seat: the officer had removed her hat, allowing a thickly gorgeous mane of auburn hair to fall around her shoulders. Officer Rubin met HatChick's eyes in the rear-view mirror, and smiled. HatChick's throat went dry as she choked out her second groan of recognition:
"Big Hair Lady."
The arch-villain smiled and nodded. "Welcome to the last ride of your life, HatChick. Please sit back and enjoy the view. We'll be taking a leisurely tour of the city, just you, me and your seatmate, 'Zane'. He's a twenty-two foot reticulated python; nothing special, just a slow, patient constrictor with an appetite for blondes. Since the end of your mutual relationship is inevitable, I suggest you relax and enjoy the experience - I understand his attentions can be quite stimulating, right up to the last few moments or so." Big Hair Lady smiled again, her eyes momentarily as cool and predatory as the snake's.
HatChick knew better than to waste time engaging the beautiful super-villain in conversation. A quick glance around the compartment confirmed the presence of a network mote-cam, blinking at her from the upholstery in the ceiling. There would be others, she knew; the nets would make sure to catch the death-struggle of a highly-rated heroine from as many angles as possible.
She watched with horrified fascination as the snake's liquid body poured out of the small opening to pool on the floor between the front and back seats. The beast's body at its thickest was as big around as her waist; at its narrowest, just behind its head, it was as thick as her thigh. In the stillness of the moment, she had the leisure to observe the movements of its sides as it breathed, the fluid grace with which the animal issued from its hiding place. HatChick realized she had been holding her breath; she let it out with a rush, and the snake's great head turned toward her at the sound.
Slowly, the creature lifted its head up to the back seat, its body slowly following to lie coiled on the seat beside her. Still it made no threatening moves, but for the first time HatChick felt vulnerable; her uniform left her legs bare except for the thinnest of leotards, and there was no place to move her long limbs out of reach of the snake. She stared at the snake as it transferred itself from the floor to the seat, her eyes wide, and she realized her own breathing was syncopating with the beast's inhalations. With an effort of will, she broke the rhythm of her breath.
No place to run; no room to maneuver. She was confined in a small space, and face to face with the agent of her death. And still the snake uncoiled and coiled again with maddening deliberation.
HatChick ran through several scenarios in her mind, and finally concluded her only option was a strength-against-strength contest with the snake. Her body, sinew and bone, against a creature bred through millennia for one thing - the slow application of physical strength against soft and helpless prey. Prey such as herself.
"I hate to interrupt this moment of intimacy," Big Hair Lady offered from the front seat, "but I thought you might be interested to know we are passing through the Financial District. All around us are busy business-people, busily doing business. And not one of them knows of your situation, HatChick. Do you find that as stimulating as I do?"
HatChick kept her eyes on the snake. Nearly its entire body was mounded on the seat beside her, and its head was lifting up the back of the seat to the deck behind. Its cold eyes still regarded her as its head slid soundlessly along the back window, describing a wide arc around her.
"Here's a thought," Big Hair Lady continued brightly. "If those people out there - those 'suits' -- were aware, if they did know what is about to happen to you, nine out of ten would drop everything - to watch. Your adoring public, my butt-kicking, name-taking young beauty, just likes to get off on watching you squirm."
HatChick spared a glance out the window for the business-suited adults wandering desultorily from building to building, and could not refute her nemesis' assessment. For the first time, she tried to imagine the audience who watched their real-life adventures on a weekly basis, and dared to imagine their visceral reactions to the life-and-death challenges she and Commitment Girl routinely faced. The image that came to her was of old men, her fathers' peers. And she knew they did not tune in to see her weekly struggles against evil out of fatherly interest.
Suddenly HatChick felt tired. Never before had she felt the sense of defeated expectations that she felt now. "I'm going to die, and a nation of dirty old men is going to get off on it," she thought, and she slumped back in the seat. She glared sullenly at the network mote-cam blinking from the ceiling, and reached out with one arm to grasp the snake just behind its head.
She squeezed, putting all her resentment into the animal. The snake stopped.
Then it resumed, its body flowing up her arm and across her breast. With her other hand she pushed it away from her in annoyance, and it reversed flow again, curling up along her leg and over her hip.
She pulled her leg up, between her body and the snake, and pushed the muscular coil away from her. The snake's coil looped easily around her ankle, and continued to flow loosely up the inside of her leg.
It was like pushing water away. Wherever she pushed, the snake just continued its lazy encirclement elsewhere. Try as she might not to provide a show for the cameras, she could not bear the smooth touch of the beast against her skin, and so she pushed. And as she pushed, the snake yielded, to circle around her and approach again.
She forgot the cameras, forgot the hateful audience, forgot even the gleeful murderer in the front seat of the squad car. Despite her intention, the snake had engaged her in a slow-motion struggle, a sinuous and graceful dance in place, at the end of which her ultimate partner awaited. Death; slow, patient, and inexorable.
Soon the heavy body lay in her lap, coiled loosely around one knee, sliding smoothly over her arms and shoulders. Every inch of the snake, where it came into contact with her body, was in motion. She could not keep up with its maneuvering, and even as she pushed it off her shoulder or slid it away from her throat, she was sure the predator was manipulating her into the position it wanted.
She kept her back to the passenger door, trying desperately to push the entire body of her slow attacker to the other side of the car, but its advance continued, almost apologetic in its gentleness, but relentless nonetheless. One knee and the other ankle were now held in firm coils; she was in constant motion, plucking the smooth body from her around her throat, knowing as she did that the animal was wrapping around her arms and waist, trying to force its way between her body and the car door.
Finally the snake's tail slipped around her throat from behind; before it could tighten, she grasped it with both hands, pulling it away, but as she did she felt a thick coil slide between her body and the door, pushing her forward as simultaneously the two coils holding her legs merged, trapping one ankle against the other knee in a firm hold. The length of body in her hands continued to slide through her grip, forming a thick coil which slipped over her head and around her shoulders, followed quickly by another. In seconds, HatChick's holding action had turned into a rout, with the snake coiling silkily around her long legs, sliding across her flat stomach and corkscrewing down over her arms and shoulders.
She arched her back, trying to lift her arms free as she kicked her feet free of the coils, but all that happened was that she provided the network with more nice visuals as she writhed helplessly in the snake's grip. The coils around her body pushed up beneath her firm breasts and the coils around her shoulders twisted her body, highlighting her sleek, firm figure even as it disappeared beneath the inexorably contracting coils of the snake. HatChick fell back against the passenger door, completely wrapped in the serpent's smooth and muscular embrace. Hot tears of anger and frustration traced her cheeks - Big Hair Lady would win, and the loutish audience watching in darkened rooms would get their thrills and despite herself she had given them exactly what they wanted.
"Now entering the warehouse district," Big Hair Lady announced. She turned in her seat, watching HatChick appreciatively. "You're at the part I like best," she observed breathlessly. "The moment between capture and constriction. The moment of helplessness, in which you know what will happen next, and can do nothing to stop it.
"You may wonder," she continued, as HatChick felt the first tentative corkscrew tightening around her body, hips and legs, "will it be fast, or slow? Will the snake crush me, or squeeze me ever so gently, until I forget to breathe? Oh, HatChick,," she sighed dramatically, "I so envy you. This moment of discovery is so very, very special."
The snake's body tightened slowly around her, coil sliding against coil, every silky, deadly inch sliding smoothly against her body. The touch was gentle, yet firm, and held the barest promise of menace. The coils lying across her breasts began to compress her, and she was mortified to feel a thrill coursing down her spine from the touch; and more embarrassed yet to find her body betraying her by responding to the pressure across her hips and womanhood. HatChick colored and squirmed involuntarily; the cameras caught the motion, and Big Hair Lady chortled.
"Enjoy Zane's attentions," she said softly. "He's a masterful lover, but a little rough on his partners in the end."
The end was inevitable now; the only question was how long it would take. The only freedom left her was to tense her muscles against the inexorable constriction around her entire body. Even wriggling in the snake's implacable grip was nearly impossible. And still its smooth skin moved against her, titillating her even as it contracted the space she had in which to exist, and shortened the measure of her life.
The urge to move her arms and legs, to writhe and struggle, was maddening. Every nerve screamed for the freedom to move, just as her lungs now protested for more oxygen with each breath. Her legs were crushed together, her hips twisting slowly in the snake's tightening corkscrew embrace; the resulting rhythmic pressure on her womanhood was more than she could take, but not enough to offer the relief of orgasm. And there was nothing she could do. She could not escape, could not hasten the end, could not even move against the snake's body. "This is the way they want to see me," she thought against the rising sound of her own blood in her veins. "This is how they'll remember me."
Through a red haze she saw Big Hair Lady avidly watching her, and heard her voice as if from far away. "I have to go now," the villainess said with matter-of-fact good humor. "They'll probably find this car tomorrow, with Zane still inside - and you inside Zane, plenty the worse for wear. Do try to stay alive as he swallows you - I imagine it must be a very interesting experience."
Then Big Hair Lady was gone, and the slow constant constriction continued. The snake's conquest of her body was complete; it seemed the beast slowed its tightening, twisting motion around her, knowing she could not escape. What once had been guiltily pleasurable stimulation was turning to pain now; her breasts throbbed at the constant stimulation of the snake's skin moving against them. Her lungs were red-hot with need of oxygen and her heart hammered in her breast. HatChick felt herself becoming smaller, a mote, a point of consciousness, retreating into the sound of her own death - the rush of blood, the labored wheeze of her breath, and the distant beat of the predator's hungry heart.
From her refuge at the center of her mind, HatChick observed the final moments of her life. She no longer felt the pain of the crushing pressure, and she was eerily free from emotion. "This is death," she thought; "I wonder if I'll float out of my body." She could watch impassively from within as the snake continued its patient work, compressing her body for consumption, constraining her lungs, stilling her heart. Her breast no longer moved, and her heartbeat was sluggish and sullen. With a wet sound, the snake's jaw unhinged and it moved to place its mouth over her head.
Then a crash - a voice - and cool air blew across her face. HatChick opened her eyes against the massive weights holding them shut, to see death in the form of the young policeman. He reached in, gun in hand, and rapped sharply on the snake's head.
The pressure decreased - just a bit. She revived enough to realize the policeman was real, and not a death-bed vision. He reached in again, gun in hand, and then just as suddenly, was gone in a rush and a shout.
In a moment, he reappeared again, visible through the now-open but still inaccessible door of the car. He hung limply in Big Hair Lady's embrace, his hand empty. His gun was gone.
"No last-minute rescues this time, HatChick," Big Hair Lady said. "Prince Charming here doesn't get to play hero - he has to play victim." She backed up against the brick wall of the warehouse near which she had parked, sitting down with her long legs wrapped around the policeman's body, her arms around his throat.
"You two can watch each other die," she hissed, locking her legs around her victim and applying killing pressure. The young man winced, moving his legs feebly and pulling futilely at Big Hair Lady's arm with his hands.
The pressure on her body resumed, but this time HatChick kept her gaze locked on the young policeman. He still lived, but Big Hair Lady was tightening her legs around him just as powerfully as the snake was tightening itself around her.
HatChick's sullen resignation grew, became hard and bright, a burning diamond-edged ember in her mind. Her heart strengthened its beating, dared to defy the snake's insistent constriction. Anger. This was anger, a weapon she could use, not the blunt edge of resentment but the pure crystalline blade of righteous rage. Big Hair Lady had not the right to touch this good man, who had blushed and stammered in her presence.
She heard a faint creaking, and realized it was her own joints, in agony and about to rip loose under the onslaught of the snake's constriction. She felt again its heart, beating now in rhythm with her own. So close - so close to stilling her heart. HatChick took her rage and strengthened her heart with it, willing her anger into her breast, feeding her anger with her life's blood. She felt her own heart grow dense, muscular and rock-hard, proof against crushing pressure, burning with righteous rage. Without thought she reached out through her own body, through the snake's body and into its heart, smashing the unwary beast with the sheer force of anger and pain and outraged justice. The snake's heart exploded inside it; the beast continued squeezing her body even after it was dead, so complete was its surprise. Then the long muscular body collapsed, and she was free.
= = = = =
Big Hair Lady looked up in shock when HatChick fell from the open door of the booby-trapped car. She had taken her eyes off the dying girl for only a moment, long enough to pull the young man's face up so she could watch his expression as he expired. Now, with her second victim only moments from death, Big Hair Lady watched as HatChick rose shakily to her feet and staggered toward them.
Big Hair Lady looked past HatChick, into the car. The snake was a heap of obviously dead meat in the back seat. With HatChick mysteriously alive, Big Hair Lady promptly lost interest in the dying policeman in her arms. "I don't know how you did it, HatChick," she breathed, "but my hat's off to you. Catch!"
HatChick caught the policeman as he flew at her, tumbling backward into the car with his body in her arms. She struggled from beneath his weight to see Big Hair Lady disappearing around the corner of an abandoned factory. She started after the fleeing felon, then stopped, momentarily unsure what to do.
A groan from inside the car brought her back. The young policeman was stirring, sitting up. "What was that?" he gasped, feeling himself for broken bones.
"'That' was Big Hair Lady," HatChick said, visually inspecting him and pleased with the results. "You saved my life, almost losing yours in the process. You're a hero, now - and not just to me." She looked meaningfully up at the network mote-cam, now hovering at eye level and getting great close-ups.
He looked at the camera, then back at her; and blushed. HatChick smiled, a wicked smile this time, as she gently removed his radio from its belt-clip and smashed it on the pavement, her eyes still holding his gaze. He started to protest, then stopped, eyes widening as HatChick held up one finger for silence. Her hand lashed out without warning, catching the mote-cam and slamming it against the car body in a tiny tangle of wires and plastic.
His head swiveled from the ruined camera to the now-radiant girl, his eyes narrowing, his mouth hanging open in mild surmise. HatChick closed his mouth with her own, pulling him against her. "Then I saved your life," she whispered against him as his arms circled her waist, "and I claim my reward."
By B.Ferrett