Superman in a New Woman World by Marknew Marknew742@aol.com An "imaginary" Superman story. What if Superman tried to stem the tide when the New Woman formula was sweeping the world? Almost ten years ago I wrote two similar stories under the title of New Woman. I just had put on my training wheels on as an amazon fiction writer then and had a lot to learn about shaping a story. In truth, I wasn't able to finish either "epic," but I've never wanted to go back and complete or change them. I moved on, hopefully to your satisfaction. The following story started out as another variant on the Superfem theme recently reintroduced by Helplesscase. As I wrote this story and reread the original Superfem story, I realized I had grafted my New Woman universe onto Puppetman's Superfem concept. So, to be fair to Puppetman's story and to keep the two separate, I've rewritten mine as a continuation/variant of my own New Woman stories. However, I want to give my thanks to Puppetman for his stories, which were among the first Amazon stories I ever read and which I have always enjoyed, and to Helplesscase for bringing Superfem back after so many years. 1 We're in the "New Woman" universe. A dedicated band of feminists eager to achieve world domination for women has invented a growth formula that works only on women. After distributing it initially through a network of clinics, it has spread throughout the environment irreversibly. Now women grow to an average height of 7'6", with biceps the size of bread loaves and all their muscles three times the density of male muscles. They have vastly increased endurance, vitality, response to exercise, resistance to disease and recuperative powers. And the benefits they enjoy are not limited to the physical. Their sensory perception has become more acute, their powers of concentration greater, they need only three hours of sleep a night, and they will age more slowly, with minimal loss of mental, physical and sexual ability. The New Woman chemicals are also passed on from mother to daughter in utero, so that the next generation of females is "New Woman" from birth. In fact, although the first New Woman babies are just three now, initial studies suggest that the formula will be even more effective when ingested from conception, the body's absorption rate higher, and the resulting hormone mix more intense. The next generation may be even taller and stronger, and the effect may continue to increase, from generation to generation. To men, the new women are "superwomen," leaving them far behind in any competition in work, play or even love. In white collar jobs, women have gotten in line for the top jobs, as they can work faster and longer, while easily intimidating the fewer and fewer men working alongside or opposite them. Blue collar jobs have gone to women even more quickly, as their strength and endurance made them immediately far more productive and less prone to injury or sickness. Almost overnight, men are becoming financially dependent on their women or live in near poverty, doing only the poorly paying jobs that anyone with a choice would refuse: cleaning floors and toilets, ringing up purchases, taking tickets and answering phones. Even sexually the balance of power has shifted. As if their enhanced physical attributes weren't enough, women seem to gain the power to use their pheromones to stimulate men to distraction, even from ten feet away. If a woman wants a man there is no way he can resist her, physically, financially, or sexually. The formula has achieved all that its inventors had envisioned, and more. It seemed only one short step for them to achieve their stated objective of complete control: total political power and the loss of civil rights for men so that they would be treated as little more than the children that, as all the new women know, they truly are. In fact, it wasn't second class citizenship the women were after for men, but third class, for they envision a society where men would be subordinate even to female children over the "age of reason" -- seven years old! But one obstacle stands their way. One thing gives men the heart to resist this final surrender, to resist the loss of their vote, the loss of their right to work, to live on their own, to control their meager earnings, to marry, to own property, to drive a car and to have legal protection from physical intimidation and domination. That one thing is: Superman! 2 Like most people in the world, Superman had been unaware of the initial spread of the New Woman formula until there were well over a thousand New Women. As they were generally law abiding adults even then he could do little to interfere with their activities. At least at first. As the numbers of New Women increased however things changed, and allegations of male mistreatment, rape and abuse began to pile up. Male police officers were of course unable to arrest New Women. In one early case that later became a famous story, three police officers responded to a cry for help from a husband whose formerly abused wife had threatened to give him, in one day, as much pain as she had suffered in the five years before she had escaped to a shelter. The woman, Carol Miggs, formerly a 5'3" waif, was now well over seven feet tall, with rock-hard thirty two inch biceps, a muscular 60 inch chest and fury in her eyes. When the officers arrived she had pinned her husband to the wall with one long arm. He was swinging futilely at her, but his fists fell far short of her face and she mocked his efforts. Her New Woman-fed biceps loomed thick and hard between them, and his frightened blows just bounced off the hard muscles in her arm. With a sneer, she fired one punch at his right shoulder and smashed it. At that moment the police arrived, bursting through the locked door and ordered her to release her howling husband. She turned around and quickly recognized two of them from a day when she had called for help and had failed to persuade them that her husband's threats were serious. With one kick she shattered her husband's right knee and let him crumple to the floor, whimpering in pain. She then turned to face the police. "Ma'am, step away from your husband, now!" the senior officer, Sergeant Tunney commanded with all the practiced authority his fifteen years on the force gave him. She grinned and took one large step toward them. "Well, well. Officer Brown, Officer Munoz. Haven't you been here before? You do remember me, don't you? Carol Miggs?" The two officers she named looked at each other uneasily. Munoz crossed his thick arms in front of his chest, while Brown stared at her impassively. "I don't remember you coming as quickly the last time." She put her hands on her hips and tensed the muscles in her chest, enjoying the amazed stares of the men as her pectoral muscles pushed her breasts outwards and stretched her already tight shirt into deep creases. "I don't think you boys have ever dealt with a New Woman before, have you?" Officer Munoz stepped forward. "That's none of your concern." "Oh that's exactly right. I think it's YOUR concern." Now she tensed her biceps too. It was as though her upper arms were balloons being inflated by a tank of compressed air. The three officers stared in shock as her biceps quickly filled the space between her arms and her expanded chest. Again, Officer Munoz spoke up. "Listen Mrs. Miggs, you're a citizen like anyone else. We treat everyone the same. We DON'T tolerate ANYONE assaulting another person, whether it's a husband hitting his wife or the other way around." She laughed. "Is that so? You saw him hitting me. Why don't you arrest him?" "We all saw what you just did to him. I'm going to have to insist that you come with us. Now." "Oh really?" She stood immobile, her eyes seemed to sparkle and her nipples slowly hardened, the two large, dark thumb-sized spots now pushing her shirt out even further. The officers seemed to stagger and shifted uncomfortably in place. Brown couldn't help but put his hands in his pocket to move his erect cock to a better position, while Munoz and Tunney twisted and turned. "Heh-heh. I think you BOYS are behaving unprofessionally. All three of you big, strong men showing off your great big cocks to a defenseless woman like me. I think I'm going to have to file a complaint." Her nipples were fully erect now and her face was flush, but the policemen were all trembling, barely able to stop themselves from stroking their painful erections to relieve their aching desire. Finally Officer Brown could stand no more and he ran off to the bathroom and quickly masturbated himself to orgasm. Munoz found himself cumming in his pants, without any manual assistance. Only Tunney tried to resist, and for all his efforts stood in place painfully. "What is WRONG with you men!" he said, angrily. "Pull yourselves together!" He turned to the woman. "Mrs. Miggs. I don't know what you think you're doing, but if you think you're going to resist arrest you're making a big mistake." She sneered at him. "No, Sergeant. The mistake is yours. Your men didn't protect me when I needed help. And now you've interrupted the afternoon I'd planned with -- I mean, for -- my husband." Ignoring her remark Tunney awkwardly stepped forward and put his hand on her thick forearm. "OK. Let's just do this nice and easy. No need for trouble. You just come along with me, Mrs. Miggs." He tried to close his hand on her arm to take her along, but her muscle was so large and so hard that his fingers slipped off. Slightly unnerved, he looked back at his men for reassurance. Then he put his hand on the inside of her arm and pulled, gently at first and then more and more firmly. It made no difference. She didn't move a fraction of an inch and even with Sergeant Tunney using all his strength and his weight neither did her arm. "Tee-hee. You're turning all red, Sergeant. I hope you don't have a weak heart." She pulled her arm inward against her stomach, trapping his fingers and then tightened her muscles again. There was a sound of cracking and then crumbling bone followed immediately by a cry of intense pain. "Awww, that MUST hurt a lot." She released his hand, which was rapidly swelling with blood. The brave sergeant refused to retreat and instead reached for his nightstick with his other hand, but no sooner had he pulled it from his belt and begun to raise it, then Carol plucked it from his grasp. She smiled and then snapped it in two pieces and tossed it across the room. "You know, Sergeant. I don't think you're very good at your job," she smirked. She broke his other wrist with a squeeze of her fingers and then shoved him across the room into his two partners. Officer Munoz scrambled to his feet and pulled out his radio. "Munoz here. Calling for backup! We're gonna need backup!" he shouted. "1524 Peoples Drive." "We're gonna have a party, aren't we?" Carol said. Officer Brown took his gun out of his holster and aimed it at her. "Listen lady. That's ENOUGH! Now, I want you on the floor, hands behind your head. NOW! I will shoot. You have five seconds. Four. Three." At three, Carol sprang into action, zig-zagging across the room with surprising speed and agility. Officer Brown fumbled in surprise, but before Carol reached him did get off one shot that missed due to his haste. She took his wrist and snapped it with one twist and took his gun. Munoz was reaching for his, but one powerful kick sent him sprawling onto the floor, gasping for breath while Carol dived on top of him and wrestled his gun away. Tunney was too hurt to pull out his weapon, but Carol removed his as well. She emptied the chambers and discarded the weapons. The police radio blared. "Munoz, what is your situation? Munoz!" He ignored the call and stood up painfully. "We're one on one now, Munoz. No weapons. It's even, right?" She looked down at him and then at her massive biceps and laughed cruelly. "Yeah, right!" "Carol, you don't want to get in any more trouble than you already are ..." "You don't seem to understand, Munoz. I'm not in trouble. You are. I've changed. The whole world is changing, and there's nothing you or any other man can do about it. If you don't realize it already, you will soon. Once you and your little army of weaklings tries to stop me." She smiled. "I can hear your backup coming. They're nearly a mile away, but I can hear their sirens. Can you? Can you hear the frequency rise and fall, as they try to work their way through the traffic? And I can see that your skin is paler than it was when you came in, thanks to your fear and the blood that's collecting where I bruised your mid-section with one little kick. I bet that hurts a lot. I'm a New Woman, Munoz. Bigger, faster, stronger and tougher than you or any other man. And it's just a matter of time before all of us women are like me. And then where will you be? I'll tell you. Not on the police force. On home duty. Changing diapers, cooking meals, washing floors. That's all you'll be capable of, Munoz. You can just change your motto from 'To protect and to serve' to 'To serve'." She licked her lips and showed him her long tongue. "Maybe you should start now, Munoz. Maybe if you serve me well I'll cut you a break." "Never!" he said and prepared himself to subdue her. Sure, she'd handled his partner and his sergeant. He knew she was strong, but he was a professional. Trained in martial arts, he advanced, hands out, then twisted and kicked at her knee to hobble her, but her knee didn't buckle at all, and the shock of the impact sent a shooting pain all the way up his leg to his hip. "New Woman means new, super joints, Munoz. Harder, thicker bones, tougher cartilage and more of it. I can take more punishment than you, and you can give a lot less than I can." He set himself up again. "You stupid man. You still think you can take me down. You think you're still in control, still the dominant one, still the ...." Letting her drone on with her trash talk, Munoz steeled himself and then stepped forward and using all his weight fired his hardest punch at Carol's abdomen. For a moment he was gleeful that he'd caught her by surprise, but then groaned in agony as her dense muscles proved an impenetrable barrier to his fist and his wrist bent backwards with the impact. Before he could pull away, she'd grabbed his arm in a vise-like grip. "Come on, Munoz. Can't you get away?" He tugged with all his strength and to his amazement she held him firmly in place without even tensing her biceps. "Guess you can't. Come with me -- like you have a choice. I want to show you something before your 'backup' gets here. She pulled him back to where her husband lay groaning on the floor. "Don't get stupid, Munoz, and try to stop me, or you'll get it twice as bad as he does. Hi honey! Did you think I'd forgotten you? I was just beating up three of your police rescuers. There are three more teams on their way, so I'm gonna be real busy soon, but I didn't want to keep you waiting. How's the knee?" "You goddam drug-crazed cunt! You better fucking stay -- "Oh, sweet as ever. I thought Munoz here -- you remember him, don't you? I think you gave him and his partner something to go away one night, so you could settle our domestic problem 'privately'. Well, unlike you, I want Munoz to see everything I do to you, and then I can have the pleasure of knowing he'll do nothing about it. Right Munoz?" "No! No way!" he cried defiantly, trying to free himself. "We'll see. In the meantime, remember how you used to hold me down, honey. How I'd try to crawl away from you in terror when you wanted to discipline me? You'd stand there, your face twisted in your disgusting smile, flaunting your superior strength, holding my arm behind my back. It made you feel so strong, didn't it. So powerful. But were you even twice as strong as I was? Even then you had to work hard to keep me down. Do you think I had to work hard to smash your shoulder and your knee? It took me only one hit each. 'Cause I've got more than ten times your strength. Ten times! Think about it!" She put her hand on his chest. "And now, I'm going to crush your pathetic life out of you, push your ribcage to an inch of thickness, squash your little heart into a pancake -- just how hard do you think it will be to do it? How -- shit, not ..." There was an explosion of sound as a pair of blue-costumed legs crashed through the wall. "Superman!" said Munoz, surprised and greatly relieved. Disappointment fell over Carol's face. "So it's you, here to help your fellow 'man', I see." Superman stood next to Carol and looked at her, his hands on his hips, somewhat taken aback by her size and muscular development. "No," he said quietly but firmly. "I am here to help Mankind, not men. I am here to see that justice is done and that evil is NOT done. Now move away from them. I'm afraid you'll have some charges to answer for your behavior tonight." She hesitated a moment, then released her husband, rose up to her full height and looked down at Superman. "You think so? Did my husband EVER answer for the years of abuse I suffered? No! Nothing the system did ever stopped him. The male justice system failed me, but already New Woman has been a success, even if you won't let me finish what I've started. And now, do you think any jail will hold me? Do you think any guard will dare to tangle with a 'New Woman'? Do you think I will let ANY man EVER tell ME what to do AGAIN?" Superman held his ground. "I expect you, and every man or woman, to obey the law. I say this not as a man, or a superman, but as a representative of truth, justice and the American way. You must answer to the law, which demands that injustice be punished as decided by America's courts, not according to the whim of the powerful." "Is that so, Sillyman? Then the law will change. We will MAKE it change so that women, with our instinctive sense of justice, can do what ought to be done without interference from the likes of them," she said, pointing to the injured policemen, "or you!" She crossed her powerful arms against her mammoth chest. "There are nearly 10,000 of us today but our numbers are growing by leaps and bounds. How will you stop us when we are millions? When we are tens of millions. Billions. One Superman against a billion New Women. Ha-ha-ha-ha!" She roared with laughter as a dozen policemen pushed into the room, guns drawn at her. "That's right. Shoot me! Show Superman how men do justice." The police were angrily checking their beaten colleagues and making threatening noises, but with Superman there they didn't dare do anything more. "No one's shooting you," Superman said. "I suggest you go with them to the station, where you will be arrested for beating your husband and resisting the officers you have already hurt." She smiled and licked her lips. "Oh yes, Superman." She sauntered over to the police, swiveling her great hips. "Who wants to handcuff me and take me in? Hmmm?" She held out her arms. One of the younger offices eagerly took out a pair of handcuffs, but her wrists were far too large for them. "Ooops. I guess you'll just have to TRUST me to behave." "Stand up against the wall so we can check you for concealed weapons," the senior officer said. Carol glared at him. "If you DARE touch me I will kill you," she said simply. "What do I need with weapons, when I have 'guns' like THESE?" she said, flexing her arms. Even Superman stared at the massive bulges of muscle. She looked at him. "Jealous?" The senior officer swallowed and said, reluctantly, "Uh, Superman, we can't take her in. Not without special equipment. She's too strong." "Of course I am. You see," she smirked, looking down at all of them, "we New Women are ABOVE the law." "No one is above the law," Superman replied, and moved to take her arm. "I said NO one touches me," she said, slapping Superman's arm away. He reddened, not expecting her resistance, and took her arm more forcefully. She resisted, now using all her strength, her muscles bulging with the effort. As the police watched breathlessly Superman countered her force and steadily brought her arm behind her back. "Don't make me hurt you," he said firmly. Her face red now, all her enormous muscles tensed, she struggled mightily but she could not overcome the Kryptonian's smaller, but super-powered muscle. "Your ... days ... will ... soon ... end, Superman. Like all men ... you will be ... defeated!" she shouted angrily as Superman lifted her in the air, carried her outside, and flew away. "Did you see that?" one of the men asked. "I could swear even Superman had trouble with her." "Naaah," the senior officer said. "He was just being easy on her. He didn't want to hurt her." "But what about us?" Munoz said. "What if she's right and ALL women become New Women. What are WE gonna do?" The police all looked at him. No one had an answer. 3 So how did this story get out? If not for the others, Superman would not have said a word. Carol Miggs was under arrest. The police were embarrassed by their helplessness, and Mr. Miggs, not ordinarily a reticent man, was too frightened of his wife, and her New Woman friends, to speak. But other interests quickly appeared. The injured officers, dissatisfied by the measly compensation they were offered for their injuries, sued the city. The city, through a tough manager named Charlene McKenzie, claimed their own reckless incompetence was to blame, and insisted that no special payments should be allowed. Carol Miggs refused a plea bargain offering her house arrest in lieu of jail and demanded a jury trial with maximum publicity. The New Woman inventors, sensing that the tidal wave they had launched was nearing shore, arranged legal representation for Carol, getting her a brilliant young attorney who was also an intimidating 7'8" New Woman. All insisted that their story be told, in their own way. In the ensuing uproar, Superman, struggling to uphold the values he'd sworn to protect, gave interviews to preach tolerance and respect for the law. At first, sympathy was with the injured officers and against Carol as a cruel bully. But cracks in that sentiment began to appear. Carol refused to put up bail, but also refused to cooperate with her incarcerators, and the stark methods of isolation and heavy security they imposed on her were resented by women generally, who were naturally sympathetic to the plight of a former battered wife. As time passed, many prison guards became New Women, but they uniformly refused to guard or discipline Carol. Eventually the authorities had no choice but to release her without bail. Once freed, Carol was cheered at rallies everywhere as a symbol of how women, through New Woman, could overcome the oppression of men and their false and hypocritical "ideals" of justice. Meanwhile, as the increasing number of New Women made the idea of male policemen impractical, the cases of the injured men seemed more and more absurd. How could they have thought they could arrest and subdue a New Woman? It was foolishness, not bravery or duty, akin to a man trying to stop a rampaging elephant by standing in its way. The men were scorned by all: derided by New Women as relics of a past age, looked down on by the shrinking numbers of "normal" women as losers and whiners, and avoided with embarrassment by other men, as symbols of their own weakness and inferiority. By the time the date for Carol's criminal trial came, 18 months later, it was clear no jury would convict her. Almost two-thirds of the women in America were New Women, and after the election of a New Woman district attorney the charges were dropped with great ceremony and celebration. Under her regime and others like her elsewhere in the world, acts that once would have been termed crimes of violence against men weren't prosecuted. Everyone knew now that, inherently, men were violent and women were sensitive and nurturing -- unless men got out of line, in which case the only remedy was immediate and forceful correction. Increasingly, men looked to their wives, girlfriends, sisters or mothers for protection from, at least, random violence, and failing that fell back on appeasement, charm or surrender. There was no protection from domination or abuse in the home. Only Superman had the courage to stand up for the universal rights and bodily integrity of men and once he accepted this burden he had little time to do anything else. By the third year after the "Miggs Melee" as it came to be known, 95% of the world's women, 99% of American women, were New Women. Many superheroes had disappeared. Batman's advanced training and fighting techniques were no match for the abilities of New Women, and at last report he was well-adapted to a new life as boy toy for Catwoman. The Flash had given up his efforts, his speed useless to a man who could do nothing against a female evildoer when he arrived. Spiderman found his spider-power left him after he was bitten by Mary Jane during some rough sex. Even the Hulk had left the scene, his gamma charge drained after a night with Betty Ross. Female superheroes did not fair any better. Due to her different physiology Wonder Woman proved immune to the formula and was soon surpassed by New Woman in strength and other abilities. The same problem afflicted the X-Men mutants, except for Rogue, but to the shock of the other heroes, she not only became a New Woman physically, but she also adopted their ideology of female supremacy and in one dark night for males, she absorbed the abilities of Magneto, Wolverine and many other male X-men, until they retreated underground in an attempt to keep their powers safe from her. Only Superman remained, but except to repel the occasional invasion by alien super-villains, the women now in charge of society had no use for a "hero" whose values were so old fashioned and so male. The practices of New Women police, juries, and members of ordinary society had changed. Female justice for misbehaving females was Intuitive, Community-Centered, Informal and Effective, known as ICCIE (pronounced with a hard "C") Justice and consisted of in-depth counseling sessions to uncover the source of their inappropriate behavior. Justice for men was similarly ICCIE but due to typical male resistance to emotional sharing, was normally administered on the spot with a firm application of the palm of a large strong hand by women who "knew what had happened." With that shift, the New Woman movement passed to the next stage: to strip men of all their civil rights, legally, and irrevocably. Men, after all, lacked the power to employ emotional intelligence, relying instead on sterile logic and false, abstract reasoning. Besides, they were too weak and dependent to exercise independent judgment. To the surprise of the women in power, this proved more difficult than the other changes that had come about. Somehow the example of one man, still the most powerful being in a world of New Women and frightened men, speaking forcefully for equal rights, respect, and the dignity of all, held back the tide. He was the last obstacle to New Woman world domination. The New Woman movement fumed. This alien could NOT be permitted to stop the progress of womanpower. He was a male, inferior. This was necessarily true. It must be SHOWN to be true. It must BE true! And so, the formidable minds of the movement that invented the New Woman formula went to work. 4 It was time for the most popular weekly TV program, "Amanda Against All." Amanda Adams had been 14 years old when New Woman first came out and she was eighteen now. Nearly eight feet all, over four hundred pounds of thick rock-hard muscle and bewitchingly beautiful, she entertained 70 million Americans weekly with her battles against as many males as chose to enter. She never lost. Whether wrestling against twenty men at once, playing beach volleyball singly against fourteen men, boxing against twenty-five or playing baseball (with an added catcher) against thirty men, she always destroyed the opposition, both in score and physically. Yet the certainty of humiliation and pain did nothing to stop the flow of men who wanted to appear. Perhaps because their new lives were so bleak, men preferred to be vanquished once and for all by a woman so young, beautiful and strong, rather than endure daily degradation by any female they might encounter, whether their boss, fellow passenger in a bus, or the young girl down the street. Superman had different troubles. True he did not have to bear the physical threats suffered by ordinary men, but the slights he suffered were as real as theirs. For most of his life he had felt the world's adulation as its protector, an exemplar of its most generous values. To women he was the ideal man, strong, brave and gentlemanly -- although not, to be honest, a man to take to bed. To men, thankful he was not their competitor in life or the boudoir, he was nearly a god. All respected the careful restraint with which he used his powers. He could have been a tyrant. Instead, he guaranteed their freedom and their right to find their own happiness. Now all had changed. He was a freak, a throwback, a reminder of the days when men were strong. For men, in their minds he helped support the small shred of their old identity, but in person he was a painful symbol of what they had lost. And for women, well, frankly, he was just in their way. A powerful man who used his strength for what "needed to be done" and otherwise held back was an anachronism. All men were "gentle"men now. Superman had always had to hold himself separate. Now, combined with Lois's tragic death, the change brought about by New Woman made him the loneliest man alive. He was always in motion now, always on the run. He was the only protector of the weak, and only his constant vigilance against the unceasing enforcement of domination of man by women let him feel that he fulfilling the role he had taken on. He was a worldwide peace officer, taking up the cases of weak male victims everywhere, from India to Iceland, from New York to New Zealand, intervening in thousands of beatings a day, knowing that as soon as he left the man or boy would be under threat again, because no human authority would step in. His telescopic vision never rested, his super-mind remembering millions of past rescues, which he had to monitor to ensure the domination he had stopped did not resume. Physically it didn't matter. He needed no sleep, no food or rest. But mentally he was as bored, tired and discouraged as any human would be. Was this his fate, his destiny, to fight the tide of human history? To fight a battle that could never be won? He had appeared on "Amanda Against All" once. Not as an official guest, but to stop a fight that had quickly become an assassination. Fourteen men in an enlarged boxing ring against one girl, then seventeen years old, towering two feet above her opponents, her shoulders nearly as wide as two of them standing side to side, her New Woman biceps like two extra heads sneering at them and bringing their certain doom. She stood, bearing a barrage of their punches to her abdomen, back and shoulders like they were a series of flea bites, and then, methodically, crippling them one by one, one punch at a time, making the enlarged ring suddenly seem to the men as confined as a prison yard, as deadly as a firing squad. Superman saw the fight first on live television as he was stopping a ten year old girl from using Amanda's tactics on her three older brothers. Once he had subdued and chastened her he flew to the set, an arena holding thousands of cheering fans, landed in the ring, and held Amanda's mighty arms at her sides to stop the breaking of the eleventh terrified man. Amanda grimaced in frustration as she strained against Superman's iron grip, but her mammoth muscles, dwarfing Superman's, her efforts bulging them harder and larger than ever before, still could not overcome the incredible super-powers of the man from Krypton. To the jeers of the crowd and the relief of the contestants, now desperately conscious of the folly of their suicidal choice, he forced an end to that episode and a grudging promise that future events would protect the health of the male contestants, if not their egos. But did it matter? Like all of his victories now, he wondered if he really had succeeded. Were broken bones truly worse than broken wills? The very next week on "Amanda Against All", she easily defeated a team of America's best nine male baseball players, none of whom could manage even a foul against her untutored 150 mph fastball, while her New Woman strength, eyesight and reflexes enabled her to hit tape measure homeruns at each at bat against, in succession, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Mariano Rivera and Josh Beckett. With each passing week, Superman saw male resistance crumble a little more. Now half his "victims" simply waved him away in resignation. Recently he had rescued the valedictorian of an Evanston, Illinois high school from a beating by the female salutatorian, angered that his unfairly high scores in the almost exclusively male subjects of math and physics had given him a .02 advantage over her in grade point average. Yet two weeks later, at a commencement Superman monitored from a distance, no one could see him behind the six foot six inch high lectern or hear his unamplified voice reading his plea for equal rights of males and females, although the head, shoulders and proud, burgeoning chest of the runner up were clearly visible, and her salutatorian speech, boomed out through the auditorium in her powerful voice, was heard by all, text and subtext, her triumphant tones ringing out the message of the limitless potential of the day's FEMALE graduates and, unmentioned, the invisibility of her male classmates. Still he pressed on. Proposals to enact male "protection" laws had been circulating for months. Circulating yes, but they had not been adopted. He knew his constant interventions enraged the New Woman vanguard, undermined their monopoly on power. Was that not itself proof of the value of continuing his mission? 5 The offer shocked the nation, and very quickly, the whole world. Surely Amanda wasn't serious. She couldn't hope to win. As powerful and successful as she was, not even a New Woman could ever hope to defeat Superman in three of five contests, only one of which, bodybuilding, favored the spectacularly proportioned teen. But wrestling? Boxing? Weightlifting? Arm wrestling? It would mean the end of her show, the end of a national ritual, the end of the most popular entertainment of the New Woman era, and the end of a contract that paid an eighteen year old girl $15 million a year. The serious press questioned her decision. The entertainment magazines gave the inside story. Amanda had tired of her show and this was simply her way to exit. The tactic, transparent to any . It reflected her teenage immaturity. Didn't, the seasoned feminist critics asked, it mean handling an unnecessary and misleading victory to men, undermining the great lessons Amanda had taught week after week? Should she be ALLOWED to give up what had been so painfully won? The most senior of the writers journeyed to the New Woman council -- the (still) unofficial leaders of the movement -- and returned chastened for daring to question the judgment of a heroine of the revolution. But unknown to the critics and to all but a half dozen women in the world, Amanda's offer was not just approved at the highest levels. It had begun there. As had the development of a special drug to be ingested by Amanda just before the show. 6 Three billion people watched in rapt attention as the first event, the bodybuilding, was about to commence. Superman, without his cape and having shed for this event and the wrestling his top, leggings and boots, shook Amanda's hand and then stood beside her, dwarfed by her unmatched physique as they waited for the signal that the show would begin. Some technical problem delayed them. He had never stood so near to her, and now he felt the full force of her feminine appeal. Her breasts, level with Superman's face, extended extravagantly from her muscular chest. They seemed to float in the air, without visible support, covered only by the thinnest and narrowest of fabrics, which did nothing to impede the extension of her thick nipples. His eyes glanced further down at her arms, invested with such enormous muscle, so round and full. The world had never seen Amanda's muscles fully flexed, but Superman could tell even as she waited calmly, arms loose by her sides, that her amazing development would give him no chance to win this part of the competition, or if he had lacked his superpowers, any other contest with her. He had a good physique, for a man, but it was the mysterious interaction of the yellow sun and his Kryptonian biology that gave him his strength, not the size of his muscles. He looked up briefly at Amanda's eyes, so cool, bold and confident, at her breasts again and then her arms, grateful that muscles like hers were not super-powered. He looked around the arena and was suddenly conscious that every one of the 15,000 seats was filled by women, most under 30, and all wearing insignia of one of the New Woman organizations. Was this some kind of trap? He scanned the arena more closely, opening his senses to any sign of kryptonite or of a lead container. There was nothing. But he would stay alert. Technical problems solved, the judges ordered the contest to begin. Superman stepped forward first, raising his arms and flexing to the titters and jibes of the audience. "Hey, Punyman, why don't you work out?" "Where are your muscles?" "Give it up!" were the most polite cries. Superman's posing music stopped for an announcement. "Ladies. Ladies! Please. You must welcome Superman. Even though he is a man he IS our guest." Silence filled the room. "Thank you. Superman, you may proceed." His music began again and Superman resumed his routine. He felt now the full attention of the assembled women, regarding him with curious attention as he paraded his physique before them. No, not just their attention. It was their presence, their interest as women. It had a palpable existence all its own, almost like a second atmosphere he was breathing. He felt on display for them, exposed in his maleness as a object for their mysterious feminine purposes. Feeling awkward, his posing became mechanical and his attention strayed from the music to individual women in the crowd. He hadn't noticed at first how stunning each of them was, how radiant their hair, how flawless their skin, how splendid their coloring, how supple their bodies, and how their breasts called to him, reached out with their nipples to his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue, creaming for his touch. Suddenly aware of his massive erection, he grew more self-conscious and he tried to focus his mind back on the contest to calm his member, its sturdy outline perfectly visible against his skimpy briefs, but he could not. Involuntarily, his eyes focused on the pursed lips of the thousands of women before him, flitting from one to the other more rapidly than any normal man could conceive, each one seemingly prepared to apply its subtle pressure to his throbbing organ to give him the relief he had denied himself for years, ever since Lois.... His body now subconsciously acting out the movements of his desire, he only gradually became aware that the music had ended. "Thank you, Superman," the announcer was saying. "A very creative use of your anatomy, particularly in the one area where Amanda can of course give you no competition!" There was abundant laughter. "Of course for that reason we must disregard it in the judging, just as we will disregard the extra bumps and curves that Amanda's feminine sex gives her. So, judges, just as a reminder to you all, please pay no attention at all to Amanda's breasts or her hips, or to her slender waist, which some of you may find more compelling in a body building contest than Superman's straighter, less dramatic build. This contest is about muscle, not sex. We do not want to put our guest at ANY unnecessary disadvantage. Understood? All right, Amanda, please go ahead." Amanda looked back at Superman and smiled and then stepped forward, raised her arms slowly in front of her and began tightening her muscles. Superman watched from behind her in amazement as her muscles bunched and then began to rise, ever so slowly, higher, rounder and harder, her veins slowly pushing to the surface of her soft skin, but still her muscles grew. Already they were two and half times the size of Superman's, two perfectly symmetrical globes of power. She stood now, her arms poised while her hips swiveled to the left, back to the right and then twice more. His erection pounded. His eyes were riveted to her bubbled ass, each shake of her hips, each flex of her glutes echoing like thunder in his cock. Where was his self-control? She turned slowly to show the judges her broad back, which spread inexorably as she expanded her lats, like the head of a python as it prepared to strike. She loomed over him, her great muscular arms still extended, as though she were about to pounce on him, enveloping him in her larger body and then wrapping him, then, instead, she dramatically tightened her arms still more and her biceps burst still higher. Superman's nearly gagged, never imagining that an "ordinary woman" could have so much muscle or ... be so beautiful. She was giving the judges the view of her back and the rear view of her biceps. To Superman she flashed her eyes and stretched her pectorals, lifting her breasts still higher on her broad chest, her nipples still extended toward him like "power on" buttons he desperately wanted to push. He felt the heat radiating off her skin. It was a passionate heat and then he realized SHE was "in heat" too, her body calling for him to press his skin against hers, to join them as one. Her eyes beckoned to him and then she turned again and danced away, with a slow, purposeful shake of her ass. But what was distance to him? His eyes were on her, his senses attached to her scent as with a tether. Her routine ended, and now they were called out together. Superman had lived for years now in the New Woman world, but he had never felt as humiliated and small as he did now as they posed side by side. Yes, the New Women had always been larger than he was, but their size didn't matter when faced with his super-strength. Now, for this contest at least his strength was irrelevant. All the superpowers he possessed could do nothing to make his muscles bulge like Amanda's, to make his pectorals extend into space like hers did even without her stunning breasts, or to give him an abdomen that could ripple almost audibly as hers did when she rotated her hips. Standing next to Amanda, flexing his shorter and much thinner arms, he felt almost like he didn't belong, as though he were her younger, pre-adolescent brother, tagging along to her exhibition, providing a comic counterpoint to her performance. But even worse, he felt waves and waves of sexual desire, buffeting him as he moved his body, as though he were moving through a fog of caressing tendrils, stimulating him enough to arouse him, but far too weakly to bring him to release. He struggled to concentrate, to bury the yearning he was feeling for Amanda, for each of the 15,000 women in the arena, for any female, but even if he were physically capable of resistance, his psychological reserves were fully spent. He had been fighting women forever, it seemed, instead loving them as he and every man was meant to do, and today too he was in a competition, fighting this heavenly creature. And now must he also fight his own desire? It was super as he was and he had no wish to do battle with it, to fight himself and her as well. He stood stiffly until the posedown ended, the pressure of his cock against his briefs bringing him unbearably close to a humiliating ejaculation. Only by a supreme exercise of will did he hold himself back while he prayed that no pre-cum stained his briefs. There was thunderous applause as the presenter declared, "Well, to no one's surprise, the judges have unanimously named Amanda the winner of the first contest. Amanda has now won 342 consecutive competitions against her male opponents. After a brief break while the mats are laid, we will resume with the second contest, wrestling. And Superman," she said, pausing for a moment, "I'm sure I need not remind you that although it's not a disqualification, you get no points for an ejaculation." The crowd roared with laughter, and Amanda looked down at him, her face flushed, her nostrils wide, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she caught her breath. Her mouth was slightly open and Superman could hear her heart beat rapidly. She flashed him a toothsome smile for a brief moment and then flexed her arms and chest, showing off again for him her prodigious muscles in bold outline and pushing her breasts upward again. "I will defeat you, Superman. You will regret you ever dared to accept my challenge, that you ever imagined you could beat a New Woman," she said, taunting him. And then, too quietly for the microphones to capture, she added, "Maybe you should run away from me, while you still can." He fixed her in a stony stare, showing her he was not intimidated, but as he did so his eyes flickered around her face and he felt, physically, the cold appeal of her model-like bone structure, the musical variations in the subtle hues of her skin, and, especially, the piercing green of her eyes, which twinkled as she held his gaze. The mats were ready and the two moved to face each other, within the circle, and then the referee directed Superman, as the loser in the first contest, to take the offensive starting position. Amanda got to her hands and knees and Superman knelt beside her, putting one hand on her inside elbow and the other arm reaching high to wrap it around her waist, resting lightly on her abdomen. Up close to her, he felt even more engulfed by her scent, and his arm's sense of the curve of her waist and the touch of her skin made his whole body tingle. Then Amanda's hip pressed into Superman's crotch as they waited for the signal to begin. It seemed to take an eternity, and Superman realized, to his horror, that Amanda was rhythmically flexing the hard muscle of her glutes to push against his erection. Was there no limit to what she would do to degrade him and, by implication, all men? He looked to the referee for help, but she was engrossed in checking the timer. Finally as Amanda was pulsing her muscle still more rapidly, the referee blew her whistle to start and Amanda pushed her leg onto Superman's cock, twisted her body toward him and rolled down, pulling him on top of her and then over so she lay on top, appearing to the crowd as though she were struggling to stay on top but in fact pushing against and kneading Superman's overstimulated cock with her rock-hard thigh. The referee scored a reversal, but Superman realized that her real score was to have put him over the top, well past the point of no return. In just a couple more seconds he spewed his cum out wildly, his stallion-like cock peeking over the waistband of his shorts, spurting his cum onto Amanda's leg, chest and face. She grinned at him and to his shock calmly scooped a load off her legs and arms, turned away from the cameras and discreetly pushed it into her mouth. He stared at her, then out of anger and frustration reversed her and without further delay, held her down for a pin, ending the match as she swallowed. The crowd booed and the announcer cleared her throat. "Quiet, quiet. It was an unorthodox maneuver but Superman won; the man from Krypton has broken Amanda's streak." The boos grew louder. "Yes, yes, I know how you feel. We'll have a short break while the contestants change and, ahem, clean up. And then we'll have the concluding three matches of the competition." They both stood, preparing to go to their separate changing room, when Superman put his arm on her, stopped her and glared. "What the hell was THAT? How DARE you!" She laughed and put her hand on his, stroking it possessively and replied breezily. "Hey, Superman. Read your law books. My maneuvers were all legal. I can't be responsible because your little balls were way overdue. Last I heard, making a man cum isn't a crime, you know." "Well, you've gotten all you're going to get out of me, young lady." "All I need," she interrupted quickly. "I know how weak and lazy men get after cumming." "Not this man," he replied. "I'll end this charade quickly after the break, and then you'll be off the air, as you've agreed." "IF you win, Superman," she said, laughing. "IF!" And she left the stage for the locker room. Superman went to his own room and quickly showered. His mood was black. He knew then that he would leave Earth, abandon it to its misery. New Woman had made a mockery of the human race. These women regarded males as less than human, and there was nothing he could do about it. For all his power he was but a gnat, buzzing around the faces of billions of empowered women. Empowered with strength, but now lacking in humanity, decency, in all that had made him proud to be Earth's Protector. Better to leave them to soil their own planet. There were other planets around the universe where he could live, where he could again make a difference. Without Lois, was there really any reason to stay? Well, he would defeat Amanda first, and then he would go. He emerged from his room and stepped to the side of the boxing ring. At least his sexual tension was released. There would be no repeat of that trickery. Amanda was already in her own corner, answering the questions of an interviewer. "Yes," she was saying. "Superman is a tougher opponent than any of the men I've competed against. After all, he's got super-powers, right? Still, we are tied, one to one." "But Amanda, he's broken your streak, and like the wrestling, which he won, the remaining matches are all tests of strength. How can you hope to compete with a man from Krypton?" "Well, Sally, years ago no one believed women could compete evenly with men, and look where we are today. There are so many things we New Women are capable of, things you wouldn't dare to dream. Would you have bet before that I could score even a reversal against Superman? You've seen men compete against me, week after week, despite heavy odds against them. Do you think I have less competitive spirit than any of those men?" "Of course not, Amanda." "Well then. I will say that yes, I am sad to have lost a match and my streak, but I think I've established myself as a worthy competitor to the so-called Man of Steel. Just remember, there are three more matches to go. I can lose one more and STILL win. And Sally, I WILL win!" There were roars of enthusiastic approval from the crowd. Amanda winked at the interviewer. "Cause, after all, he's just a man." The interviewer shook Amanda's hand and walked away to sum up. "You heard it, viewers. 'After all, he's just a man.' Amanda ends the interview with the words from the old country standard, 'Stand by your Man.' An ironic choice? Perhaps not. After all, that song, long thought to be a paean to women's inferiority and submissiveness, in truth ended with a woman's perfect understanding of man's weaknesses and limitations. Perhaps Amanda will have a similar message for us in the second set of contests, which begin now." Superman and Amanda approached the center of the ring and touched gloves for the three round fight and then returned to their corners. Superman was dressed in his normal suit except for his cape, while Amanda wore a skin-tight t-shirt and shorts. The bell rang and the two came out, their gloves raised. Superman was ready, well aware, despite his fury, of his pledge never to use his powers to kill. He callibrated the force he needed to down Amanda quickly, just as he had ended the wrestling match, and moved toward her. She kept her guard up and with her longer reach sent out two jabs, which Superman easily blocked. They danced around each other and then Superman faked a blow at her stomach, which didn't fool her, and then more quickly than the human eye could follow, he hurled a blow at the side of her face, hard enough to knock her out without causing brain damage or marring her beauty. He connected solidly. Her face turned and her body twisted. Her left leg rose into the air and she spun around, her arm flung outward and then she completed the turn, her fist crashing into Superman's face, knocking him sharply to the right as she pivoted and landed opposite him, ready to hit him again. The crowd, silent at Superman's initial blow, gasped at Amanda's counterattack and burst into a roar. Superman stared at her, stupefied, and she hit him with a jab to his jaw and another to his stomach before he recovered his senses and blocked her next punch, then back-pedalled two steps to give himself a moment to reassess the situation. But Amanda didn't allow him that moment. She followed him, firing a series of jabs at his face and shoulders that startled him with their speed and ferocity. Although they didn't hurt him, it was like being surrounded by a swarm of insects and he found himself being attacked by an opponent whom he should already have dropped to the canvas. In frustration he let her hit him, ignoring her blows and hurled a huge roundhouse swing at her and missed. Then he realized that even though she wasn't actually hurting him, it looked to the crowd, the TV audience, and the judges as though she was beating him. He told himself to slow down, to use his concentration and super-speed. He started to connect and several blows pushed her back, forcing her to defend herself. Still surprised by the amount of punishment she seemed capable of absorbing, he kept increasing the pace of his punching and the force of his blows. He had obviously misjudged her strength, he realized, but he was staggering her now with each hit and felt he was about to apply the knockout blow when the bell rang. As he feared his final flurry was not enough and the judges gave the round to Amanda. Superman stood alone while Amanda excitedly talked with her assistant. Then she turned and stared at Superman, pressing her gloves together and once again flexing her muscles. She didn't seem at all tired and of course neither was he. They each bounced out of their corners when the second round began. Not daring to rely on the dubious impartiality of the female judges, Superman had decided to knock her out early in the round and sized her up for a killer blow. When they were four feet apart he waded in close. He could see the muscles of her right arm tense in preparation for an uppercut. Good. That would put her in position for his counterpunch as the momentum from her swing would carry her down and to the left. Without fear from the blow of an ordinary woman, even a New Woman, he let her swing away and then he would .... The next thing he knew he was on the canvas, hearing the referee counting "five, six, seven ...." He scrambled to his feet. What was THAT? Amanda was in her corner holding her gloves high in the air. She seemed surprised he had gotten up, and her lips curled into a sneer. She lowered her arms and at the referee's signal moved back toward him. Still feeling confused, he moved away into his corner. Was it kryptonite? He didn't feel any signs of weakness, and a quick scan of his surroundings, including her gloves, revealed no trace of the substance. He didn't have the luxury of considering it further because she was already on top of him. He swung hard at her chin, but she intercepted with her arm. They both grimaced at the impact, but Superman followed up with a second swing and connected with her cheek. He was hardly holding back now. That blow SHOULD have at least knocked her back, but she only turned her face and grunted. What in God's name was this girl made of, he thought. And then out of the corner of his eye he saw the blur of her boxing glove and before he could react he found himself leaning against the ropes, the referee calling for Amanda to back off while she stood poised above him, ready to strike again. His head was spinning. He took a step forward but slipped and fell to the canvas. The referee started counting again. Superman knew the round was lost and stayed down until the count of nine. Amanda came out of her corner as soon as the referee gave the signal, but the bell sounded before she could renew her attack. Again the arena echoed with waves of cheers for Amanda. What was WRONG with him? Was some unknown force robbing him of his super-powers? A quick check proved he still had his super-vision and hearing, and he floated a millimeter above the canvas to confirm he could still fly. Other than the after-effects of being knocked down he didn't feel any weakness. Was she using some kind of magic that was nullifying his strength and invulnerability when used against her? If so, there would be no way he could sense that -- and probably nothing he could do to stop her. Briefly he felt tempted to quit the contest and fly out of the arena. If she had bewitched him what was the point of continuing? But no, that was not his way. Even if he left Earth, he had to see this contest through to the bitter end and do his utmost to win, whatever the odds. He would do it to honor the other men she had beaten, some crippled now, many others dead. To leave would be to devalue their sacrifices. He would fight twice as hard, and if she beat him, well, perhaps he would not be remembered as the invincible, unbeatable Superman, but at least he would be remembered as someone who knew what it meant to be a man. The bell rang for the final round and he came out more determined than ever. Amanda wore a haughty expression, seemingly confident of her superiority. Superman moved quickly to hit her, but again her much longer reach meant she connected first with a jarring punch to his temple that made him see stars and weakened his own punch, which glanced off her cheek. She followed up with two quick punches above his eyes. To his amazement, she was hurting him and he was forced to adopt a defensive position, putting his gloves up to block her. She pounded them, sending rivers of pain through his hands, and then striking deliberately at his arms and chest. He couldn't stand there letting her take him apart like this. He backed away and ducked under a punch and then, leaving aside his earlier caution, hit her solidly in the cheek, this time without pulling his punch at all. She seemed stunned by his punch, and he quickly followed it with another solid blow. She looked surprised and then fell to the canvas, shaking the whole ring. At last! Superman moved back as the referee began the count. "Three, four, five ...." He'd done it. He'd turned it around! "Seven, eight ...." But no. She got up on one knee, then on both feet. She shook her head to clear it and set her jaw. Superman returned to the fight, bitterly disappointed. He knew he had to knock her out or he would lose. She came back to him, ready to fight. He alertly eluded her jabs, which were coming faster and faster, and seemingly with even more power and speed since he'd knocked her down. He tried using his super-speed to break through her defenses, made so much more formidable by her height and reach, but she seemed to anticipate his moves. Either that or her reflexes were faster than he expected. Finally he found an opening and fired a punch at her stomach with all his strength, heedless now of the consequences. Her look of surprise and distress at his approaching fist, which she could not prevent, betrayed a unexpected sign of vulnerability, and his blow connected solidly. But she did not collapse in pain. Instead she absorbed the blow, bending only slightly as her torso tried belatedly to soften the attack, and she remained standing, breathing as steadily as before, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "It's OVER, Superman, all over for you!" she said, exultant. He hit her again, as much to knock the smile off her face as to win. This time she was ready for him. Her stomach tightened into a dense web of muscle and stopped his fist cold with a resounding clap. She grinned and instead of defending herself she rolled up her t-shirt to show that his punch hadn't even left a mark. Angry at her showboating he hit her there again and again, having no more effect now than before. The crowd watched in awed silence as the Man from Krypton suddenly seemed as overmatched against Amanda as the ordinary men who battled her week after week. "Weakling!" she taunted him, as he became more and more furious, finally giving up on her apparently invincible abdomen and hurling his fist upward at her chin. With lightning speed she evaded the punch and counter-punched at Superman's head, catching him squarely in the temple. His legs stiffened and he went straight over, hitting the canvas just as the bell rang to end the fight. The crowd roared, shaking the arena with the volume of the powerful voices of 15,000 New Women. Amanda leapt out of the ring and, motioning with her still gloved fists, led the crowd in a chant of "A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!" turning 90 degrees in each direction as the crowd shouted at her name. With the final turn she faced Superman, who was groggily trying to stand up, and she flexed her magnificent muscles again, then pointed at him and then down to her feet. Was she insane? Did she think he was going to bow to her? His super-fast recuperation now nearly complete, Superman crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at her. She smiled again and motioned for the crowd to be quiet and spoke, her powerful voice echoing through the arena. "It's OVER for you, Superman. It's OVER. You can see your powers are WORTHLESS against me. You are just a MAN, a man against a WOMAN. What CHANCE do YOU have?" She looked up at the crowd. "NO CHANCE!!" they roared. "NO CHANCE!!" they repeated. He set his jaw, then responded with less emotion but just as powerfully. "I don't know what kind of magic you have working , Amanda, but -- She interrupted, her higher voice overriding his. "It's not MAGIC, Superman. It's SIMPLE. It's STRENGTH. I have more MUSCLE than you, Superman. MUCH more muscle. Much BETTER muscle. And I have more STRENGTH. It's as simple as THAT!" Superman shook his head. "That makes no sense. I have super-powers. Super-strength. For all your enhancements, you're still an earthwoman." She grinned. "And I say, SO WHAT!!" She looked at the crowd and they repeated, "SO WHAT! SO WHAT!! SO WHAT!!" "Yes. SO WHAT, Superman. You may have your super-powers. I have WOMAN power." "WOMAN POWER. WOMAN POWER. WOMAN POWER. WOMAN POWER." they echoed, their throaty voices filling the arena. "WOMAN POWER! WOMAN POWER! WOMAN POWER! WOMAN POWER!!!" The sound was deafening, shaking the arena. Amanda lifted her arms again and again in triumph as the chant evolved to "WOMAN. POWER. WOMAN. POWER. WOMAN. POWER. WOMAN. POWER." Superman stared up in wonder and disgust at this foolishness and illogical hysteria. Is this what the human race had become? He would be relieved to depart from this planet, to go to a new place where there were no New Women, only men and women. The mystery of how Amanda was able to hurt him still disturbed him. She denied it was magic; that was obviously a lie. But if the New Women had tapped into a source of magical power to nullify his super-powers, then shouldn't he stay to fight it? Once the answer would have been an unequivocal "yes", but now what did it really matter? They could dominate the planet as it was. Would it make a difference in the end if they were ten times as powerful as men or a thousand times? And perhaps, if they were experimenting with magic, it would backfire on them in some yet unknown way. It was one of the ironies of power in human history that all dynasties inevitably fell, the sources of their power ultimately turned against them, enabling their former subjects to dominate their masters. Perhaps that was only what was happening now. Where men had dominated women, now New Women dominated men. Who was to say that some day, a New Man would not emerge, perhaps aided by the very magic Amanda was using against him? All he knew was that he would not be there to witness it. There were greener pastures elsewhere, far beyond where New Women could ever venture. During his angry musings the stage had been rearranged for the weightlifting contest. Obviously no normal weights could tax the strength of Superman, and even the power of New Women far exceeded the type of weightlifting equipment that had been used five years ago. For this contest, Superman had provided "Amanda Against All" with an advanced exercise machine that generated incredible levels of resistance through the application of extreme (and well-shielded) magnetic fields generated by power produced in fusion energy cells. The user would stand on a platform that recycled the downward pressure generated by the lift into its power source so that the stress on the floor never exceed the weight of the machine itself. At its highest settings, this machine could generate resistance that exceeded the capabilities of even his super-strength. The machine however was set at a small fraction of that level for the contest. The initial resistance was set at 1 ton, which Superman pulled up easily. Amanda followed him and after a few deep breaths grasped the bar and equaled Supeman's lift. She then increased the weight to 2.5 tons. Superman watched, impressed, as Amanda lifted it with ease. He then matched her feat and increased the bar to 4 tons. The crowd groaned. This was close to the record for New Women. Superman lifted it and then left the bar for Amanda. All eyes were on her as she took it in her hands and then steadily hoisted it upwards. The crowd cheered and then quieted as she increased the weight to 5 tons. 5 tons! There were excited murmurs throughout the audience. That would be a huge increase in the record. She looked around her and then stepped up to the bar. Now she had just ten seconds to complete the lift. She breathed deeply and raised it to her shoulders and then pushed the weight upwards, held it aloft for an extra second as the cheers broke out and let it drop. Superman looked annoyed. He lifted the 5 tons quickly and then turned it up by a factor of ten to 50 tons. He'd decided that this "charade" had gone on long enough. He took the weight and pushed it up without ado and then put it down. He turned back to Amanda, fixing her with an angry stare, which she equaled. Now the crowd was silent. Soon this contest would end and the competition would be decided by a single round of arm wrestling, which Superman would be sure to win. The air was heavy. Amanda rubbed her hands together and took the bar, set her feet and began. Fifteen thousand women held their breaths as Amanda extended her arms and the bar slowly rose up. She held 50 tons above her head for several seconds and then let it fall. Again the crowd burst into raucous cheers. It was Amanda! There was NOTHING she could not do! "A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!" they roared. Superman stared at her in wonder. She then doubled the weight to 100 tons and lifted it above her head. The cries too doubled in volume. "A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!" She sauntered back to Superman who wasted no time lifting the 100 tons and then increasing the weight to 1000 tons. He'd had enough. Enough! He lifted it and let it drop without ceremony, just glaring at Amanda and her trickery as she approached the platform. The crowd did not know what to think now, but so many times today Amanda had accomplished the impossible. What was once more? Grinning, she raised the bar above her head, lowered it and set it to 100,000 tons. 100,000 tons! Was she insane? No human could lift so much Forced to wait while the machine charged the bar for the vast increase in weight she wrapped her arms around herself and twisted from side to side, then raised each leg in the air above her head to stretch her muscles. Finally the machine light showed green and she stepped onto the platform, took the bar and pushed it above her head. "A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!" they cried. Superman shook his head, mystified. He looked carefully at the machine, checking its internal workings with his X-ray vision. There were no flaws he could see, the magnetic fields were being generated properly. "Superman, you have ten seconds!" the referee called. Startled, Superman walked up to the platform and lifted the weight, then increased it to 1,000,000 tons. He was approaching the weights he himself used for his occasional half-hearted attempts at exercise. Surely Amanda could not lift this much! She was watching him closely now. He lifted it, felt the slight strain in his arms and let it drop. She nodded and took over. She knit her hands together and then raised the bar to thunderous cheers. She looked back at Superman. It was a long, deliberate look. She spun the dial to 10,000,000 tons and looked at him again. Was she crazy? If she failed at this weight, under the rules for this contest all he would have to do to win would be to lift half a ton more than his previous lift. She took a deep breath and grasped the bar firmly, then once again looked back at Superman. Satisfied that he was watching, she swiveled her hips to the left and to the right, set herself again, took a deep breath and lifted the bar steadily into the air. She held it there for a full five seconds and then let it fall. "NO!" he cried out. "You CAN'T have lifted that! It's impossible!" Amanda smiled smugly at him. "Oh yeah? Well, I'll do it again!" After a nod from the referee she settled herself underneath and put her hands on the bar and then slipped one hand to the center, dropped the other from the bar and pushed it up one-handed. She turned around and scrunched up her nose at Superman and then put the bar down. "Your turn ... SUPERman!" she said, loudly taunting him. She walked toward him daintily, wiggling her hips and holding her hands down at her sides, palms facing the floor. Superman looked frightened. He stood next to the bar and looked at it reluctantly, then grasped it and pushed. His triceps flexed, his chest muscles strained, his face grew red and his legs shook. The bar rose a tiny fraction of an inch. "Five seconds, Superman," the referee called out. He grimaced. His red face turned purple, his knuckles turned white and the bar gave way, settling once again in its original position. The arena roared with excitement. "A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!" He still stood at the platform staring at the bar in disbelief. Amanda quickly approached, bumped him aside with her hip, took the bar in one hand and pushed it up once again. Superman looked on in amazement and was too shocked to resist when her other hand gathered his uniform at the "S" emblem and lifted him into the air too, to the wild cheers of the crowd. "Isn't he a fitting champion for our men!" she cried out, her unamplified, powerful voice ringing out over the resounding cheers. She walked him over to the specially made titanium table nearby. "Even though I've already won the match, we have to give them their money's worth, don't we, SUPERman?" she shouted. She dropped him roughly onto one of the seats, kneeled on the floor next to him, her face still higher than his, and proffered her hand for the arm wrestling contest. A dispirited Superman took it and the referee gave the signal to begin. Superman's muscles jumped immediately but there was no sign of any reaction by Amanda, who just ran her free hand through her hair and stretched her long legs. "Any time you're ready, oh Man of Steel," she said, mocking him, their hands still at the starting position. He was pushing with all his strength now, all of his muscles were tensed and straining, his forearm trembled while she sat calmly, her arms completely relaxed. "Come ON, SUPERman. What are you WAITing for? Use TWO hands if you HAVE to. You feel as weak to me as all these other men!" "No! I ...." Suddenly Superman uttered a loud groan. His face contorted in pain as Amanda tightened her grip. "Great ... Scott!" he exclaimed. "Who's Scott?" she replied, unconcerned. "You know, SUPERman, this is BORing. I'm not going to wait all DAY for you to challenge me. You know why? Because YOU CAN'T!" she said and slammed his hand onto and then through the solid slab of metal, embedding his hand within it, and then mischievously reshaped the table around his arm as though the hard metal were as soft as taffy. While he struggled to extricate himself from it, managing only very slowly and with great difficulty, she leaned against the block of metal, amusing herself by poking holes in it with her fingers. "It's as I said before, Superman. My muscles are bigger," she said, pumping her biceps once, "better," pumping them again, "and STRONGER than yours!" pushing her biceps to two glorious peaks. She reached into the slab of metal and effortlessly carved a channel along where Superman's arm was still partially immersed, freeing him. Superman gripped his arm and massaged his bruised muscles. "This can't be magic! Y-you couldn't do what you've done unless ... unless you have super-powers too!" Amanda grinned. "Well doh, Superman! You figured it out, finally. I DO have super-powers. Just like YOURS. EXACTLY like yours in fact." She floated in the air several feet off the ground to the crowd's cries of astonishment and then applause, and then settled down again and put her arm around him, pulling his head against her breast. "I've got the same invincibility, Superman, the same super-vision, the same ability to fly. But with one twist of course. One very important twist." Fearful of what she was about to say and all of a sudden feeling very small and vulnerable, he looked up at her intently. "Isn't it obvious? The same exact super-power that infuses your muscles -- your puny, softer, male muscles -- and gives them what you've known as their super-strength now also infuses my bigger, thicker, denser, New Woman-enhanced muscles and gives them REAL super-strength. Super-DUPER-strength. The average New Woman is twenty times as strong as the average man and I'm stronger than the average new woman. Is it ANY wonder that a power that makes you a hundred million times as strong as an ordinary man would make me more than two billion times as strong as the same man, and more than twenty times as strong as you! So, after all, you're just a man. A Superman, perhaps, but only a SuperMAN!" "B-but how -- "Oh, does it really matter how? Leave that to the scientists. Our New Woman scientists developed some kind of chemical that interacts with our New Woman physiology and with the genetic material in your sperm." She winked and ran her tongue around her mouth. "Poor Superman just couldn't control himself with ALL our pheromones from me and fifteen thousand other new women filling the air, and I will tell you, you were VERY yummy, Superman. I'll have to recommend you to my 'sisters'. Anyway, it was lucky for you that you pinned me in the wrestling. I was already starting to get stronger then, by the time we started boxing I was rapidly gaining power. Your namby-pamby punches felt like love taps to me, except when you got mad. But even when you used all your strength you couldn't really hurt me. Stun me maybe, but that was all. It was I who had to hold back to keep myself from destroying YOU!" "No!" "Oh yes! It took all of twenty minutes for the chemicals to finish their work on me, to enable my body to produce enough of the enzyme that, when combined with our New Woman hormones, gives me the same super-powers as yours. It's fully effective now, all throughout my system. I'm a Superwoman, and since I'm a New Woman, I'm more than twenty times as strong as you are! And it's not just in my strength that I'm superior. We New Women have sharper senses, stronger bones, faster reflexes more resistance to injury and disease than men. Just as with my strength, I'll bet having your powers will have multiplied those differences. You're at least as inferior to me as a normal man is to a New Woman." "No! NO!! It can't be! Aren't things awful enough?! I can't have contributed to the creation of a SuperNewWoman!" He wanted to get away, to bear his misery, horror and shame alone, but his strength was no match for hers. She slipped her hand over his stomach and held him in place, showing the amazed and excited audience, both within the arena and all around the world, that just one of her arms was more than equal to the task of subduing the one remaining symbol of masculine power. "Don't leave us so quickly, Superman. Miranda? Miranda, come down here, please." A tall blond girl emerged from the side of the stage and walked to the center. "Superman, I'd like you to meet my younger sister, Miranda. She's sixteen, but already she's almost as strong as I am. I mean, as strong as I was." Miranda looked down at Superman and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "See the family resemblance, Superman?" He just glared up at her. "Oh, you're such a grouch. Just because you're not the strongest person in the world anymore, just the strongest man, and the second strongest person you don't have to be so angry. I mean, things could be worse, right? Oh Miranda, let your big sister give you a kiss, won't you?" Miranda obligingly stepped closer to her sister, and Amanda held her head and gave her a long open kiss, full on the lips, and then whispered in her ear. Miranda giggled and then walked in front of Superman, put her hands on her hips and looked down at him, and then continued to the side opposite Amanda's and took his arm. Amanda smiled and said loudly to the crowd. "Well, don't all of you think we look nice standing together! The two strongest persons in all the world." She let go of Superman. "And Superman too, the strongest man." Miranda giggled again and clutched Superman's arm closer to her. A low curious murmur was trickling through the crowd. What was Amanda up to? Superman wondered too, but it was no great curiosity. His mind was on other things and other places. He didn't give a thought to the implications of her comments' syntax. "If you don't mind, I'll be...." "Oh but I DO mind. And Miranda does too. We're not ready for you to go. Are we, Miranda darling?' Miranda shook her head and possessively clutched Superman's arm more tightly to her body. "Yes, well I --" Superman had pulled his arm to extract himself from Miranda and fly away, but he wasn't moving. His arm was being held back -- by Miranda! "What the --" Miranda was giggling and smiling sweetly at Superman, whose efforts to free himself were growing ever more frantic while remaining completely ineffective. She toyed with him, letting him fly into the air while she held onto his arm, so that he looked almost like a kite with his arm as a very short string, then she started spinning him around in circles like a streamer, so quickly that he looked to their human eyes like an amalgam of blue, red and yellow. The crowd laughed and cheered at the helplessness of the great Man of Steel. Amanda was laughing too and applauded her sister's antics. "As I said, the two strongest persons in the world -- my little sister and me -- and the world's strongest man too, but really just a weakling compared to us, as all men are." Miranda had stopped twirling Superman around and now set him firmly onto the ground, twisting his arm behind his back and beaming with delight. "But, my dear friends, we haven't forgotten you." She motioned for two more women to join them on the stage. "Carlota, my director, and Betty, my assistant. Let me give each of you a kiss! The women touched lips with Amanda for five seconds each. Now, if each of you kiss another woman, and then the four kiss four more, the eight kiss eight more and so on, by the end of the day all New Women around the world will be SUPERNEWWOMEN." Carlota and Betty did as Amanda asked and within two minutes the arena was filled with flying women, buzzing from to another like bees pollinating flowers, until all of them had super-powers. Then they burst through the ceiling to spread their wondrous powers to women in every corner of the world, leaving Superman alone with Amanda and Miranda. "I can let him go now, right Amanda?" "Of course, sweetie! Now that he's as helpless as any man we needn't worry about him ever again. You can go now too, if you want. I'll take care of him." "OK, Sis. Bye. Thanks!" Miranda kissed her sister, on the cheek this time, and released Superman, who rubbed his arm where the teen's super-duper-powered grip had left a purple bruise. It healed quickly thanks to Superman's recuperative powers, but the psychological damage lingered unabated. He was now little better off than the men he had tried for the five years to protect. And to underline the point, seconds later a young girl, two thirds the height of Superman but already half again as muscular as he, streaked into the arena straight at Superman and tackled him. He glared at her then began to get up but she pushed him back down with one hand on his chest, pinning him to the floor. "Ha-HA! Look at me! I did it! And it's so EASY! I'm WAY stronger than SUPERMAN!" Following her closely behind was her mother who, rather than disciplining her unruly child, floated several feet above the prone Superman, nodding with approval. "Very good, Mildred. You have excellent control for a girl your age. We'll see how you do on your brothers next. They're more fragile than Superman, you know. Start with Alan. He's sixteen after all and by now he should have learned not to wriggle around nearly as much as Gerald, or as much as Superman is doing here. Hmmph! It's about time that man was taught how to behave! Flying about everywhere interfering in other people's business! So like an American!" She turned to Amanda. "Bless you, darling. We are all SO proud of you over in England. My daughter and I have watched you from the very beginning. Truly inspiring of you and jolly good entertainment too. Let's be off now, Mildred. I've always wanted to see Saturn. Let's get there before the Germans take all the best spots." Mildred looked down at Superman, reluctantly letting him go. "All right, Mummy. If you say so." She floated up to her mother and took her hand. "Mummy, since he's not really 'super' any more, are we going to let him wear that costume? I think Amanda should get it. She did beat him." "Why, that's a delightful idea, darling. Of course she can just take it from him if she wants it. But since ALL of us are 'super' now, I dare say she won't want it. And after all, it's just his old baby blanket and it's not terribly pretty." Mildred nodded, waved to Amanda and flew up with her mother into outer space. Amanda looked down at the prone Superman. "Well, Superman, I'm really glad you accepted my challenge. Too bad for you that you lost. But I'll give you what you wanted. This will be my last show. We have no more need of this kind of entertainment." "Then you won't mind if I take my leave of you and this poor cursed planet. You can have it." He started to fly up, but Amanda leapt in front of him and let him crash into her, blocking him, and then threw him back onto the stage. "What now? What more do you need from me? To make me your slave, as you've already done to all the men of Earth?" "My SLAVE?" she laughed. "What use would I or any other Super-New Woman have of your pathetic labor, or that of any other man? Is there ANYTHING you could do that we could not do better and more quickly and with less effort than it would take to try to teach you what to do? You men are worthless to us." "Are we? Well, I for one will go far from Earth, and from New Women. That is for sure!" he said defiantly. She settled down next to him and put her hands on her hips. "Don't rush off, Superman. For starters, I don't want you going anywhere until the transformation of women into superwomen is complete. You might try to interfere." He scowled. "I've lost interest in Earth, Amanda. I'll find someplace far away from you and your New Women." "Oh, do you think so? You heard Mildred's mother. There is no reason for us to stay only on Earth. Many of us will want to explore the stars, and if we find other females oppressed by their men then we will help our sisters there too. And certainly, wherever YOU go, one of US would have to watch to make sure you don't cause any trouble. We don't want you applying your super-brain to discovering an antidote to the New Woman formula or to anything similar. We're surprised you never tried something before, but now we can stop you. Three billion super-eyes wouldn't have any trouble keeping track of you Superman, for the rest of your days. Still ...." She reached down and lifted him up, her large hand tight around his upper arm, his face showing pain from her grip. "Still, it might be fun to have you stay around even longer." "Wh-whaa?" He struggled ineffectively to free himself from Amanda, trying to pry her hand open. Amanda responded by closing her hand even more tightly around his biceps. Superman's eyes opened wider and he barely suppressed a gasp of pain. His knees buckled but Amanda lifted him so that they were face to face. "Ha-ha! The great Superman! With muscles of MUSH!" She encircled him with her other arm. "I'm thinking of a new series, 'The New Adventures of Superman,' starring you and me. Each week we can have a little challenge, to inspire the men of Earth, to show everyone just how powerful the most powerful man in the world really is." She tightened her arm around his waist, crushing him against her and then dropped her hand to his ass, compressing his cheeks with her long fingers. "What do you think, my little sweetie? As the co-stars we'd have lots of time together. We might even have a little affair, as co-stars often do." "You ... can't ... make me ... stay with ... you!" Superman declared, trying to resist the pain. Amanda pursed her lips. "Oh, but I can! And in more ways than one." Her eyes dilated slightly, her nostrils flared and an enchanting scent permeated the air. She began to pant slightly. "You see ... Superman. If you think my pheromones were ... potent before I became super ... mmmmm, you respond to me so quickly!" She giggled. "Oooh, I can just FEEL the PASSION locked inSIDE you as you PUSH your TOOL against my ROCK hard ABS." She squeezed his ass more tightly and Superman groaned. "I BET I can even MAKE you start to enJOY pain, Superman, hmmmmm? To enjoy your subjugation to me, and to every female on this planet? Isn't THAT something worth staying for?" "Oh ... god ... no!" he grimaced, as she tore his uniform and rested her fingers directly on his skin, then tore further to make a large hole. She reached inside and then, easing the pressure, lightly stroked his very erect cock. "I've let go now, Superman," she said, caressing him ever so gently with her long fingers. "Why don't you go? Why DON'T you?" She brushed her erect nipples against his chest and put her blood red lips on his ear. "Don't you WANT to?" she asked softly, her tongue flirting with the lobe of his ear. "Don't you WANT me to STOP BOTHering you?" She had taken her hand off his cock. "No! Don't stop!" he begged. She prodded him gently, pushing him onto the floor. "Weak as a baby, you are, Superman. I wouldn't DREAM of stopping. We'll make you beg all the time, now." She looked up at the camera. "All the time."