I HAD A DREAM
by Noël Burch nburch@wanadoo.fr
In the clutches of a female exponent of the deadliest secret arts, bent on revenge.


(A stab at the phenomenology of a guilty pleasure)

THERE WAS THIS GERMAN GUY, TALL, MID-FORTIES, SHAVED PHALLIC HEAD, WANTED ME
TO COME WITH HIM TO THIS DOJO WHERE HE WAS DOING JUDO OR SOMETHING... HE WAS
JUST A BEGINNER WITH A WHITE BELT. I HAD THE FEELING HE WAS GAY. I WASN'T SURE
WHY HE WANTED ME ALONG. HE COULDN'T HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN ME.

IN THE DOJO, THERE WERE LITTLE BOYS TAKING LESSONS, THERE WAS A MALE TEACHER
AND A WOMAN, TALL, ATTRACTIVE IN A SEVERE-LOOKING WAY, HIS ASSISTANT, I
SURMISED... SHE SCOLDED A LITTLE BOY FOR SOME WRONGDOING, CHOPPED HIM ON THE
BACK OF THE NECK WITH THE EDGE OF HER HAND, PLAYFULLY ENOUGH, BUT IT WAS A
PRETTY HARD BLOW, I THOUGHT. BIZARRE BUT EXCITING... THERE WAS A JUMP IN THE
DREAM AND AN ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH YOUNG WOMAN WITH SANDY HAIR, SHORT AND CURLY,
APPEARED AT MY SIDE. SHE BELONGED TO THIS PLACE, SHE WAS WEARING A GI OF SOME
SORT, I KNEW SHE WAS AN ADVANCED STUDENT, PRACTICED TWO ARTS, BUT I COULDN'T
CATCH THE NAMES, ONE SEEMED CHINESE, THE OTHER BRAZILIAN, MAYBE... WARM AND
FRIENDLY FROM THE START, SHE BEGAN COMING ON TO ME IN A VERY FORWARD WAY. AT
ONE POINT SHE TURNED TO A FELLOW STUDENT, YOUNG, MALE, BORROWED HIS BARE ARM
AND PINCHED IT IN TWO DIFFERENT PLACES, CHOSEN FOR THE PAIN THEY CAUSED... QIN
NA, I WONDERED? HER SADISM WAS PLAYFUL, ALMOST JOCULAR, LIKE THAT OF THE OLDER
WOMAN EARLIER, BUT HER VICTIM, THOUGH PASSIVE, DIDN'T ENJOY WHAT SHE WAS DOING
TO HIM... I WONDERED IF THIS LITTLE EXHIBITION WAS MEANT TO AROUSE ME? SHE'D
ALREADY MADE CLEAR SHE WANTED US TO HAVE SEX... I FOUND THIS WEIRD, HERE WAS
THIS YOUNG CHICK COMING ON TO A GREY-BEARD LIKE ME. I TRIED TO REASSURE
MYSELF: "EVERYBODY TELLS ME I LOOK YOUNGER THAN MY SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS, BUT
STILL... MAYBE SHE'S INTO OLD MEN, LOOKING FOR A FATHER FIGURE... AFTER ALL
THERE REALLY ARE WOMEN LIKE THAT." SHE ASKED ME HOW BIG MY FLAT WAS AND I SAID
IT WAS SMALL. SHE SAID THAT DIDN'T MATTER, THERE WAS PLENTY OF ROOM AT HER
PLACE. I WONDERED IF SHE WAS GOING TO THROW ME AROUND... THERE WAS ANOTHER CUT
AND SHE WAS SHOWING ME THIS ELEGANT PIECE OF SHINY BLACK LEATHER BONDAGE GEAR,
A PAIR OF SHORTS WITH WRIST-CUFFS AT THE WAIST AND A PENILE SHEATHE, SAID IT
WAS HER "SENSEI" HAD PROVIDED HER WITH IT. ALL THIS TIME SHE'D BEEN SNUGGLING
UP TO ME, KISSING ME AND I WAS OBLIVIOUS TO THE PEOPLE AROUND US. THEN I GUESS
WE SET OUT... I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING FISHY, SHE SEEMED TO BE A "
NYMPHOMANIAC", MAYBE EVEN A PSYCHOTIC SADIST..., BUT WHO THE HELL CARED?

THEN THE WHOLE THING JUST PETERED OUT. I DROPPED MY PURSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
STREET AND PEOPLE WERE HELPING ME PICK UP THE COINS AMONGST THE WHIZZING
CARS... THE WOMAN HAD DISAPPEARED AND I AWOKE: « IT DID HAVE TO BE A DREAM »,
I SAID ALOUD... THE MOST VIVID EROTIC DREAM I HAVE EVER HAD...

I WANT TO MAKE THIS REAL DREAM COME "TRUE" ON THE DREAM-SCREEN OF MY
THINK-PAD... WHERE "I" IS NOT QUITE ME...BUT ALMOST.

Part 1

The Apartment

She'd been barefoot in the dojo but by the time we were in the taxi, she'd
pulled on some kind of footwear and thrown an ample dark coat over her martial
attire. A canvas bag on the seat beside her probably contained the rest of her
street clothes: she'd been so anxious to whisk me away she hadn't bothered to
change. Immediately we were kissing passionately, she fondling my erection
through my trousers, I, with my hand under the woollen coat, kneading her firm
breasts through the silky material. She seemed as aroused as I was. She slid
her hand between my thighs, caressingly at first, but then the caress turned
into a probe and suddenly she was pinching ME now in some very sensitive
place, just as she'd done to the boy in the dojo, some special nerve, no
doubt, and the pain was excruciating but her tongue inside my mouth more or
less stifled my scream. "Does it excite you when I do that?" she whispered.
What could I say? My mind was numb. How could she imagine I was excited? That
was no "love pinch", it was agonizing torture! Yet in some compartment of the
brain I knew that brief demonstration of her skills at the dojo, suggesting a
whole repertoire of mysterious techniques, might have been a part of the
attraction she held for me. I had never personally known, let alone flirted
with, a woman who possessed such skills, and the fear I felt was somehow
thrilling... But on the other hand, the pain had put paid to my ardour. Just
who would pull a mean trick like that in the middle of a kiss? What kind of
woman was I getting myself involved with here?

The taxi pulled up to the kerb and the woman sprang out of the car; I paid the
driver and followed. Standing close, she took me affectionately by the hand,
and led me towards the majestic doorway of a venerable, imposing mansion
block, typical of this posh district of V...

A lift cage descended slowly into view. With mock gallantry, she opened the
gate for me, murmuring an unctuously ironical "age before beauty". I was
suddenly seized by doubt: "This is insane," I said to myself, frozen to the
spot, wanting to turn and flee. But I hung back a tad too long for HER taste:
I'd hardly felt the palm of her hand closing over the base of my thumb...
until she squeezed and at the same time, twisted my ear in some wicked way...
The pains were atrocious, but again she both stifled my cry and compensated my
suffering with the precious gift of her tongue, even as she drew me inexorably
inside the lift. I welcomed the kiss greedily in spite of the agony she
inflicted so effortlessly... A part of me resented these gratuitous
demonstrations of her capacity to hurt me (to hurt men?) but even when my
erection faltered, I was far too aroused mentally to rebel. My surrender eased
her grip on my ear but failed to obtain the release of my thumb. I was in an
unprecedented mental and sensual confusion; the young woman's contradictory
ministrations made it impossible to think ahead... She pressed a button and
the floor of the ancient cage began trembling underfoot. At that moment and
with that gesture, I felt the woman had sealed my doom.

Our embrace continued unabated as we stepped blindly from the cage. This is
true sexual passion, I said to myself; this girl just has a funny way of
expressing hers... I saw little of my surroundings; the quiet clang of the
lift gate, our muffled footsteps on the hall carpeting, a key in a lock, a
heavy door closing behind us... The woman withdrew her lips. She was still
holding my hand that same way, gently now, with no pressure, but I knew better
than to try pulling away. Her gaze invited me to look around and I duly
admired a vast sitting room, sumptuously appointed, sparsely furnished and
dimly lit. She gave me back my hand at last and retreated a step, looking me
over while I stood trying to rub the pain out of my aching ear and my bruised
thumb-joint at the same time... An enigmatic, superior smile played about her
lips. She shed her coat and draped it negligently over an armchair without
taking her eyes off me and I could now contemplate at leisure the faintly
oriental features, the high cheek-bones and almond eyes. But I also saw the
fine creases in the forehead, the hardness around the lips. Late thirties at
least, but obviously very fit. I had a better idea of her body, now, and time
to wonder about her intriguing outfit. The jacket was recognizably associated
with some martial art, but of a design unfamiliar to my unknowing eyes. It
hung low over the hips in a graceful, asymmetric curve and had billowing
sleeves buttoned tight around the wrists. A wide black sash wrapped firm and
high around the slender waist drew the jacket taut over the small breasts,
made her erectile nipples visible through the silky material. The trousers
were loose around the thighs, providing ample room for movement, but were
wound tightly to the calves with lengths of silken cordage. This arrangement
accomodated a pair of snug black canvas ankle boots, the likes of which I had
never seen: thick rubber soles with a separation between the big toe and the
others. The overall effect was both elegant – even sexy, I thought – and
disquieting. Did she plan to make love in that? I wondered.

"Do you think I'm very pretty?" she asked abruptly. "Oh yes," I whispered..."
"Good" she said and putting one foot forward, jabbed me sharply in the solar
plexus with her finger tips. The gesture was so matter-of-fact, the attack so
sudden I could not even think of fending it off and though the blow was
scarcely a violent one, my whole body recoiled by reflex. I tried to catch my
balance but could not... because the lady had the sole of her boot planted
firmly on my instep: my arms flailed the air, like the crucified Christ in
that sick joke and I landed heavily on the thick carpeting (she had removed
her foot in time to prevent a sprain or worse, and I was instinctively
grateful.)

The arrogant ease, the casual expertise with which she had felled my eleven
stone was frightening... but they were impressive too and perhaps a bit
exciting. This was what I could not come to terms with. Did I have a
masochistic streak in me, I worried? Whatever the case, I knew I must not
attempt to rise without her permission... The woman stood smiling down at me,
then raised her foot from the floor and held it poised with toes pointing down
like a ballet dancer.

I flinched, fearing another devious assault. If she were going to kick a man's
private parts, I was sure she'd have some special way of doing it which would
hurt ten times worse than usual. I'd come to see her as a kind of fairy-tale
sorceress, a reincarnation of Morgane la Fee, Prince Valiant's nemesis, in
that Sunday strip of my early childhood – a witch-like figure with an infinite
store of mysterious tricks. I was physically dreading the next one yet longing
to see what it would be.

As it was, she merely touched the tip of her boot to the enormous erection
that had raised my linen trousers like a tent-pole... and which I had not
really noticed before. "Nice," she said and turned away. I started to sit up.
"But you mustn't move, you know," she said sweetly over her shoulder as she
crossed to the furthest door, adding pedantically: "You're to stay right there
on the floor". She left the room, but I wasn't about to chance bucking this
woman's will. I lay perfectly still trying to take the measure of this uncanny
experience: ought I to feel terribly excited or terribly afraid? In point of
fact, I felt both.

She soon returned, pulling on what looked from where I lay like a pair of
white rubber gloves, rather thicker than the surgical kind but fully as tight.
The squeak of the rubber added a torture chamber note to my fear... and
connotations of clinical intimacy to my desire. She smoothed the strong rubber
over her wiry fingers with deliberately suggestive strokes, then held up her
hands for my inspection, front and back. The gesture had something of the
conjuror's rite: "Nothing in the hands..." But I would soon understand it to
mean "Nothing but my hands..." She bent down and picked up my right leg by the
ankle. Again I felt the startling strength of her grip. Removing my moccasin,
she rolled my sock down and my trouser leg up, holding the foot by the instep.
"You still have a good body for an old man," she coolly appraised. "The skin
is still smooth... I like that." She stroked my calf and instep and the caress
of the rubber was cold and firm. But then, clenching her fingers into an
unusual fist, she delicately explored the base of my ankle bone with a
protruding knuckle, then bore down... hard. I screamed and tried to pull my
leg away but her rubber grip was intractable. I had been expecting pain but
this was agonizing, it shot up my leg like fire. My reflex was to roll away
but almost as if by accident the sole of her boot had my other ankle pinned to
the floor. Clearly, she enjoyed inflicting pain for its own sake, enjoyed it
in a way which was not quite sane. She smiled as she spoke: "Now just imagine
you knew something I wanted to know and I did THIS to you (she increased the
excruciating pressure): you'd tell me what I wanted to know, wouldn't you
now?" ‘Yes, yes, yes, anything!" I screamed feeling ready to faint. "What was
that? I couldn't hear you..." and yet more pain. "Yes, I give up, stop,
please..." And then she did, quite suddenly with a little laugh. "I'd be good
at torturing people for some purpose, wouldn't I? Never really had the chance,
though... I just do it..." I strained frantically to touch my martyred
ankle... which she released now, only to catch my extended arm by the wrist in
that steel grip of hers, dropping onto me with all her compact weight, jamming
her knee into my groin... again, almost as if by accident.

So absorbed was I by this fresh pain that I scarcely noticed, let alone
resisted her whipping my arm across her firm thigh, twisting it into a
deadlock. Here she was, on top of me at last, but not the way I'd been hoping.
I couldn't move a muscle, and my groin was aching dramatically, draining my
strength. Once again, panic and pain had all but swept away the excitement...
but not the suspense: what was she going to do now? She stroked my cheek with
cool rubber fingers. "You and I are going to have a lot of fun," she said at
last, "but first you need a little nap." Her hand slid under my chin and she
pinched something in the side of my throat, pinched it hard until a red veil
obstructed my vision and I began to feel very, very remote... I was dying, I
knew that much, this woman was pinching the life out of me ... As I watched
her ambiguous smile growing dim, a rhyme from Pope flashed crazily through my
mind:

"But this bold lord with manly strength endued

She with but one finger and a thumb subdued..."

When consciousness returned, I lay looking up at the ornate plaster ceiling. I
felt cold. I lifted my head and saw my legs were bare. I tried to rise, but
found my wrists were fastened to my waist. With great difficulty I managed to
sit and saw now that I was wearing only a pair of tight black leather shorts
and that my wrists were fixed to the waistband with leather handcuffs. My
penis still felt erect but was now encased in a tight leather sheath: this, I
thought to myself, was that thing they call bondage! I remembered those
stickers in call-boxes: "Stocks and bonds for sale" followed by a phone
number. I had never felt particularly tempted. And my present helplessness
only frightened me. I heard a tinkling laugh and swivelled my head to the
left. The woman was seated in an armchair with her legs crossed, watching me.

Our eyes met and she held my gaze for some time without a word. What was in
those eyes? Madness? No doubt. There was also a twisted lust... which I wanted
to read as a shining promise. Despite my memories of awful pain and the fear
of more to come, it was that promise I clung to with all the force of my
ageing desire.

At length, she rose, walked slowly across the room and stood over me. In her
hand was a large, old-fashioned alarm clock. When she spoke, her smile had
hardened and her voice had lost all its seductive femininity: "On your feet
old man and be quick about it, or I'll hurt you again..." Even as I scrambled
to my feet to avoid new pain, my cock grew fat inside its leather sheath. The
threat cut both ways, it seemed. As did the fantasies it hinted at: how
exactly would she go about hurting me again?

"We're going to play hide and seek, you and I" she said, and the expression on
her face of positively childlike glee belied the sober objectivity of her
explication. "This is a very large apartment. It has ten rooms. The rules are
very simple: while I count to a hundred, you will run and hide as best you
can. Then I will come after you. If I don't find you at the end of ten
minutes, the alarm will ring" – winding the clock as she talked – "and I will
let you go..." She broke off with a new thought: "But I say, old man... Have
you noticed? You haven't once begged me to let you go, not one single time?
Yet you know you can't leave here without my permission... You know that,
don't you?" I must have nodded or otherwise assented, because she seemed
satisfied. "So... if I find you BEFORE the time is up, you'll have to pay a
forfeit. Now... ready... get set... go!" And burying her face in her gloved
hands, she started counting aloud like a child: "One, two, three..."

I ran from the room as fast as I could manage with my fettered wrists, doing
my best to get into the spirit of the game... trying to believe it really was
a game... convince myself that, appearances notwithstanding, the woman was in
her right mind. Could a psychotic be as subtle and observant as she? And then
too, were we going to have sex or what?" Yet already I knew it was most likely
to be "what"... and that it would hurt... very badly...

I half-loped, half-stumbled from room to room in that palatial apartment,
looking for a place to hide, considering dark closets – by standing on
tiptoes, I could just reach the door knobs with one hand – the spaces under
sofas, under beds, trying to keep track of the seconds going by, now that the
woman's voice was out of earshot. By the time I thought she must have reached
one hundred, I had decided to take my stand in a bathroom with two entrances.
It was sheer despair that made me imagine my salvation lay in this tiled
oasis. If only I could hear her approaching soon enough from whichever side, I
thought, I could slip out the opposite way, then perhaps get behind her
somehow, keep out of her sight, find a path of escape. But would I even hear
the woman coming? She moved like a cat on those rubber soles.... The light had
been on when I arrived and I dared not turn it off, that might give me away. I
hid behind the massive cast-iron bath-tub and waited, my heart pounding. The
tiles were cold under my bare feet...

Just as I'd feared, no audible warning preceded the opening of the door,
itself nearly imperceptible. I crouched lower. Her stealthy feet made almost
no sound as she moved, but at this close range I could tell when she stopped
for a second – because she heard my thumping heart? – then went on her way,
leaving the room by the other door which she closed softly behind her... and
locked? Was that the faint click I heard? I waited a few seconds, then hurried
silently on my bare feet to the other door, reached for the knob and
cautiously opened it. There had previously been light in the adjoining
bedroom, but now it was pitch dark. Too late, I realized I was stupidly
silhouetted against the luminous bathroom ... There came a brief sound of
rubber soles pounding the thick carpet and a white blur hurtled out of the
shadows: my torso was gripped by legs like the coils of a boa, legs whose
slenderness belied their implacable strength, and I was thrown helplessly to
the ground by a woman half my size and weight. She seemed to be giggling for
joy, like a teenager who'd done something clever in gym class. She'd caught me
in some sort of flying scissors hold, just like a TV wrestler, and now was
reclining comfortably, propped up on one elbow, crushing the breath out of my
lungs between a muscled calf and a hard little tibia... I was about to pass
out again when her body shifted and twisted expertly till she was sitting on
my chest, evading my puny attempts to throw her off, working her legs into
position till I was helpless again, my neck imprisoned now between the
crushing thighs, my face pressing into her warm, faintly perfumed crotch. I
felt her tugging at the cloth of her breeches and suddenly I smelled a strong
odor di femina, felt against my face that association of viscosity and
pilosity I'd known so well in my younger days... There was a pause and then
more pain: she was digging the tips of her thumbs deep into the hollows under
my ears. "You old fool, what are you waiting for? Have you forgotten what to
do with a woman?" and then her hands seemed to want to heal the hurt as she
massaged the back of my head, stroked my ears, laid her cool hands on my
forehead, where the odour and feel of the rubber strangely added to my
excitement.... As my cock strained against the imprisoning leather, it
discovered a hard protuberance digging deep into some erogenous spot just
beneath the taut foreskin: again, pleasure mingled with pain.

I had not yet recovered from her traumatic assault in the dark. Nonetheless,
and despite the objective discomfort of my present position, I managed to put
out my tongue to the monstrously swollen clitoris, taste the heady fluids that
flowed freely now, begin to lick the mound of flesh. More pain came, quite
undeserved I thought: "Delicately, you old fool," she hissed, "that isn't an
ice-cream cone you're licking!" With both her thumbs, she was pressing some
nerve in the middle of each eyebrow: her knowledge of where and how to hurt a
man seemed limitless. Where had she learnt such things? The pain was worse
than any migraine, yet by sheer willpower, I managed not to scream again: that
was one satisfaction this "kooky nympho" would get out of me no more! Now she
relaxed the diabolical pressure and the pain in my skull receded. "If you
don't want me to do that again, you'll be more careful..." Then, more kindly:
"This is your first forfeit. There will be others, of course. It's going to be
hard to find a place to hide in this apartment, big as it is..."

I had resumed my task with great concentration and now her voice trailed off
and she moaned faintly. "Yes, that's right, go on" she panted, "now you're
starting to give me pleasure... Maybe I'll give you some... if you deserve
it..." It seemed an eternity before I heard my tormentress begin to moan in
earnest and felt the threatening hands withdraw from my skull altogether... I
could tell she was kneading her breasts... My tongue was beginning to tire, my
throat felt increasingly sore, I thought I could go on no longer... when at
last she collapsed on top of me with a long, loud wail... We both lay panting
for several long minutes...

At length, she rolled gracefully away from me and murmured: "Not bad for a
first... Now you may run and hide again... This time I'll count to two
hundred..."

I was exhausted, but I knew better than not to obey. I sat up wondering how
long we were to go on like this. And how it would all end. Badly for me, I
surmised. Pathetic anger rose inside me. To hell with sex! I had to get out of
here! My resolve to escape grew by leaps and bounds till I became unreasonably
optimistic. Why not take advantage of her present vulnerability to gain
control of the situation? I managed to stand. There she was, lying at my feet,
apparently quite off guard. My wrists were imprisoned but I outweighed the
dangerous creature by several stone. And so... suiting the action to the
thought, I let my full weight drop, driving both knees into the woman's torso
and expecting to hear the air whooshing from her lungs... But I was in for an
unpleasant surprise: her rib-cage seemed made of spring-steel and she scarcely
reacted to the impact at all...

In retrospect, my motives at that point were confused, for despite the fear
and moral loathing this strange woman inspired in me, even while my mind knew
I was in serious peril of my life, my flesh was still a-tingle with sexual
excitement, I was still aching for her to deal with the powerful erection that
filled the leather sheath so uncomfortably now... and which the bondage gear
prevented me from dealing with myself! So my attack was in the nature of an
attempted rape, the expression of a deep sexual rage, fused with the
outlandish hope of disabling my nemesis long enough to escape, a marriage of
lust and reason... But while Mr. Reason was simply kidding himself, Lady Lust
knew the move was foredoomed and secretly relished the outcome. Even with my
hands free, any "brute" force I might bring to bear would never prevail
against this woman's uncanny knowledge of unarmed combat. But then did that
really matter? I was an ageing widower, and here, in the twilight of my life,
an undreamt-of sensuality was emerging...

It was immediately obvious that my assault had been totally ineffectual,
further evidence that my tormentress had learnt in the Orient bodily feats
which I, in my scepticism, placed on a par with the Indian rope trick. She lay
unfazed, perfectly still beneath my weight, as if she were indeed awaiting
intercourse... except that her expression was far from ecstatic, rather an
ironically admiring smile at my futile attempt to do her harm. "In China," she
said softly, "they used to break big sticks over my belly in exhibitions..."
And my presumptuous effort was about to have dire consequences. She laid her
cool hand on my bare stomach... A tentative caress... But then she clenched
those rubber fingers, digging the tips deep into the soft flesh, squeezing
some vital organ... Nausea and excruciating pain...I retched and fell forward
in a half-faint, chest to breasts, cheek to cheek, in an agonizing, armless
embrace I was unable to enjoy. I felt faint and I felt terror: I had suddenly
realized that this woman's knowledge of human anatomy was uncanny... and
devastating.

I was vaguely aware of being rolled disdainfully away from my captor's body.
My vision was blurred by my agony but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her
do a backward somersault onto her feet. She spoke: all my senses were
perturbed and I could hardly hear her voice, but I caught the drift of the
words: "...brave of you to try... could have ruptured your spleen if I'd
wished... too soon, though... a kind of concentration camp here... severe
punishment..." She was going to hurt me again, I knew, and I cowered within.
Yet despite the dizziness and the pain, I also knew by then that my fear was
tinged with expectation. The pain was not exciting in itself, quite the
contrary, as my limp cock gave ample proof. No, it was the fond memory of the
gesture that had caused it and the fearful anticipation of another to come:
these were the most exciting stimuli I had ever known... as my already
swelling cock confirmed.

I managed to roll over on my back: the thin, pale lips smiled down at me. She
knelt solicitously at my side – a red-cross nurse succouring an accident
victim. Gently, she took my elbow and crooked it, slipped her other hand under
my armpit... probed... I tried to roll away, but her grip on my elbow and her
hand on my shoulder had me effectively pinned to the floor. She pinched some
tendon with those steel fingers and there was pain again but there was also
much worse: suddenly, unexpectedly, I could not breathe! The woman gloated:
"Neat trick, isn't it? I can strangle you and not leave a mark on your
throat!" I gasped and coughed and fought for breath, struggling to escape the
peculiar grip and its inexplicable effects, but it was hopeless. I was indeed
choking to death... It was curtains for me. The last thing I saw was that
superior smile of hers...

Quite unexpectedly again, I returned to life. My heart was beating violently,
my breath coming in gasps, I felt very ill... She was coming back down the
hallway, with a drink in her hand. "Another ten seconds of that and you
wouldn't have come back at all. Ancient Chinese technique, like acupuncture:
squeezing that tendon compresses the lungs. And so now you know where we
stand, don't you, old boy? Your life is in my hands. You wouldn't believe how
many ways I know to kill a man or maim him permanently with my bare hands..."
She flexed her rubber-fingers, and added "Though it's better with gloves on,
of course... So you see, we will go on playing MY game, with one little
difference: now you know you're running for your life..."

With acrobatic elegance – every move the woman made had an aura of expertise –
she dropped into a sort of lotus position on the floor. She seemed in a
garrulous mood: "Ever see an old movie called "The Most Dangerous Game"? It's
where I got the idea..." and she giggled. I stared at her, uncomprehending...
"So cheer up! we might still have sex ... That was probably Count Zaroff's
secret, he meant to fuck his male quarry before he killed him. Or maybe the
wife... or was she the fiancée? Can't remember ... But what is Xenia's
secret?" she asked rhetorically. "Ah, that's the question..." At the same time
as I learned her name, I had my first glimpse of Xenia's broad smattering of
culture, which would repeatedly surprise me.

I still lay on the floor, too weak to rise. She seemed to understand this and
was giving me time to recover. Suddenly, quite out of the blue, she talked
about MY feelings for the first time: "I could tell right away you were one of
THEM by how you watched Maud scolding that kid. She uses light karate to knock
‘em into shape, I guess it turns her on, but she'd never admit to that. She's
not like me... Except I would never even pretend to hurt a little boy... It's
old men I want to hurt," and her eyes grew hard.

But then, more lightly, "Would you like some?" holding out the tumbler of
whisky. I grunted and she knelt down, poured some of the amber liquid into her
cupped hand and held it out me: I struggled to a sitting position and began
lapping up the golden brew, its taste altered by the rubber. "A woman's hand
can kill ... or nurture... What do you make of that, professor?" It was the
first time she'd referred to my former professional activity and I assumed she
was guessing. How could she know? Was it written all over my face? Or was this
some huge practical joke organized by friends? My rational self, sensing
immanent and definitive defeat, clung desperately to the thin hope this
fantasy provided... When I'd licked her glove dry of the liquor, she withdrew
her deadly hand and rose: "Now get moving before I lose patience."

My reflexes had already become Pavlov-quick – which hadn't taken long, I
mused. Struggling to my feet, I staggered away. Behind me, the woman's lethal
count-down began. As I scuttled along the hallway, a nagging question emerged
from the turmoil of my thoughts: what had she meant by "One of THEM?"

A long dark corridor lined with doors... Open them one after the other as
quickly as possible... good at turning the knobs by now... leaving them open
on purpose... imagining it would slow her down to investigate each in
turn....hoping for a window to break, but the glass was armoured with a fine
steel mesh. Yet jumping was out of the question, we were on something like the
sixth floor... and did I really want to shout for help, anyway? This still
might be some friends' idea of a practical joke... the woman might just be
very kinky... not really insane... All this talk about killing people might
simply be her "sadistic" foreplay. Seen in this new light, the game possessed
a powerful erotic aura! I clung to this optimistic hypothesis: I was trapped
in an unusually rough but ultimately innocent sex-game...

Another door, another bedroom. Hurry on, no time... but then something caught
my eye... By the dim light from the hallway, I could tell that this bed was
not empty. Two shadowy figures lay side by side, like recumbent monarchs on a
tomb. I approached, still hoping they were asleep... though they seemed so
awfully still... and I'd been screaming loud enough to wake the.... Don't hang
around here, you've got other priorities... but I had to find out for sure...
Closer... An elderly couple on their backs with their eyes wide open, their
faces frozen with horror. Touching the woman's face was quite superfluous:
they were both dead!

Terror... flight... out of there... now! The survival instinct dismissed the
last ripples of lust as I lurched down the hall and into a large kitchen...
with a back door... conveniently unlocked! Although I knew the flimsy panels
would never have withstood my desperation... And now the service stairs!
Saved!

Saved?

Conveniently unlocked, that door... A genuine oversight? Or a sort of "torture
par l'esperance", cribbed (unknowingly?) by this woman Xenia from the Villiers
de l'île d'Adam shocker? My imagination was running wild...

There was of course a service lift in this up-market building, but I sensed
the stairs would be safer. I began loping down two at a time, a difficult feat
without arms for balance. I had high hopes of meeting help on the way down,
yet on and on I struggled, down to basement level and didn't encounter a soul.
I ran blindly along concrete passages, as dim-lit as Xenia's apartment... But
was that apartment really hers? Come to think of it, probably not. No doubt
stolen from the people she murdered. Rounding yet another corner in the maze,
I saw a human figure at last. A man. In dirty overalls. The janitor? I ran
towards him: "Help me! There's a woman, a crazy woman, she's after me! She
killed an old couple, she's squatting their apartment, help me!" The
bewildered man stared at me, taken aback by my accoutrement. Then indignation
spread across his rough-hewn features. "What the hell you doin' down here
without no clothes on?" he asks rhetorically. For already "the truth" had
dawned on him and he made a face: "What'll you queers be up to next? I
recognize S&M stuff when I see it, and if you got in some trouble with your
pervert pals, well... you'll just have to get out of it all by your lonesome."
The man had his back to the front lift, whose motor had been whirring audibly.
Now the cabin settled to rest at basement level, the doors slid open and I
thrilled at the sight of the familiar silhouette framed in the bright doorway.
The janitor turned away from me in disgust... to face the other member of our
"kinky couple". Xenia strode forward with perfect aplomb. "Something wrong,
Mister Jackson?"

How did she know his name" I wondered, "unless she actually does live here?"
The janitor touched his cap as Xenia approached, seemed unsurprised by the
martial gear she was wearing in his basement: "Not really, Miss... Just this
creepy character here with no clothes on..." I tried to warn him: "It's her,
she's the one, watch out for her, she kills with her hands"! The man turned
back to me and tapped his temple with his forefinger. It turned out to be the
last thing he did in this life...

"Miss" Xenia seized his wrist with a twist, levered his arm above his shoulder
and with the speed and precision of a striking cobra, drove the tips of her
gloved fingers deep into the exposed armpit. An "exotic" blow if ever there
was one, quite sharp, but not very violent and seemingly not very dangerous...
or so I imagined...

Only to be instantly disillusioned: her victim gave a kind of hiccup, pressed
his hands to his chest and collapsed at her feet, moaning faintly. Xenia
surveyed what I immediately sensed were her victim's death-throes... until
they ceased. She stooped and laid two fingers alongside his neck. "Poor
fellow, had a heart attack... fatal, it seems. But at his age, what can you
expect?" she opined sagely, straightening up and turning to me with hard eyes.
"As for you, old man, if you don't want the same, get your ass into that
service lift and be quick about it."

A moment later, as the ancient cage slowly ascended, I heard myself asking in
a hushed voice: "How... how did you... do that? And how did you kill... those
people in the bedroom?" My rational self scoffed at my triviality. What did it
matter HOW she killed them, she did it all right, and now I'd seen her do it!
But the other me couldn't help asking the question... any more than it could
help knowing my curiosity was tinged with lust.

"How?" she said with feigned indifference. "Why, I hit them... I just hit them
and they died..." A more passionate note crept into her voice. "The details,
is that what you want?" She pressed the "stop" button and my heart leapt into
my throat... We were between floors, I was trapped in this cabin, inches away
from the most dangerous person I had ever known. She poked me just under the
heart with stiff fingertips at the same time as she rammed the palm of her
other hand into the region of my liver. "Him, I hit like that", she said.
She'd obviously pulled her punches, but I felt such pain and nausea that I
doubled over and sank to my knees. "And the woman," she continued
imperturbably, pulling me erect by the hair, "I hit like this..." – knocking
out my wind with a two-handed jab beneath the diaphragm – "and this!" –
cuffing my forehead just over my nose with the heel of her gloved hand, hard
enough to send me staggering dizzily against the steel wall of the lift.
"Death was more or less instantaneous, they hardly suffered at all." Her tone
was flat yet I could somehow tell she was secretly relishing the heinous deed
in retrospect.

"Why?" I whispered as she set the cage in motion again. "Aha!" she said with a
hoarse laugh, "that, old boy, is Xenia's business!" I did not insist, of
course, wondering instead what cheap novel had given Xenia this megalomaniac
habit of speaking of herself in the third person.

Every nerve in my body begged not to go back into that apartment where two
dead people lay and which might well prove to be my own tomb. But I knew what
it would cost me to baulk. So there we were, back in that kitchen which only a
few minutes ago I'd seen as my escape-hatch. Leaving the door unlocked had
been an oversight indeed, judging by the expression on Xenia's face as she
double-locked it after us and removed the key. I stared as though hypnotized
at the supple figure in heavy satin, the eccentric boots gliding cat-like over
the tasteful linoleum, the tough rubber gloves hugging those deadly fingers...
The evocation of her killings carried a mixture of repulsion and desire that
paralyzed my mind.

Slipping the key into some invisible pocket, she turned to me with something
like a twinkle of lust in her eyes, grabbed hold of my leather cock-sheath –
which recent events had made quite limp – and began to knead it skilfully
whilst towing me back down the long hallway. In passing, I saw that THE door,
behind which the unspeakable lay, was now firmly shut.

Another bedroom, journey's end... She made straight for the bed, and deeming
my sheath had grown satisfactorily full between her dexterous fingers,
released it and grabbed a handful of my thinning hair. A twist of her torso, a
cock-crushing thrust of her rump, and with a loud huff! she flung me over her
back like a sack of potatoes. I landed on the mattress... but at such an angle
that with no arms to protect my head, I cracked it on the foot of the wooden
bedstead. Through the cobwebs in my brain, I saw from the mischievous gleam in
Xenia's eye that she had deliberately "missed" the middle of the mattress. Her
idea of fun, I reflected. She sprang onto the bed, once more opening the
hidden "flies" of what I had come to think of as her combat trousers,
revealing her slick gaping sex. And then she raped me ... or rather used the
stuffed leather protruding from my lower abdomen as a dildoe. Indeed, so far
as I was concerned, that sheath was stiffer and less comfortable than half a
dozen condoms and the movements of her pelvis were proving far less
satisfactory to me than her subtle hand-job had been. But now she liberally
moistened one rubber finger between her lips... and soon I received the
delightful shock of that same finger circling the rim of my anus. This was the
first I was aware that the leather garment I wore had a convenient cut-out...
The cold rubber digit slid all the way into the orifice: those strange gloves
seemed suddenly to reveal all they had secretly promised. I began heaving my
hips enthusiastically.

However, I mistook the motive behind this anal caress, not in fact the
generous gift it seemed. As I pumped away, I was already aware that the
thickness of the sheath and that annoying pressure under the foreskin were
going to make it difficult for me to come. But of that there was no risk at
all, I soon discovered, for whenever my "partner" felt an orgasm rising in my
loins, she would dig her indiscreet finger-tip into what I suspected was my
prostate gland, causing a pain as exciting as it was inhibiting, invariably
nipping my ejaculation in the bud. The contradictory nature of the ploy,
combined with the awareness at the back of mind that I was being fucked by a
serial killer, created a state of mental and sensual confusion I had never
experienced before. I did my best to abandon myself to it... but this was no
easy task for a man such as myself...

After several frustrated climaxes, I was beginning to suffer the nagging,
thoroughly un-erotic pain, known in my distant boyhood as "the blue balls."
Beyond pleasure now, my thoughts returned to my worrisome predicament. My
tormentress finally brought herself to climax, noisily... But astonishingly
enough, at the very height of her orgasm, when she appeared utterly absorbed
by her own ecstasy, a series of powerful gasps gave way to another of those
‘ha' shouts as she struck me sharply on the crown of my skull with the heel of
her hand. At that moment, I imagined it was simply her way of venting the
violence of her pleasure before she rolled off me to lie quivering on her back
with her eyes closed. The blow had left me slightly dizzy but had certainly
failed to render me unconscious – I naturally assumed the blow had been meant
to pre-empt another surprise attack. But I was puzzled: not only was I still
conscious, but she had immediately closed her eyes without a care, abandoning
herself to post-coital nirvana. It was not until I tried to leave the bed that
I realized the truth: that "harmless" slap on the cranium had left my legs
quite numb, I could scarcely feel them, could not move them at all. With my
wrists fastened to my waist, I lay helpless as a new-born babe. I cursed under
my breath. Because she was not asleep, she heard me and condescended to
satisfy my unspoken curiosity, expounding for the first time upon her deadly
"art".

"You have no idea what I just did to you, of course. That was one of the
‘poison hand' techniques I use on people when it suits my purpose, in Chinese
they are called dim mak" – Xenia's authentic pronunciation made the name as
meaningless to my ears as the dulcet tones of ‘contemporary music' – "which
means death-point striking". Not all the points are fatal, but they all cause
far more damage than a random punch. Struck more forcibly, the blow I just
dealt you is a delayed death-blow at... well, at certain times of day... when
the metabolic cycle makes the brain most vulnerable. Death will occur twelve
to fifteen hours later... Very convenient when I do not wish my opponent to
die or even realize he's dying until I am far way. It's one of the reasons
I've never been caught." She paused to reflect. "With you completely at my
disposal like this, I can CHOOSE the right time to smack you on the head,
can't I, old boy? But not to worry, that ain't what's on the night's agenda,"
she said with vulgar cheeriness. "I hit you just hard enough to deprive you of
the use of your legs... for a few hours. You're not dying... not just yet... I
simply need to get some sleep. This way, I know you won't be misbehaving for a
couple of hours. And if by any chance you are able to walk before I wake, be
warned that even while I sleep, I have a sixth sense which never does. You
won't get far and you won't get near me... I learnt that in China, too..." And
with this, she leapt out of bed and glided noiselessly from the room on her
rubber soles. Not yet, she had said: "not just yet"... As the door closed
behind her, I realized there were tears in my eyes: I had resigned myself to
my tragic and voluptuous fate...

When I awoke, pale sunlight filtered through the curtains and a doorbell was
ringing somewhere. What time was it? I tried to reach for my alarm clock...and
my whole terrifying predicament returned to me: held captive by a dangerously
psychotic female. Other memories returned: two corpses laying in a room not
far away, a harmless janitor writhing on the basement floor with a fatal heart
attack. In the cold light of day the sensuous fantasies of the night seemed
trivial compared with the reality of my plight. I slid out of bed, made my way
to the closed door, stood on tiptoes and tried to turn the knob: locked, of
course. I looked around for some tool to cut my way out of the leather cuffs
but could find nothing. The doorbell rang again and again till finally I heard
Xenia's sleepy voice: "Yes, who's there?" she called. A wild hope sprang in my
breast at the same time as I wondered at this development. Why in the world
would this woman who had presumably murdered the occupants of this apartment
want to answer the doorbell? Why didn't she simply wait for whoever it was to
go away? Or was she contemplating another random kill? Pressing my ear to the
wooden panel, I heard the front door open: "Oh hi, Xenia, when did you get
back? It's been a long time now... three years, maybe... But whatcha doin'
here, I thought you and the folks..." The young man's voice moved quickly from
falsely jovial to downright hostile. As for Xenia's welcoming words, they were
heavy with sarcasm: "Oh, hello Jonathan, how nice to see you... Won't you come
in?" Clearly these two were anything but friends.

The sound of the door swinging shut was followed almost immediately by a
shriek of male pain: ‘You HURT me, you bitch...you some kind o' kook? Leggo o'
my arm," "You never did like me, did you, Jonathan... ever since the cradle,
I'll bet. Well, here's where all that hatred comes home to roost... So come
along nice and gentle, Jonathan, or I'll give you another nerve pinch that'll
hurt even more..." "OK, OK, just don't do that again, sis, please!" the man
whimpered. "Why'd momma ever let you learn all that stuff...?" Xenia's
brother! And who seemed as likely to come to a sticky end as his parents... or
myself. Xenia's only response was a giggle. Their footsteps came past my door,
the man was still whimpering. The door to the next room opened. Then there was
a sound like a short punch and the man let out a pitiful little shriek and
fell to the floor with a thump. "Oh shit... (retching)... how'd you do that,
you witch? You just hit me on the arm..."

"Don't try to get up, Jonathan, you're too dizzy to stand... And besides that,
you're feeling sad, aren't you? Very, very sad..." There was a sadistic tone
of infinite superiority in Xenia's voice as she deigned to tell her victim
what she'd done to him: "There's a pressure point in your biceps... The
Chinese call it the ‘unhappy point'... It's linked with the solar plexus...
Hitting you there with the edge of my hand at just the right angle upsets the
energy balance between mind and body... You're going to feel very dizzy and
very sad for quite a spell now, so why don't you just come over here and
rest... Let me help you up..." And I heard a shuffle of footsteps, then a
squeak of bed-springs. "Now try to get some sleep... Who knows? Maybe you'll
have happy dreams..."

Finally, I heard the door to the next room open and close, then Xenia's barely
audible footsteps on the thick carpeting... till again there was silence,
except for now and then the creak of a floorboard. I dropped to my knees by
the door and put my eye to the keyhole, half-expecting it to be obstructed.
But no, she'd removed the key after locking me in. I had a good view of the
dim-lit lateral hallway and beyond it, Xenia, silhouetted against the relative
brightness of the living room, absorbed in what I knew martial artists call
"forms", shifting hips and legs in sophisticated ways, dropping into a crouch,
leaning back to avoid a blow, springing forth to strike out, fingers curved
like claws or bunched like beaks... I wondered if she suspected I could see
her. Coming after the suggestive "off-screen" version of her mysterious
subjugation of her brother, this visual evidence of her body's deadly
potentialities had made me horny again...

I pondered over the scene I had just heard. Not only could Xenia kill with her
bare hands – I had seen her do that!" – but if I were to trust the evidence of
my ears she could actually interfere with her victim's psyche! A blow on the
arm had made her brother feel sad! Aside from this, and aside from having
realized I was trapped in some crazy family affair, the scene made me
understand something about the fascination this woman held for me: it was the
experience of humiliation that came from the absolute defencelessness of her
victims, a mixture of suffering and sensual delight. For my part, it was a
sensation I could trace way back to kindergarten days when I was in the thrall
of Morgane la Fee and other fairy-tale witches; a feeling that would be
fleetingly translated into physical submission at the hands of school bullies
– including one little girl! But until this moment I had been unaware of the
erotic charge of my own humiliation until I heard Xenia inflicting it on some
other male with such obvious delectation.

And so in the end, I had to stop pretending: I was more excited by her
capacity for violence than repelled by her heinous crimes. Indeed, those
crimes were the ultimate proof of her body's absolute ascendancy over mine –
indeed over that of most males! And was it not this physical ascendancy which
made this woman, otherwise possessed of no great beauty and very little charm,
so immensely attractive nonetheless?

But then of course the sobering thought, the one I strove to suppress,
returned to submerge my erotic mania: in the end she would kill the both of
us... unless she'd already done so! Maybe she'd lied to me about that slap on
my head? Maybe it had been the "right time of day" after all? Or lied to the
boy Jonathan about that blow on his arm? Either might have been one of those
"delayed death blows" she liked to brag about. Who knew when she was telling
the truth? I looked through the keyhole again. Xenia was on the floor, flat on
her back... Meditating? Sleeping?

I experienced another fit of rebellion: I must rouse myself from of this
masochistic torpor, get hold of my thoughts, figure out a way to escape!

Standing in front of the full-length wardrobe mirror, examining the leather
shorts and my imprisoned wrists, I noticed something that had escaped me till
then: the leather "handcuffs" were not locked or even buckled: they were
attached with Velcro! All I had to do was find a way of prizing them open! I
began a tour of the bedroom: table lamps, framed family pictures, vases,
statuettes, various other baubles... The adjoining bathroom? I thought of
breaking the mirror on the medicine chest, but to what end? Wedge a shard of
glass into some suitable crack... but there was none to be found... I returned
to the bedroom and the wardrobe mirror, studying again the leather cuffs: my
gaze wandered, focused on the key that protruded from the wardrobe lock. A
thin, flat key...

Within minutes I had managed to peel back one of the leather straps and free
my arms. It took a good quarter of an hour of improvised callisthenics and
frantic rubbing before my hands were sufficiently operational to carry out the
simple plan I had in mind.

I did another tour of the bedroom, searching for a weapon. There were many to
choose from... I finally picked a heavy brass lamp. With its shade and bulb
removed and the lead coiled and tied around the base, it made a handy club...
And now all I had to do was wait... Another glance through the keyhole – Xenia
still seemed asleep – and I posted myself behind the door.

From time to time I peeped through the keyhole. Still no change. I waited on,
too tense to feel fatigue or the need for sleep. After what seemed like hours
but was probably much less, there came sounds of running water, kitchen
drawers, a refrigerator. Then approaching footsteps, and the faint clatter of
Chinaware on a tray. She was bringing food. For Jonathan... or for me? The
sound of a key in the lock at my side made me start: it was now or never! I
pressed my back to the wall, brandishing the heavy lamp. The door opened wide.
As soon as I glimpsed the back of Xenia's fair head, I brought the lamp down
on top of it. She sensed the blow coming and moved to avoid it. The result was
only a glancing impact and yet she fell to the floor in a heap, next to the
tray and its scattered contents, and lay apparently stunned. But for how long?
I ran from the bedroom, heading for the front door at the end of the hall.
Then I stopped in my tracks, stung by a scruple: what about Jonathan? I had to
get the poor boy out of there as well. He might have recovered by now from
Xenia's "little chop on the arm". I ran to his door and found it open. The
young man lay on his back, looking very melancholic indeed and seemingly
unconcerned with such echoes of violence as knocks on the head or falling
bodies or broken china... I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to his
feet: fortunately he was a slender built youngster, in his late teens I
guessed. He seemed completely out of it and no sooner was he on his feet than
he had a dizzy spell and wanted to sit down. "There isn't time, come on, you
can lean on me."

We were halfway to the front door when I saw that Xenia hadn't budged from
where I'd left her, and I had another fit of compunction, even stupider than
the first. Depositing poor Jonathan in an armchair, I hurried back to where my
tormentress lay. She didn't seem to be breathing! I bent down and felt for the
artery in her neck, the way they do it on TV: this was to be my undoing.

Her eyes popped open as she seized my wrist in her iron grip and took the tip
of my little finger between thumb and knuckle, on either side of the nail ...
a dainty enough hold, it seemed, how could it be threatening... but it was the
only grip she needed to subjugate me once again... for when she squeezed, the
pain that shot up my arm was so intense and so sudden that I fainted again,
having had barely time to think "Another of her knockout tricks!"

I awoke on my back in the living room, knowing instantly that I was stark
naked and wondering why she'd seen fit to remove my "lederhosen"... my last
protection... "Well, that was quite a little jolt I gave your cortex, wasn't
it. You've been out for over an hour. On your feet, if you know what's good
for you. I ought to have killed you for that, but I expect I can still get
some fun out of you. And some work. The first thing you're going to do is get
brother Jonathan back to bed... After all, you brought him out here... How far
do you think you'd have gotten with him in the state I put him in? Seems
mama's little Jonathan has a fragile "chi", he may never recover from that
blow, may well be bedridden for life... Unless I put him out of his mis..."
Her voice trailed off uncharacteristically.

I just lay there, nursing my aching digit, trying to shake the cobwebs out of
my brain. "Stop sucking your pinkie, you big baby." She was in command of her
emotions again and her voice snapped like a whip! Immediately, I withdrew my
finger from my mouth. "Learn to master your pain with your mind; it will come
in handy as long as I keep you with me... Hop to it now."

I managed to half-support, half-carry "poor Jonathan" to his bed. "Doesn't he
look sad? He feels so sad and the worst of it is he can't cry! His tear-ducts
just won't open." She turned to me and there was a disquieting glint in her
eye as she took a step in my direction. "He feels sad and can't cry because of
where and how I hit him." She had been coming closer and closer and said these
last words to me six inches from my face. I could smell her breath, a faint
perfume... "Kiss me if you dare," she whispered. But I didn't dare and she
took my wrist and I trembled... but it was merely to lead me out of the
bedroom and down the hall. Our destination was a bathroom, considerably larger
than the one I knew. "This is where you must pay your next forfeit..." she
announced with relish. "And this one's a humdinger! Do you remember Hercules
at the feet of Queen what's-her-face and how he had to clean out those
stables?..." I nodded, completely at a loss. We were standing in the middle of
that spotless bathroom now; for a moment, nothing happened. Then, without
warning, it came: she grabbed my wrist with a cunning twist and chopped the
edge of her hand into a spot on my forearm just below the elbow, struck once,
twice, on the same spot in the twinkling of an eye, angling the blows upwards
and then downwards, like a lumberjack chopping a wedge-cut.

I was immediately overcome with nausea and dizziness, sank to my knees and
vomited on the immaculate floor at the same time as my bowels opened up to
disastrous effect. I keeled over on my side and must have passed out. When I
came to, I lay in a revolting mess of puke and shit, and my head and stomach
felt like the grand-daddy of all hangovers. "When you're compos mentis again,
you'll clean up your mess... and if I find a speck of crap on one of these
beautiful white towels, I'll break both your arms!"

Instead of leaving the room, however, she sat on the toilet seat and her tone
suddenly became confidential. "But I'll tell you what: while your nervous
system is getting over that little trauma, I'm going to tell you my story, the
story of my life... It won't take long and I'm sure you're just dying to hear
it... so to speak."

In fact it took a good half hour... and took my mind away from my predicament
and my suffering body, for which I couldn't help being grateful to the crazy
woman.

The long and the short of it was she'd been the victim of an incestuous father
and a complicit mother from the age of four. But while the classical incest
victim becomes a child-abuser in his or her own right when they grow up (Xenia
was very knowledgeable on the subject and claimed she had reason to believe
her father had indeed himself been a victim of child-abuse), she had grown up
to become an abuser of old men... who actually aroused her sexually! Beating
them, raping them, killing them... In short, giving her father back his own
medicine! She was twelve and a half when first she heard about certain deadly
martial arts based on acupuncture points and Chinese anatomical science.
Immediately she became obsessed with the idea of learning them and taking her
revenge.... Throughout her teens, she studied the usual things – Tae-kwondo,
Aikido – as a physical and mental preparation for the initiation she sought.
When her father discovered that his ban on self-defence lessons had been
secretly disobeyed (with the mother's belated complicity), and that his
fourteen-year old daughter had something called a blue belt and no difficulty
in hurling the horny patriarch over her shoulder and pinning his twelve-stone
to the floor with a bizarre strangle-hold he couldn't even begin to
understand, let alone escape from – only then did he stop visiting her bedroom
at night.

But this lesson had in no way satisfied Xenia's thirst for vengeance. When she
found that she was unable to have "normal sex" with boys her age, her hatred
had hardened into what she herself described as border-line psychosis: she was
determined to learn how to kill people without a trace. As soon as she was
able to leave home – thanks to an unexpected legacy from a distant aunt –, she
went East. And in China, Japan and Australia, found what she wanted under the
tutelage of unscrupulous masters prepared, for a handsome price, to reveal to
this strange young woman from the West, the most deadly techniques.

"I killed my first man when I was nineteen, a little purse-snatcher in a
side-street in Kowloon, hit his "mu" point" and she touched her sternum with
the heel of her hand. "A few lines in the morning paper spoke of ‘a cardiac
arrest due to unknown causes'. I guess you could say I'm a thrill-killer... I
must have killed a couple of dozen men in all, I've lost count. Mostly old men
like you." Her tone became less objective, more passionate, as she rose and
stood before my bleary eyes with her athletic body in its combat gear on
ostentatious display. "I soon discovered that was my biggest thrill: getting
hold of old men, mistreating them, humiliating them. In the end, they all died
a horrible death, of course, but not so long as they could pleasure me. One of
them lasted a whole year: he was such a dear... but I got bored... It's so
easy to catch old men, isn't it now?" Xenia laughed and prepared to leave the
room. "When everything's spick and span, just call out, I'll come for my
‘inspection'..." and she placed a threatening emphasis on the word. She was
already out the door when a further thought occurred to her: "Oh, and of
course I'm sure you realize by now, those are mum and dad in their bedroom
down the hall. I mean to kill the whole family, including Jonathan: bad genes
don't you know?" And she laughed again as she shut the door and double-locked
it behind her.

I will leave to the reader's imagination the sordid details of how I managed
to clean up that mess on the bathroom floor and flush it all down the toilet,
using only my hands and feet. Before calling out to my jailer, I decided to
have a shower. I wanted to be clean, but I also wanted to think. What was I to
do? More accurately, what could I possibly hope to do? What else except do HER
bidding and expect the worst... and squeeze each moment for any sensual
gratification it might contain. I towelled down, hesitated to use the towel as
a loin-cloth (as if my aging loins had never encountered Xenia's condescending
gaze), hung the white terry-cloth on its gleaming rack and called out that I
was ready.

Xenia burst through the door immediately, as if she'd been waiting behind it
for my call and dropped into a martial crouch, deadly hands poised to strike.
When she saw me standing meekly in the middle of the floor, she smiled almost
apologetically, gave the room a cursory once-over, seemed satisfied and turned
to leave again. I knew I was meant to follow her... We walked down that long
hallway one behind the other and my rational self felt the urge to jump her
from behind, overpower her, escape, escape, escape... Which indeed she seemed
to be inviting me to do! And my true self, my lustful self, was pushing in the
same direction! It wanted to know what kind of havoc her terrible science
would wreak on my defenceless person... all the more defenceless, as I was
still stark naked. In point of fact, I managed to restrain myself... but to no
avail... Almost as if she'd read my mind, Xenia stopped in her tracks, so
abruptly I could not help colliding with her ("attacking her") from behind.
"That's right," she said, pressing her buttocks against my lower abdomen, "and
now put your arms around me...and hold on tight..." I obeyed mindlessly,
trapped between dread and arousal... She laid her arms over mine with an
almost affectionate pressure, then her foot snaked behind my ankle: I fell
backwards and she fell with me, twisting to face me as we hit the carpet,
weaving her hands around my captive arm, locking my hand against my wrist,
pinning me helplessly to the floor with a complex two-handed hold that made me
scream. The pressure was subtly increasing: I was sure something was about to
break. "See what would happen if you tried anything? So just because your
hands are free now, don't get any ideas... As far as you're concerned, I'm
Supergirl... There's nothing you can do to hurt me!"

Then she laughed her most sadistic laugh, did a backward summersault that took
her to her feet and went on her way down the hallway, knowing I would follow
her. Which indeed I did. When she stopped and opened a bedroom door my heart
sank for I knew instinctively which room it was. "Helping me get rid of the
rubbish, old boy, will lengthen your life." She was inside the room, she was
turning on the lights, she had her back to me now... and she was promising to
kill me. Every nerve in my body cried out "Kill her first! Now, while she's
not looking, you're bigger and heavier than she is!" And yet of course I
remained frozen to the spot, for I knew she told the truth when she said I
could not hurt her. And I knew how badly she could hurt me.

She took my clothes from a closet and threw them at me, slipped into the
cloak-like coat she had worn for the cab-ride, while I dressed hastily.

She had it all worked out, it appeared. A roomy hanging wardrobe, emptied of
its woollens, easily accommodated both corpses: Xenia's ageing parents had
grown frail and light. And we all fitted nicely into the service lift.

In the basement garage stood an enormous pick-up for which Xenia had the keys.
We hoisted the makeshift body-bag into the back and I was just tucking down
the tarp that would conceal it when I felt a sudden pressure on both sides of
my neck. And before she'd finished saying "Give the old folks some company on
their last..." I fainted dead away.

Then almost at once it seemed she was slapping my face: "Snap out of it,
there's more work to be done..." And indeed there was. We were in the country
and had to carry the wardrobe-bag down a steep embankment to a river... along
with a big, heavy jerry can that swished as we walked. The fire took with a
loud whoosh and Xenia had to drag me away from the fascination of the flames.
"That's how they do it in India," she muttered.

On the way back, I was allowed to sit beside her. Apparently she felt I was
sufficiently cowed to be spared another "anaesthetic." I didn't dare speak and
for a while neither did she.

Until suddenly she broke the silence with an astonishing proposition: "Let's
not go back there," she said, and there was something in her voice I hadn't
heard before, the petulant wilfulness of a stubborn child. "Let's not go back
to their apartment; I hate the place don't you?"... I did not know what to
make of her new tone... It was almost as if I were another child and we were
about to do something bold and naughty. She didn't wait for an answer to her
rhetorical question, but swung the vehicle right around and headed for the
nearest motorway entrance.

"Wh... where are we going?"

"Who knows?" came the breezy answer, "we're just going!"

PART 2

The Road

The hours went by and Xenia, after that solemn announcement of new plans, was
strangely silent, concentrating on her driving and with exaggeratedly
conscientious respect for the Highway Code. I was torn by contradictory
thoughts: surely this new turn of events would provide an opportunity for
escape... and might save my life. But was this what I wanted? Here I was in a
true-life road movie, playing alongside the most astonishing woman I'd met in
a lifetime... The dilemma remained unresolved as I drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, it was daylight and we were driving through another town I
failed to recognize. Xenia pulled over to the kerb and announced in flat
tones: "Need some cash..." She got out of the truck and without bothering to
close the door behind her walked towards an ATM where a man in an expensive
suit had just put in his card; she hesitated a few feet away, presumably while
he typed his pin number, then immediately strode forward and put a familiar
arm around his shoulders... From where I sat I could see his body stiffen as
her fingers clamped down on his clavicle. The noise of the morning traffic
covered whatever cry he uttered (if any, I thought: she could well be
strangling him in some way) and I could easily guess what Xenia whispered into
his ear: now it was she who pursued the transaction, while his arms hung
limply at his sides, paralyzed I assumed, knowing what Xenia could do with the
most innocent-looking grasp. She took her victim's card and his money, slipped
them inside her coat and headed back to the truck, still controlling the man
with her deceptive grip: he clearly had no choice but to accompany his mugger.
When she reached the truck door, there was a sudden movement of her free arm
which I couldn't see and she accompanied the man's inert body in its fall.
Idly, I wondered if she had killed him. A couple of dozen hours with Xenia and
murder had become a commonplace.

As she revved up the powerful engine, I wondered why it was I hadn't tried to
escape just then, while she was busy procuring "us" funds. Belatedly, I
pressed the handle on the door beside me: it was unlocked. I could have run...
I might have made it. There were already people in the streets... So how did
she know I wouldn't run? How did she know I would be so fascinated by her way
of responding to a need for cash that I wouldn't think of running away?

Again she drove in silence, she drove fast, she was in a hurry to get out of
town. Then she began muttering, half to herself: "I should have killed him!
Why didn't I? I'm getting soft like you, old man... By the way, what's your
name?" I told her. "Leopold? that's a pretty old-fashioned name... But then
you're a pretty old-fashioned guy," she added, and I thought I could detect a
note of affection.

What got into me then? My youthful reflexes returning? Or a still unavowed
yearning for her sting? Whatever the case, I felt touched by what I took for a
show of humanity and unthinkingly lay a "comradely" hand on her muscular
thigh. Before I knew it, a rubber fist was grinding one sharp knuckle into a
horribly sensitive spot on the back of my hand ... I screamed... She never
took her eyes off the road but a faint smile played about her lips as she held
my captive hand pinned to her thigh. I pleaded, I begged, I thought I would
faint from the pain... But I dared not even try to strike her fist away for
fear of further riposte... Besides which, we were doing over 140km/h! Finally,
a road hazard required two hands on the wheel and she released me. I was free
to shrink back against the door, as far from Xenia as possible, rubbing my
savaged hand and whimpering pathetically...

"There you go getting ideas, old man... Just because I'm talking to you like a
human being, don't you forget I'm going to kill you with these hands in the
end and with no compunction whatsoever. So think of that little pressure point
demonstration as a... what was that word in art history? "Mi... Ma...mento
moro"? Something like that... Well, that was just a little mimento moro for
you..."

She'd been to university; I'd already noticed evidence of this. But did she
get an education there? My class reflexes made me wonder. I had a vision of a
female "jock" attending classes now and then with half an ear, scraping
through exams with intriguing eccentricities that earned her the benefit of a
doubt... all the while nurturing her obsession with revenge and acquiring the
skills to wreak it.

Xenia stopped the truck in front of a downtown shopping centre, hopped out of
the cab and locked it with the remote key fob, pointing it at me like the bad
fairy's wand. I realized now, testing the door again, that the truck had to be
equipped with a remote-control child-lock system. On the other hand, there
were many passers-by on the street at that hour... and yet I made no attempt
to draw their attention, wave my arms, hammer on the glass with my shoe... I
tried to convince myself I was afraid of trouble with the law for
non-denunciation of a serial killer. But deep down I knew it was neither this
illusory fear nor an old man's lust for young flesh that kept me in the thrall
of a murderess, it was just plain curiosity: I wanted to know what came next!
This was too good a movie to just walk out on!

Nearly an hour had gone by when a garish-looking woman came out of the mart. I
paid no attention to her until she headed for the truck, and still I failed to
recognize Xenia till she was quite close. For indeed, she had changed her
appearance completely: red leather hot-pants, matching stiletto boots with
pointed toes, net stockings and a curious wrap-around jacket of black leather,
a stylish rendition of a judo coat with a soft red leather belt – a subtle
reminder, perhaps, that this was no defenceless tart... She'd even bought a
brunette wig! I could hear her whistling a little tune as she swung a couple
of shopping bags into the back of the truck and sprang onto the driver's seat
with new energy. She was in a good mood. Turning the key in the ignition, she
announced joyfully: "I'm going to have some fun for a change! And you, old
man... are going to watch me having fun! I've always wanted an audience!" I
had no idea what she was talking about, but I sensed it boded no good for
somebody...

We were still in the downtown shopping area of this largish provincial town.
Xenia pulled over to the kerb behind a bus-stop bay, looked at her watch and
said to no one in particular, "Another half-hour... just to be on the safe
side." She closed her eyes and soon appeared to be asleep.

I, of course, began thinking of escape again... or rather more accurately:
thinking I ought to be thinking of escape... My reasoning self had been fast
losing ground to lust since Xenia's change of style. Cautiously, I tested the
door again... and was not a little relieved to find it locked.

Buses came and went, people got on and off...

After some thirty minutes had elapsed, Xenia hopped out of the cab again,
locked it behind her and then, walking around the back of the truck,
reappeared: one pedestrian among many, strolling up to the bus-stop and
joining the waiting troop. She did not exactly fit in. Standing by the kerb in
that get-up, she looked less like a working girl bound for the office than a
hooker on the make. The effect was quite deliberate, of course, as I was later
to understand. And it was deadly.

Indeed, it wasn't long before a middle-aged man appeared at her side, smiled,
and said a few words which I couldn't hear from inside the closed cab. But
when he laid a proprietary hand on Xenia's thigh, her outraged shriek came
through loud and clear: "You get your hands off me, you dirty lecher!" But of
course his hand was already "off her" because she'd caught his thumb and his
wrist in some kind of jiu-jitsu hold and was twisting the arm in a way that
made him bend over from the waist as if for a spanking. And of course people
gathered to watch, men sniggering, women applauding...

Xenia took to clowning for the benefit of her audience – the demonstration
became a kind of Punch and Judy show. "Now what should I do to him, this big
bad man who goes around the streets groping women!" "He needs a good
spanking!" one of the women called out. "A spanking... That might be an
idea..." and she pretended to turn it over in her mind. "But no... no... I
think I've got a better one!" She was projecting her voice now for all to
hear, in vulgar tones that were not her own. "I'm just gonna... GOOSE the
bastard!" fairly shouting the word, and the crowd tittered and guffawed.
Turning her attention to her captive, she kicked his ankles further apart like
a policewoman on TV, formed the fingers of her free hand into a cone and
jabbed him sharply in the crotch... but neither in his ass or his balls, it
seemed to me: somewhere in between.... She let him go then and he fell to his
knees, grasping at his lower abdomen, cursing under his breath from what I
could see. By now the entire audience of about twenty people were laughing and
applauding. Xenia actually took a bow, then spun around and hopped into the
bus that had just drawn up, not without a reassuring little wave of the hand
in my direction. And I did feel reassured: bizarrely enough, the thought of
being abandoned by my future executioner actually filled me with panic!

I looked back at the "masher" whom Xenia had punished with what had seemed
little more than a somewhat Rabelaisian humiliation. He was on his feet now,
visibly complaining of a pain in the genital region, but determined in a manly
way to assure concerned bystanders he was all right. He flagged a taxi... and
that was the last I saw of him.

Xenia returned half an hour later on foot, with some Chinese takeaway and a
six-pack of Tsing-Tao. When she spoke, her tone was artificially light, I
sensed an hysterical edge to her high spirits. "Well," she said, handing me my
chopsticks, "I did it! And you saw me do it!" I was perplexed. "I saw you
twist that guy's arm and goose him... what's so special?" "You old fool, I
killed him! I told you about that! What's the matter with you?" She seemed
extraordinarily hurt that I had not understood what I was seeing... "I hit him
just between his anus and his testicles... there's a pressure point there...
plays hell with the chi if you know how to hit it. When it's the right time of
day (which it was, I made sure), the guy dies about twelve hours later. That
bastard's already dying now someplace out there, only he doesn't know it,
nobody knows it but me... and now you, old man, because I let you watch!" Her
tone rose again. "I let you watch, and don't you forget it!" Then, quite
matter-of-factly: "Actually, the process can be reversed, there's a special
massage... I know how, but I've never done it, that's not what interests me...
it usually works, they say... Anyhow, Western doctors don't know shit about
that stuff..." All of this was said in an objective, faintly bored tone of
voice. There was a pause and then her eyes lit up as she returned to the
essential: "You can't imagine what a thrill it is: killing some pitiful groper
in front of twenty people and nobody the wiser, and especially not the guy you
kill! Just thinking about it makes me horny as hell, you're going to have to
do something about that pretty soon... Have another beer," she concluded,
taking one herself.

After lunch she drove us out of town till she found a motel that suited the
new Xenia, a surprisingly run-down place for the area, I thought, one wondered
how it could stay in business. In the car-park, she turned off the engine but
made no move to get out of the car. Nor did she look at me when she spoke:
"Dad's dead now," she said in a flat, even voice, "but I've still got this
hang-up for old guys like you. I was feeling sexy the other day and I thought
I'd work it off at the dojo but then you had to show up. Normally, you'd be
dead by now, but I'm having fun with you, so... Only remember this: I have a
low threshold of boredom. And when I get bored with someone, I start to think
about hitting him... in those bad places I know." Turning her face to mine and
locking gazes: "You follow me?" Somewhere deep in my throat I managed a feeble
"yes": reality had intruded itself again and I was suddenly afraid. I had
decided that in her very madness, this woman was incapable of ruse, and I had
come to take everything she said at face value: I was sure she truly meant to
do to me what the preying mantis does to her mate... Yet I also knew that any
attempt to escape would probably precipitate my end and so I just tried not to
think about that and concentrate on the gratification in the offing.

At the motel, I was the one who checked us in – it was the first time she'd
let me take a "virile" initiative – and we were making our way through the
maze of corridors towards our assigned room when an untoward incident
occurred. Coming in the opposite direction, a very bulky man squeezed past us
with some difficulty, after which, in something like a stage whisper, he made
an unpleasant remark about dirty old men and their whores. To my enlightened
sensibility, this prejudiced nincompoop was merely making a fool of himself.
Xenia, on the other hand, like a few men I have known, welcomed any pretext
for violence. She spun round on her high heels, overtook the man in two
strides and gripped him by the elbow with one hand: as could be expected,
there was nothing friendly about her grasp and the big man howled with pain.
"If you ever want to use this arm again, you'd better apologize to my friend
here, he does not like being called a dirty old man." The cowed brute was
begging Xenia to please let go of his elbow – where her science of
pressure-points was audibly wreaking havoc – and now he choked out a couple of
"I'm sorry"s nd "I apologize" s. Xenia released him then, at the same time
giving him a smart kick on the back of his ankle with the tip of one red boot.
He screeched and stumbled to his knees, rose again and limped off down the
hallway, glancing back over his shoulder in awed horror at the "chit of a
girl" who'd so easily humiliated him.

"Aren't you afraid he'll complain to the management?" I couldn't refrain from
asking.

Xenia guffawed: "Don't be silly, Leopold: a girl has a right to defend herself
against male harassment. As a matter of fact, I've already beaten two
manslaughter raps with that line."

"But... you didn't kill this guy, did you? That last kick ..."

"Just bruised his Achilles' tendon, when it cools off he won't be able to walk
for a few weeks, but he'll live... I know when to control myself!" This last
was said with a note of sincerity that further confused me as to the actual
mental state of my captor. Just how insane was Xenia?

I shall gloss over the details of the next four hours, when arousal and
frustration, pleasure and pain jangled together in and around the large double
bed that occupied most of the room... Xenia had pulled on her rubber gloves
and deployed her usual science to prevent me from climaxing, forcing me to
perform cunnilingus until she was sated, a goal that seemed to take hours to
achieve... In the end, she appeared to have no objection to my relieving
myself in the loo, which I did, rather unsatisfactorily. It had, however,
become obvious that Xenia's aversion to male ejaculation was not something it
would be wise to put to the test...

When I returned, Xenia lay on her back with her eyes closed, her breathing
slow and even. I couldn't help tip-toeing to the door. The old-style lock
still had the key in it. I put my fingers on the key and heard: "Tsk tsk,
Leopold" behind my back and it was my turn to taste the frightful suffering
she could inflict with only a moderately forceful kick from the toe of one of
those pointed boots. She caught me somewhere in the small of the back, and it
was no random blow, for the pain that shot through my groin, down my legs and
up my spine left me writhing on the floor: I would be quite out of commission
for several hours. "That pressure point lies on the bladder meridian... Very
debilitating... If I'd kicked you any harder there, you'd probably be
paralyzed for life." She picked up her hand-bag and left the room on some
unknown errand, confident I would not be going anywhere for a while...

Such was life with Xenia...

It was the following day that the shit hit the fan. I had gone to sleep on the
floor and was awakened only when Xenia kicked me in the ribs. I looked up at
her standing over me with a newspaper in her hand.

"Recognize this?" she asked, showing me the front page of the local rag. "How
come they knew it was you?"

And indeed, there it was: "DISAPPEARANCE OF EMMINENT EMERITUS – Seen by
witnesses of ATM assault". And there was a big photo of me. A blow-up from a
TV panel I'd been on a few months before. As I explained to Xenia. "Shit, I'd
better get rid of you as quick as I can." Spoken as if I weren't there – or
were already dead – this cold-blooded statement was that of a person
completely different from the one with whom a certain amount of companionship
had seemed to be developing. And from her tone I knew that "get rid of" didn't
mean "set free."

We drove out of town immediately, with no time for breakfast or a shower.
Xenia had ditched her tarty outfit in an incinerator and was wearing a
tailored black leather trouser suit and stable-boots with sensible heels. She
even had the black driving gloves to match. Xenia had changed disguises: this
butch female bore absolutely no resemblance to the tart who had mugged one man
at an ATM, humiliated (and in fact murdered) another at a bus-stop in the town
of A... And with her new clothes, the hardness of tone, redolent of the
terrifying reality of her awesome powers, had also returned.

We drove for many kilometres without incident. Xenia never once opened her
mouth or even looked at me: it was as if she were alone at the wheel of her
pickup. At length, she pulled into an emergency stopping bay and spoke her
first words: "Petrol's running low". Then, sidling towards me on the double
seat: "And I'm taking no chances with you, professor." These were the last
words I heard for a while because Xenia, with that extraordinary velocity that
characterized her assaults, brought the heel of her boot down on my instep in
such a strategic point that a shock of pain coursed through my body and I
immediately lost consciousness... again.

When I came to, I was sitting in the same position and we were again speeding
down the highway. The only difference was that my wrists were tied to my
thighs and I was tied to the seat with thin cords woven in sophisticated knots
that I took to be oriental. I hazarded a reproachful "You don't trust me any
more." which at first was answered only by a contemptuous "humph!" Then, after
a pause, "Did the executioner trust his patient?" I had no reply to that. If
I'd been a Catholic, I guess I would have crossed myself... if my hands had
been free.

The kilometres rolled by uneventfully. Night was falling.

And then suddenly the dramatic potential of our story erupted in the form of a
uniformed motorcycle cop drawing alongside and signalling us to pullover. He
parked his bike behind us, and while he was removing his helmet and coming
forward, Xenia threw a plaid over my lower body and hissed: "One word, Leopold
and the two of you are dead men!" The cop leaned against the cab-door and
politely asked Xenia for her driver's licence... which she promptly handed out
to him along with the registration book. All would have been well – the poor
fellow only wanted to admonish the motorist because of a broken tail-light –
had his gaze not alighted on my face and a gleam of recognition shone in his
eyes. Xenia had been watching for any such sign; instantly, she snagged his
lower lip between thumb and forefinger, jerked his head inside the car,
exhaled with a little shout and drove the cone of her finger-tips, from back
to front, into the hollow under his ear. The man uttered a sort of hiccup and
collapsed. Xenia held on to him long enough to ascertain that he was dead,
then pushed away the corpse, stepped on the gas and speeded on her way. We
left the highway at the first exit that presented itself following the
policemen's demise.

"Well, old man, we can chalk that one up to your celebrity, can't we?" I could
appreciate the irony but Xenia's indifference to the life of others was
raising something of a moral obstacle to my desire... Though I was sure Xenia
was very sick, most of the time she appeared perfectly sane, in "full
possession of her faculties" as the court psychiatrist might say. Psychopathic
killers always go completely off their rocker by the end of the movie. Nothing
of the sort had occurred with Xenia. I wondered when – and if – it would...

Ultimately she found a fire-road and drove deep into a forest. It was there we
spent the night – me in the front seat, still in bondage. Checking it over
before turning in, Xenia broke her silence long enough to explain she'd
studied the art of knots in Japan, where a thin cord is as good as a chain: I
could never get out of her bondage.

Stupidly unwilling to take her on faith, I spent a good half hour trying to
get free after Xenia had bedded down in the back of the truck with a blanket.
All I succeeded in doing was making them tighter: I had the feeling that might
be deliberate. They were certainly as inescapable as she claimed.

I was a long time to going to sleep, tormented by the pain in my wrists and by
thoughts the reader can easily imagine but I was exhausted and ultimately fell
into a restless sleep. I was awakened by Xenia massing my wrists. The cords
were gone. "You tried to get out of them didn't you? These knots only get
tighter...Can you feel anything in your hands?" I had to confess I could
not... but with Xenia's knowledgeable ministrations, feeling soon returned.
Xenia's attitude was strangely objective and distant, like a hospital nurse.

We set off after a breakfast of cookies and soda pop which had spent a long
time in the glove compartment. I finally dared to ask her where we were going.
Her only answer was: "Far, far away... Someplace nobody goes..."

3. THE HOUSE

After untold hours on the road, "someplace" turned out to be pretty much in
the middle of nowhere – a big frame-house in the midst of large unkempt
grounds bordered by a broken fence. The comparison that popped into mind was
the "Addams family" mansion, for this was its real-life correlative: once
grandiose, now a shambles, its alarming structural condition could be deduced
from the rickety front-steps and missing veranda floorboards.

It would, however, be inexact to say that the people who lived there resembled
the characters imagined by Chas. Addams. From the little I saw of them, they
were far more evil.

Yet the chief difference between the cartoon ghouls with their cool black
humour and the inhabitants of this house was a matter of gender: this family
was composed solely of sour men: four of them, two in their sixties, two a
generation or so younger... and there was nothing funny about any them.

We arrived around dusk... I was out of bondage again and had even been given
five minutes in a deserted motor-rest to stretch my aching limbs. Xenia's
manner had subtly softened, though of course she kept physically close to
me... a fact which had again become as exciting as it was threatening.

Her rubber gloves came out of the dash-board compartment and replaced the
driving pair.. After pulling them on, she opened her door and unlocked mine:
"Come along and meet the rest of my family." It was not an invitation, it was
an order. What was this all about, I wondered?

There was no sign of life from the house as we passed a wooden gate dangling
on one hinge and crossed the patchy lawn. The new leather suit my companion
wore crackled in a way I found exciting: I had always felt a nagging
attraction for women wearing leather... We climbed the rickety steps and for
the first time I noticed the curious leather footwear that Xenia wore with her
suit: a soft pair of dancers' laced booties I had not seen on her before. She
let fall a large brass knocker. The door promptly opened and there were two
men waiting for us, glowering at us, one who looked to be in his seventies,
the other several decades younger. The latter held a heavy gauge shotgun
pointed straight at Xenia.

"We saw ya comin', cousin, watcha want with us this time?"

Xenia was silent for a moment, then drawled: "You know where I'm coming from?"

"Who the hell cares?" the older man answered.

"Oh, you'll care all right..." Then, in a strange non sequitur: "Meet my
friend, Leopold. He was there too, and he saw it all..."

"Saw what? Whatcha talkin' about Xenia?" said the younger man.

Xenia laid her hand on my shoulder as if to say "Don't be afraid" but her
purpose was less passive. What occurred next was faster than I could follow:
the shotgun went off harmlessly, Xenia having dived to the floor after shoving
me out of the line of fire. Her forward somersault drove the balls of her
leather-shod feet into the evil cousin's lower abdomen. He dropped his weapon
with a loud grunt and doubled up. Claw-like, Xenia's open hand struck him high
on the throat, just under his jaw. He let out a strange squawk and dropped to
the floor, moaning pitifully. The other man was unarmed and was not about to
confront a woman could do what Xenia had just done: he took to his heels
without further ado and disappeared down a dark corridor. I heard a door slam,
a key in a lock... Xenia paid him no attention, concentrating on her victim
who lay on his back and was evidently not quite dead. Crouching beside the
moaning, twitching body, she touched a spot above his nose with her elbow,
raised her arm high and drove the bony tip downward like a pile-driver. There
was a hollow thud and the moaning ceased abruptly. As she grabbed me by the
arm to pull me down the front steps she was muttering to herself: "Now why did
I do that? Should have let him suffer... The others won't get off so easy..."

I was so shocked by events that I obeyed her without thinking, I was in a kind
of trance. She opened a large inclined trap door and pushed me down what
smelled like a wood-chute. We were in a dark cellar now and Xenia produced a
small flashlight: she seemed to know exactly what she was looking for. I heard
a discreet clang of metal and a smell of petrol, a sound of pouring liquid as
she moved back and forth in the penumbra... She emptied thus two more jerry
cans and then, still without a word, grabbed my wrist and dragged me to
another door which opened out directly into an extraordinarily cluttered
backyard. Xenia was still carrying the third jerry can and I realised she was
leaving a trail of petrol. When we were several yards from the open door she
cracked a match, dropped it on the ground and we ran for the skimpy row of
bushes lining the wooden fence, sufficiently far from one side of the house
that Xenia might have a view of both front and back porches. Soon there was a
"whoosh" as the petrol caught: flames could be seen through the open trap
door, fanned no doubt by the cross-draft from the other door she had
deliberately left open.

We waited... still Xenia said not a word; she sat in a lotus position, as if
meditating. Soon the black leather jacket began to glitter, reflecting the
flames that appeared in the windows on the ground floor. At length the front
door opened and two of the house's remaining occupants appeared cautiously on
the front porch. One of them was carrying what I assumed to be the shotgun
wielded a few moments before by his dead kin...

Xenia made no move but I could feel the tension that seemed to emanate from
her motionless body in waves... I was watching the men standing on the porch,
peering into the shadows around the house when my eye was drawn by a movement
at the back of the house. A third man had appeared holding some kind of a club
with both hands. I turned to look at Xenia but she had slipped noiselessly
away: there was no sign of her anywhere.

Cautiously the two men came down the front steps: difficult to tell whether
they were looking to engage battle with Xenia... or simply to make an
ignominious escape. Mord likely the latter, I thought: the fate of their
cohort had probably thrown the "fear of god" into them. The man who had come
out the back door was nowhere in sight now. The two men in front were indeed
moving towards the garage, located near where I lay hidden in the bushes, and
which presumably housed some vehicle. A full moon had emerged from behind the
clouds and suddenly, on top of the garage, I saw a moving shadow: Xenia had
anticipated her enemies' manoeuvre. The men advanced toward the wooden
structure, clearly with only one hope in mind: escape. A hope that was to
prove perfectly vain.

They neither heard nor saw Xenia dive acrobatically over their heads and land
silently on the ground close behind them. Now, in the stillness of the night,
I distinctly heard her throaty voice: "Good evening cousins... It's been a
long time." The man with the shotgun spun and fired blindly, but Xenia was in
a low crouch and both barrels of buck-shot sprayed the garden. After that, it
was all over. The burning house had attained the proportions of a large
funeral pyre and what happened now before my eyes was quite brightly lit. With
lightening speed, Xenia sprung at the gun-wielding cousin and struck him
simultaneously with both hands, one of those axe-like strikes with the edge of
her hand to the corner of his eye-bone and a sharp jab to the pit of his
throat with her stiffened finger-tips: he gurgled as he fell and lay retching
on the thin grass. The second man got off a powerful roundhouse kick which
Xenia easily blocked with both hands, then chopped strangely into the crease
of his bent knee at the same time as she drove her elbow downward into what
seemed to be the man's pubic bone rather than his genitals: he too screamed
and fell, clutching at his thigh and lower abdomen. Xenia waited in a martial
crouch, black leather shimmering now in the firelight, deadly gloved hands to
the ready, watching her two victims writhing and gasping on the ground.

There was a savage shout and the third man came running from behind the
garage, brandishing an iron bar. Which he swung viciously... but somehow Xenia
standing again and already so close to her attacker that the club met only
empty air and the man found his arm trapped under the slim women's armpit...
where she broke it instantly with a sharp twisting movement which I scarcely
saw. The man screamed, the bar clanged on the hard earth... and now it was his
turn to receive, at close quarters, a pair of Xenia's deadly open-handed
blows, delivered with perfect synchronism to the vicinity of heart and liver
respectively. He went "ouf" and dropped without a whimper.

My eyes were still staring in horror and admiration at the strewn battlefield
of Xenia's latest exploit when I felt my "warrior princess" at my side again.
"That last bastard was lucky," she murmured, "He's already dead... but the
other two will have a long time to meditate their many sins... ten or twelve
hours, at least. And I bet nobody ever comes out this way...OK, Leopold, we're
out of here."

We walked back to the car: behind us the house was burning like tinder,
hurling sparks at the night sky.

Xenia drove in silence for a good half hour. Finally she looked at me where I
was sitting in my corner of the pick-up cab, cowering inwardly but trying not
to let on.

"And now what am I going to do with you, old man? It's against my religion to
let any of you walk away, ya know..."

My heart sank. Somehow I had imagined that having settled what was obviously a
very old score, well... I had imagined. For the next few kilometres, she
seemed to be mulling the matter over. When she pulled off the highway onto a
deserted rest area and turned off the engine, she'd evidently reached a
conclusion. "Out you come," she said, "I've made up my mind. It's been sort of
fun knowing you, Leopold, but well... you remember the story about the frog
and the scorpion, don't you... Orson Welles in "The Third Man"? Only my sting
is not suicidal, I don't drown with the frog..." She'd caught my wrist in her
rubber grip before I could even think of resisting, my arm was stretched
across her shapely breasts in a paralyzing lock: she stiffened her free hand
in that frightening way and, carefully concentrating, chopped with quick
precision and in close succession at a certain point on my exposed wrist and
another on the outside of my forearm, immediately followed by a sharp
finger-tip jab to a point by my windpipe under my chin ... I choked and
staggered, I fell to one knee... I was sick and dizzy, my heart was
pounding... "Those three striking points affect the pericardium, what the
Chinese call the triple warmer and the conceptor vessel... Struck in that
order, they are ultimately and inevitably a fatal combination... But rejoice,
dear Leopold, I've given you several long years reprieve... and also a
keepsake to cherish and remember me by: creeping disability and inexorable
death." She drew me to my feet and said "Because you WILL want to remember me,
won't you Leopold? I know you will..." And with that she took my head between
those deadly gloved hands and kissed me – rather passionately, I thought
through the haze that had descended upon my mind..." Then before I knew it,
she'd sprung into the pick-up and roared away. I collapsed again and lay on
the macadam for hours before I was discovered at dawn by the Highway Patrol.

I spent a few weeks in hospital where I was diagnosed with a rare form of
heart disease. I am slowly dying, and I know why... But it is a secret I have
kept to myself. After all, we're all going to die one day and I like to
believe that I have one advantage over other mortals: the knowledge of my
imminent death is consubstantial with voluptuous memories, for it will have
been deliberately brought about by the most extraordinary woman I have ever
known. Is she still out there somewhere seducing and killing old men, her
hatred never to be expunged? I have no news of Xenia... But she lives on in
memories mingling voluptuousness with terror, memories to be treasured above
all others until the very last.

Bibliography :

Erle Montaigue, Dim Mak, Death-Point Striking, Boulder Col., Paladin Press,
1993

Jwing-Ming Yang, Shaolin Chin Na, The Seizing Art of Kung Fu, Hollywood,
Unique Pub., 1980