Chapter 22
Susan Richards finally stopped banging her head into the mattress after two solid minutes of frenzied despair at her plight and blind hate of the man behind it, Dante Allamordo. The shouting and teeth gnashing had stopped after the first minute, her voice raw with her anguish. The bouncing her head off the bed’s surface took that extra minute; ultimately slowing down until the forehead smashes only came every 10 seconds instead of every third second. The grunts of self-disgust also dissipated. Timed to each jolting head butt of the mattress, the grunts stopped accompanying the jolts with 20 seconds left in that two minutes. That extra final head thump with no grunt was just a concluding note to self: “Don’t let this happen again, Richards!”
Sue had never come up against anybody like Dante before. He’d not only sexually abused her, physically dominated her and mentally controlled her, he somehow had also corroded her soul in the process. She definitely had taken a certain amount of pleasure from all his training techniques during their sessions together. How could she not? After all, she was a woman with a healthy sexual appetite and he’d seized on that like a hawk with a mouse.
His skill at psychological manipulation was beyond brilliant. And his talents at providing pleasure were pretty masterful as well. Even now Sue was aware that she had yearnings for more sexual satisfaction. At her own hand, at his hand: it didn’t seem to matter. She had just had a very powerful orgasm that catapulted her out of her dream, (Could it even be called a nightmare?) and yet her senses were tingling for any extra input.
Any thoughts of further sleep were out of the question and a glance at the bedside clock showed her it was quarter to seven in the morning. She arose from her bed thankful that Reed was across the globe and despairing of that fact at the same time. She was embarrassed at her behavior even though it was her subconscious mind that had dived into the pool of lust that ended in a pool of cum on her sheets. Had Reed been there she might have ridden him like a mechanical bull with no thought to his humanity, she felt. A cold shower was definitely called for…immediately.
So she took one. A long one! It seemed to help. Though her nipples were stiff from the ice-cold water that streamed over her breasts and caused her breath to bellow out in a gasp, they were numb to any concept of excitement. This wasn’t a teasing ice cube designed to arouse, this was a soaking cold attack designed to thwart any fever left in her body. After subjecting herself to this battering icy deluge for ten endless minutes, she turned off the cold spigot. She hadn’t even touched the hot valve. Punishment or mental health? She wasn’t sure. All she knew is that the shower had worked. Sue had her brain back.
She grabbed the large thick bath towel from the bar on the other side of the glass shower door and dried herself off completely, wiping vigorously to bring a small touch of warmth back to her body. That done, she wrapped the towel around her, tucked the end in to keep it up and turned to face the mirror. With no inkling of heat from the shower water, the mirror was clear and absolutely reflective.
Sue looked deep into her own eyes. They were tired eyes with bags below them but they were her eyes; bright blue and troubled … but her own. She sighed deeply in the silence of the bathroom and then she spoke.
“Well, Mrs. Richards. Now what?”
Now we suit up and take this fucker down!
“Really? That easy, huh? Just waltz in and take names and kick ass?”
You’ve done it before, Susan. He’s not even super human! He’s not Victor Von Doom or the Hulk. Show some grit, girl!
“He played me perfectly, anticipating every move. He’s sure to have defenses built into his living quarters.”
So, what then? He gets away with it?
“NO!” The exclamation echoed against the bathroom’s marbled tile walls. Sue put her palms down on the counter and leaned forward, daring to stare deep into her irises, reading the depth of her own pupils. “No,” she repeated more softly. “No. I can’t let him get away with it. Nor let Minh get away with whatever she’s planning. I’m going to stop them!”
But will you?
“I’m going down fighting. I guarantee you that!”
Going down? Can’t you be a bit more positive?
“Oh, shut up!” she told herself.
Sue went to her special uniform closet, keyed in the passcode and surveyed the collection of power wear before her. There were eight costumes hanging before her, separated into two groups of four costumes each. In the first grouping, two suits were her classic blue and black costume with a waist belt and the centered blue 4 ringed in black. Of the other two in the first group of four, one was her more updated version that had a hip belt and a wider black cowl neck that came down to near the top of a more modernized 4 insignia over a white square. The other costume had a black neck but not as deep and came with gray accent stripes at her hips. That outfit had short sleeves.
The second grouping of four costumes were versions she didn’t wear nearly as often. One was a very racy version in white and blue with a bare midriff and a high-cut almost thong-style attached panty. Another was a much more modest light blue and white costume with a white 4 in a blue oval set over the left breast. One costume was a horrible red and black number that had bad associations with it, and one was a blue and gray version that had been adapted from a SHIELD costume.
Sue flipped through all the hanging power wear, her arm reaching out and pulling each hanger along the clothes rod towards her as she pondered what to wear when facing off against Dante. Certainly not the super sexy thong costume. He already had plenty of salacious memories about her body without her amplifying them in something that shouted “Hey! Hot body here. Come and get it…again!” The red and black number was out. Just too garish. She wasn’t even sure why she’d kept it. The more modern one with the stylized 4 was a definite maybe. She picked that up and hung it on the rod to her left and continued her search. She also hung the classic version off to her left. Can’t go wrong with tradition. She passed on the other costumes after a barely a glance at them. Just not right she felt.
Taking the classic version and the more modern one off the clothes rod she carried them on their hangers and laid them side to side on the king-sized bed.
Which one? Which outfit shouts ‘I’m confident, proud and dangerous?’
She went for the more modern one with the medium length gloves, more rakish 4 symbol over the white square. She’d been kicking ass in this costume for the last six years. And it hadn’t let her down yet.
Sue pulled the end of the towel off and let it fall to the carpet, then paced naked over to her dresser. She pulled a pair of high-cut silvery blue panties out of the top drawer and stepped into them, pulling them up and arranging them comfortably with a final snap of the waistband. The costume had its own built in bra so she went over to bed, sat down, and began to dress in the modern power wear.
The outfit went on easily. In fact, the familiar pleasant feel of donning the costume seemed to scour her doubts out of her mind. She was Invisible Woman and, in this costume, had taken on and defeated a score of very bad people with very bad intentions. Some of it had been with the aid of her team, sure, but many times she’d pulled the fat out of the fire for the rest of them, all too often facing daunting odds and yet succeeding.
Padding over to the closet, Sue pulled out her calf-high boots and slipped into those, standing on one foot at a time. She then walked over to the dresser and faced the large mirror hanging there. Sue looked at herself critically and saw a very capable woman in a kick-ass costume that could take on all comers! Her face did look a bit tired. With good reason though. She’d been put through the ringer by Dante. She quivered there, staring at her visage. Whether the tremors were due to the deepest righteous anger she’d ever felt or the daunting challenge that lay before her, she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t back down. Couldn’t flop into the bed and hide under the blankets. Yes, she was trembling. It wasn’t easy being a hero. Taking hold of the moment and putting yourself fully on the line in the line of fire of an evil madman who’d bested you once. Had shamed you. Had made you his sex toy, dammit!!
Sue only knew one thing when she looked into her own eyes in that mirror: It was past time to face this bastard and restore her honor!
Reed Richards put his cell phone down on the small desk in his hotel room. His frown seemed carved into his face and his eyes were troubled. Sue’s behavior on their phone call was bothering him. She clearly wasn’t herself. Heck, she had been slurring her words. Of course, the combination of the meth cloud and the drinking would do that: probably affect her balance as well. Fortunately, she was home at the time so nothing really bad could happen to her, beyond a possible slip in the shower.
Reed still felt uneasy though so he called an old contact in the NYPD Drug Crimes Unit to congratulate them on what he was sure was the buzz of the force. Unfortunately, the contact was not available and the person on the phone didn’t know when Reed’s friend would be back. Moreover, that clerk didn’t know anything about a big meth bust, hence Reed’s frown. Reed left a message with the clerk for his friend to call him back as soon as he could.
“Well, I better round up Johnny and Ben. We’ve got one more day on this project and then I can head home and talk to Sue about all this in person.”
Reed’s frown didn’t disappear as he pulled his hotel room door shut behind him.
At 10:00 a.m., Dante Allamordo’s reading light flickered in the spare bedroom he used as a study. He closed his autographed copy of The Power of Habit and smirked. His guest had arrived. He was sure she’d be shielded in her invisibility field but he’d had every window and entrance covered with a variety of sensors that could detect shifts not just along the electromagnetic spectrum but unusual displacements on the subatomic level. A breeze from a passing figure, even an invisible one, could be detected and analyzed in seconds. Somewhere in his condo, Sue Richards was stalking him. His smirk turned into a smile as Dante rose from his comfortable stuffed reading chair.
“Well, let’s see how well Subject Sue has retained her lessons.”