Jinn’s AI Swamp

[cerberus]

That's cool, nice set-up. Looking forward to Spandex Lex's further adventures.

[Jinn]

Sometimes I wonder how much background research you do before you craft your tales, because the worldbuilding is such a huge aspect of your writing.

It’s a simple recipe; a search engine, Google maps, a dash of free time and a coffee take care of a lot of details.

That's cool, nice set-up. Looking forward to Spandex Lex's further adventures.

Me too, so without further ado…

[Jinn]

Let’s play ball…

IMG_9670.jpeg

Traffic Stopper (Part I)

-Home Run-

After a brief but torrential downpour the depleted storm cells rumbled east over Lake Ontario. The scorching afternoon sun broke through the massive cumulonimbus clouds, broiling the puddles of rain water into an eerie mist over the simmering sidewalks and streets of downtown Toronto.

The retractable roof of the Rogers Center slowly crept open to dole out a radiant dose of vitamin D to the forty six thousand in attendance for the first of a three game series between the visiting Boston Red Sox and the hometown Toronto Blue Jays.

Recent LSU graduate Lia Xavier was sitting pretty in a private box among a half dozen baseball brides to watch her brawny boyfriend “Tyger” Ty Moorfield battle Beantown batters as the Hogtown short stop.

The towering Blue Jays first round pick had met Lia when he was still a senior at LSU. Their mutual passion for competitive sports and their shared weakness for date night creole cuisine had fostered the foundation of an athletic power couple. The hopeless romantics decided to continue dating even though Ty had moved his act north of the border to Ontario the previous year.

Although the frequency and the menu of their date nights had drastically changed their mutual attraction and their desire for one another’s company still had plenty of charge. The time and space between the long distance lovers made them as steaming hot and damp for each other as the sizzling Southern Ontario asphalt after the thunderstorm.

Lia caught a red eye connector flight from Houston earlier that morning and had arrived in the wee hours. As much as her body was craving “breakfast” in bed with her baseball beau, Ty was strictly adhering to a time tested superstition: No pre-game sex.

‘It keeps me sharp,’ claimed the bathrobed baller, trying to ignore the advances of his flirty, famished female on the comfy leather couch in his waterfront high rise condo, ‘C’mon sweetness, We’ve been over this.’

‘Awww,’ teased Lia, sporting her pouty lips, straddling her mammoth man and doing her damnedest to break him, ‘Can’t we do things different in Canada?’

‘There’s no difference in the True North, hun,’ stated Ty, trying to ignore the surreal silkiness of his sexy young visitor’s alluring thighs as she grinded on his stout erection through her cut off jean shorts, ‘Except up here it’s “one, two, three strikes, you’re OOT.”’

The cozy couple laughed. Lia gave up her almost inescapable seduction. She knew how important Ty’s rituals were. He wasn’t selected fifth overall in the draft by cutting corners. The horny houseguest also knew that she’d get plenty of her smoldering short stop’s attention later that evening, and he’d no doubt make the wait worth her while…

Draped in a baby blue “Moorefield” Jays jersey showcasing Ty’s number ten and donning a fitted ball cap, the beautiful blonde Lia and a few of the Jays WAGs danced and pranced like a Toronto cheer squad for her latest Tik Tok in their 300 level box.

After taking some light hearted ribbing about her boyfriend’s pre-game “protocol” and enduring a few “pouncing Tyger” innuendos from some of the girls Lia took a moment to upload their cheer video and scroll through some current events. A tragic headline from Baton Rouge caught her eye and for a moment the forty six thousand fans around her seemed silent and invisible.

“Vanished: Local Gymnastics Star Missing Say Police,” read Lia with great concern. Seventeen year old LSU Freshman Blake Mildmay disappeared apparently on her way to a photo shoot. Police had questioned her agent who was the last person to see her before she went off the radar. The investigation was ongoing but at the moment there were no leads.

‘Oh my gosh,’ Lia whispered despairingly under her breath, amidst the cackle of loud and liquored Lady Jays. Blake was the next big thing in college gymnastics. Lia had trained extensively with her and was even instrumental in helping the brilliant, young up-and-comer to secure a spot on the Olympic squad heading to Paris in the summer.

Blake never went anywhere alone and always communicated her whereabouts. For her to just vanish into thin air was wildly uncharacteristic to say the least. As far as Lia was concerned Blake’s disappearance reeked of foul play.

‘CRACK’ went Ty’s bat as he drilled a two-seam sinker deep into right field. Going… going… gone! A three-run dinger. The ladies in the box went nuclear. Lia was over the moon with tearful excitement for her man’s home run.

Under the surface however, Lia’s inner superheroine “Lex” was distraught at the terrible news regarding her freckle faced friend and former teammate “Blakey.” She had questions and had already texted out her feelers, planning to knock on a few doors or skulls to get answers…

‘Well sweetness, I’m just sorry we couldn’t get you the dubya,’ apologized Ty for his club’s 6-4 loss to the visiting Red Sox, ‘That three-run jack was the best I could do for ya. I’m confident we’ll take the series though.’

‘Oh hun,’ consoled Lia, lying in her man’s arms on his balcony overlooking the shimmering nighttime Toronto skyline before teasing, ‘You can’t win ‘em all… But don’t lose anymore.’

Lia capped her humorous response to her favorite Blue Jay with a soft kiss. Their post game itinerary was complete. Their delivery dinner by candlelight was enjoyed. Their after dinner drinks were sipped to the setting sun. Nothing left for the lounging lovers to do but settle down and settle in.

Ty gladly let his lovely lady unbutton his shirt and melt into his strong, chiseled chest. Lia relished the feeling of his warm, powerful hands sliding over her irresistibly silky legs, over her tight backside and up the small of her back under her jersey as she lay curled up on him. She ran her fingers through Ty’s short, dark wavy hair and kissed him slowly and softly, letting their tongues swirl together.

Within moments, Lia’s little denim shorts and double-knit polyester number ten shirt were dropping onto the balcony. She felt her bra being unclasped as she peeled off her thong panties to add to the growing pile of discarded garments. Suddenly the only things covering Lia under the Canadian evening sky were Ty’s hands as he glided them over her satiny smooth, sensual young body.

The strong, muscular baseball player easily maneuvered the petite girl on the outdoor lounger so that she was on her hands and knees in front of him. Her boyfriend’s large pants landed with a ‘FLWUMP’ next to her puny pile of girlie clothing, hinting to her that they were both more or less naked.

Lia sensed the heat from his large frame radiating on her back in the cooler night air. She could feel his lusting breath on her neck. She trembled as his huge hands caressed her thighs and gave her ass a few playful spanks. Meanwhile his firm, fully erect penis was sliding up the super soft skin on the inside of her leg. ‘Uhn!’ Lia whimpered in anticipation while Ty’s giant hand steadily held her tiny little waist. His other hand guided the tip of his swollen cock slowly and gently inside her humid, invitingly wet vagina.

A slight gasp peeped from Lia’s lips as Ty slid his large member carefully into her. He paused as her sudden tension signaled her apparent discomfort, then proceeded as she reached behind and grabbed his wrist to pull herself onto him.

He brushed her long blonde hair over her soft shoulder so he could look at her beautiful face as he slipped his rock hard penis further into her sexually submissive body. ‘UHN!’ she whimpered again, biting her lip as she pressed her pelvis against him, burying his thick, rigid shaft deep in her.

‘mMm!’ moaned the gorgeous girlfriend as she pulled far enough forward so that only Ty’s tip was still inside her. ‘Ohhh!’ she cried, arching her back as her burly boyfriend pulled her ass back against him, once again plunging the enormity of his throbbing meat into her hot, slippery opening.

She licked her lips and looked back at her man’s massive muscular physique in the balcony shadows as he held her hips and began pumping her rhythmically from behind. Sweat was already glistening on their flesh. She could see the city lights of the Six reflecting off the ink of the numerous works of art in his tattooed sleeves, including the large crouching tiger on his left shoulder. To Lia’s utter erotic enjoyment and the satiating of her starving sexual appetite her Tyger was finally pouncing.

The pace of Ty’s thrusting increased as his groin began to steadily slap against Lia’s backside. He spanked her bouncing little ass hard before reaching over to grab one of her arms, twisting it behind her back to play into her submissive posture. She knew he liked to take charge, and he knew she liked being taken charge of. The dominating man grabbed a handful of Lia’s hair with his other hand and forcefully yanked her head back, while noticeably increasing the aggression in his pounding. He slapped her ass even harder.

Lia froze. Ty’s heightened sexual intensity while playful and normally arousing had triggered a memory; a horrible, traumatic playback of a moment in time that Lia knew she’d never forget but had constantly fought to contain; an instance of deceit and treachery; a moment of lust and violence… a incident of rape and murderous intent.

The stunned girl flashed back to her heinous sexual assault and attempted killing a few years prior in the Atchafalaya Swamp Basin near Baton Rouge. Frighteningly coincidental to the disappearance of Blake Mildmay, Lia had just finished her freshman year at LSU and was also on her way to a photo shoot.

The whole endeavor was a facade, orchestrated by a deranged psychopath who was bent on sacrificing the oblivious athlete… to a bottomless pit of quicksand. After struggling to escape the boggy death trap, the drugged and kidnapped Lia was caught by the predator and subjected to brutal rape before she administered her self defense training to subdue the sicko and escape his evil clutches.

‘No… Please, NO… stop… STOP!’ panicked Lia, fighting to get away from Ty.

Full stop. Ty knew right away why Lia was distraught. Although he had never been or ever wanted to be privy to the graphic details of his girlfriend’s trauma, he knew enough.

‘Sweetness,’ he quietly consoled, reaching for his lover, ‘I’m right here Lia, it’s ok.’

‘Get away from me!’ screamed Lia, recoiling in terror as Ty put his reassuring hand on her leg.

Ty relented quietly while a delirious Lia hyperventilated. Her lover could do nothing but back off and sit idly by as his panicking princess recovered.

Rapt by a crippling anxiety attack, Lia stared at him with a look of sheer horror.

‘It’s me hun,’ spoke the baffled ball player, feeling utterly useless, ‘It’s Ty.’

‘Don’t you fucking touch me!’ warned a hysterical Lia.

After a few anxious moments the frightened female calmed and resorted to a more peaceful state. Her breathing gradually settled to a normal rhythm. She relaxed back into the reality that was the shattered pieces of an interrupted session of hot and sticky love making on the Toronto high rise balcony. She recognized that it was her lover close by, her boyfriend, her Tyger that she had just frantically retreated from. She leapt into his arms and sobbed.

‘Oh baby!’ cried Lia, ‘I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry!’ The emotional, apologetic girl was beside herself with shock, shame and guilt.

‘Sweetness,’ began Ty, holding his upset girlfriend tenderly against him on the lounger, ‘You don’t ever have to be sorry for those feelings. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who…’

‘No,’ Lia interjected, putting her index finger on Ty’s lips, tearfully collecting and correcting herself and her beau, ‘It’s nobody on this balcony’s fault.’

Lia replaced her finger on her lover’s lips with her own lips and delivered a passionate kiss. She let her man wrap his large arms around her as they lay for a long time, peacefully, quietly and naked, overlooking the iconic downtown profiles of the CN Tower and the Rogers Center.

Despite the body heat of her boyfriend, Lia’s bare figure began to shiver in the cool evening breeze. Ty fetched the throw blanket from the back of the lounger and covered up his cuddling cutie, hugging her close to him.

‘My friend Blake is missing,’ revealed Lia, breaking the silence.

‘Hun, that’s terrible. What happened?’ asked Ty. He didn’t know Blake personally, but he knew how tight Lia was with her LSU teammates.

‘She disappeared on the way to a photo shoot,’ replied Lia, while tracing her fingertips on Ty’s chest.

‘Jesus, Lexy,’ exclaimed Ty in a whisper. He immediately made the connection, ‘Do you think it was the same creep who…?’

‘I dunno. I dunno,’ answered Lia before breathing a sigh and shaking her head, ‘But I feel awful about not being there for her. I feel guilty about being here with you, enjoying you while she might be somewhere being held captive, afraid and alone, being attacked or…’ Lia shuddered, imagining the poor teen being swallowed by a bubbling, goo-filled bog.

‘Then go get her, Lex,’ signaled Ty, supportive of the resolve in his courageous girl’s heart. He knew what she wanted to do, and was giving her the push to do it, ‘I’ll be right here for you when you need me. Go find her.’

‘I’m scared,’ she admitted.

‘You’re the bravest girl I know,’ Ty boasted.

Lia looked up at Ty’s face, into his eyes. He was adamant. ‘Your friend needs a superhero,’ he added before kissing the one lying in his arms.

Lia slid her hand down Ty’s chest, over his cut six pack abdomen and onto his penis which she began to subtly stroke.

‘S..Sweetness, what are…?’ Ty questioned, totally defenseless against Lia’s advances.

‘Shhhh…’ the beauty quieted the beast as she slipped under the throw blanket and proceeded to give the Toronto Blue Jays short stop a Major League blowjob.

Ty was stunned. He stroked Lia’s soft hair while she sucked and slurped his erection with her pretty lips as if the arousal was mutual. To the gorgeous gobbling girlfriend it most certainly was.

Once Lia had sucked Ty’s cock to the point that it was as hard as the concrete balcony beneath them, she threw off the throw and mounted her mountainous masculine male.

‘Babe, we don’t have to do this,’ suggested Ty, unsure and concerned about Lia’s mental health, ‘We can just lay here and…’

‘Shhhh…’ The horny heroine silenced her lover again, putting one hand on his chest and using the other to hold his rigid rod steady as she guided it into her revved and ready pussy. ‘My man deserves a dubya tonight,’ the lovely “Lex” whispered as she let gravity sink her sexy body down, forcing Ty’s super stiff muscle up inside her. It was Lexy’s turn to pounce.

She commenced cowgirling his cock like a rodeo champ. Her sensual thighs flexed and hugged, her sweat soaked chest heaved and jiggled, her glistening ass torqued and twirked. Her head tilted back. The amorous angel’s long golden mane fell off her shoulders and draped freely behind her back. She grabbed Ty’s hand and forced him to fondle her breasts. Cries of ecstatic elation escaped her gaping mouth as she rode her boyfriend all the way to the promise land.

The bouncing beauty’s climax came ferocious and fast. She barely had time to whimper the words ‘Oh baby, I’m cumming!’ when the hot, moist rush ignited in her loins. The creaming gymnast’s sexually charged body hummed with the warm erotic glow of an unstoppable orgasmic eruption.

Her pelvic muscles clenched as she came, squeezing Ty’s penis as it probed like a piston inside her.

The flexible female’s writhing release coupled with her super sexy sounding cries and moans were too much for Ty to handle. He too felt the building glow from deep inside. That euphoric radiance crescendoed to an explosion of pent up cum blasting out of his cock, squirting voluminously volcanic amounts up inside his pretty, panting girlfriend still squirming and squeaking as she straddled him.

The dripping, red hot lovers fell into each other, embracing in one another’s sweat and cum and heat. The drone of Toronto traffic drowned out their deep gasps as they rested together after their satisfyingly soaking wet sexual exchange.

Ty was the first to fall asleep, and the last to rise on the balcony as the morning sun crept out of Lake Ontario. He was alone on the lounger. Without checking, he already knew he was the sole occupant in his condo.

-Run Home-

The door to Hefty’s Baton Rouge office flew open, slamming into the door jam so aggressively that it rattled on its hinges.

‘Lia!’ an utterly shocked Josie ‘Hefty’ Harriston exclaimed with a high pitched yelp, looking up from the provocative performance that was playing out a few inches from where he was jacking off.

A cute, blonde teenaged girl in a skimpy LSU cheerleader uniform was sitting on the large office desk with her bare feet up on the oak table and her arms tucked under her knees. Hefty had been sitting in his grungy chair stroking his hard-on and greedily groping a second brunette cheerleader’s ass and stocking covered thighs under her skirt as she was bent over painting the toenails of the girl on the desk.

‘It’s been a long time, doll face! I..uh..We were just, um…’ sputtered Hefty, hastily tucking his meatball of a dick back into his slacks. His two-sizes-too-small salmon colored polo shirt was stained with sweaty pits, and dribbles of precum on his ginormous gut.

‘Ohmygod!’ gasped the sitting girl, gawking star-struck at the guest who had just blatantly let herself in, ‘You’re Lia Xavier!’

‘mMm, yummy,’ moaned her lip smacking, toe painting squadmate, glancing up momentarily before continuing to work away on the gloss finish for her friend’s pretty polished nails, ‘She can be my “Xavier” anytime.’

‘Get out,’ instructed Lia, standing in the usual stoic, serious looking, cross-armed stance she had always taken in the ugly-ass wood paneled second floor office. Her eyes never left Hefty’s surprised and embarrassed face as the girls packed up their act.

Both cheerleaders made sure to take a bump of white powder from the open cigarette case on Hefty’s desk before they vacated the tension filled room. The toe painter bit her lip as she walked by Lia, ogling the guest’s feminine figure in her cute little unzipped white hoodie and tight fitting violet colored sports bra and leggings as she floated by.

‘Close the door behind you,’ ordered Lia, her eyes still locked on the plump personnel provider.

The star gymnast always had a hunch that Hefty had something to do with her abduction and rape three years earlier. When questioned by the authorities her former agent had pleaded outright ignorance.

Lia suspected that Madre Terra, the environmental lobbying firm who had organized the photo session for a supposed charity calendar had paid Hefty heftily to deliver a damsel and keep quiet about it. Lia was certain that Madre Terra’s lobbyist designation was a front for a more devious organization. There was never any evidence to support either idea.

The police ruled that a random drifter had intercepted information about the photo shoot and had used it for his own sinister agenda. Madre Terra even had actual photographers attest to setting up for an outdoor photo session in another location, while claiming that Lia ‘never showed’ on the day of the shoot.

Three years later, under identical circumstances it was happening again. Another no-show from a famous freshman gymnast, another fictional photo shoot cover-up. Another steaming pile of lies and deception from Madre Terra and the victim’s agent Hefty Harriston.

‘Lia, sugar,’ Hefty started over, as if the kinky scene witnessed by the intruding former client was a figment of her imagination, ‘I’ve got great news about Blake. It’s only a matter of time before we find her. We’ve got a whole army of volunteers and cops scouring the countryside looking for her. You can rest assured we’re leaving no stone unturned. We’re doing everything we can…’

‘Does “everything” include masturbating on coked up college girls?’ inquired the brazen beauty as she slowly slinked over to the obese agent’s chair.

‘Lia,’ chuckled Hefty, unsure of how to bullshit his way around the question.

‘How much did you pay for those girls’ asses?’ demanded Lia rhetorically as she turned around in front of Hefty, arched her back and slowly lowered her supple, spandex covered ass onto the fat man’s lap.

Hefty instinctively put his chubby hand on the flirty girl’s thigh. The gesture was met with a hard, scolding slap from Lia, causing the touchy logistics broker to recoil his stinging paw.

‘Those girls? Lia… they were just, um…’ croaked Hefty, trying pitifully to heave an excuse out of his lumpy lying face.

‘How much did Madre Terra pay YOU for mine?’ Lia asked calmly and quietly, putting her arm around Hefty’s blubbery neck and pulling close to his misogynistic mug. The large man was as sweaty and slimy as ever, and he stunk wretchedly of gin and body odor.

‘I..I dunno what you’re talkingGAAAAAHHHHHHH!!’ shrieked the convulsing creature, as Lia briefly activated a concealed taser on his groin.

‘Shhhh…’ calmed Lia, running her fingers through Hefty’s greasy combover as he grunted and gurgled repulsively. The stench of vomit was wafting from the overweight sleazebag’s throat.

‘Now, Josie,’ Lia continued, addressing him by his hated first name, and pressing the electrodes into his ballsack, ‘You’re going to tell me everything you know. For everything I don’t like to hear, I’m going to electrocute your balls. Are we clear?’

Hefty nodded, as cocaine speckled snot bubbles dangled from his snout. In a moment of panic, the portly pervert reached desperately under his desk.

‘GRAAAAAAGHGHGHGH!!’ He exuded, as Lia lit up his testacles again with the taser. The frumpy agent gagged and swallowed back a mouthful of puke as he twitched awkwardly in his chair. Hefty cried like a child from the agony inflicted on his genitals by the gymnast in the skin tight jogging suit, crossing her spandex wrapped legs elegantly on his lap.

‘Nn-nn,’ Lia shook her head, taking Hefty’s hidden .38 out of its secret holster from under the desktop. With one hand she opened the cylinder and emptied the rounds into the rubbish bin before tossing the hand gun onto the stained sofa adjacent to the desk.

‘So where were we, Josie?’ Lia continued unfazed by Hefty’s botched rebellion, ‘Oh, right. You were about to tell me where I can find Blake Mildmay…’

‘Do you think he’s fucking her?’ asked the blonde cheerleader in pig tails admiring her freshly painted toes. The awfully young girl in her midriff top and pleated skirt was waiting in the hallway, sitting sideways in a chair with her legs draped over the padded arm.

‘More like she’s fucking him,’ purred the brunette from the next chair, legs crossed and lounging lazily, sucking on a vape pen and creeping Lia Xavier’s Tik Tok page on her mobile.

Hefty’s sporadic screams had ceased and an eerie quiet filled the second floor of the office building.

The door clicked open and out walked Lia, still as stone cold and smolderingly serious as the moment she barged in on the murky ménage à trois.

‘What did you do to poor Hefty?’ demanded the pouty cheerleader with pretty new ruby red nails, ‘It sounded like you were beating the shit out of him!’

Lia did not even share a glance as she walked by Hefty’s playtime pair.

The brunette cheerleader licked her lips, waiting quite intentionally to seductively adjust her silky stockings until the moment the super hot internet star stormed by. This aggressive, dominant version of Lia playing hard-to-get seemed to be her kind of jam.

‘Hey Lia, where ya goin’ girl?’ peeped the cheeky brunette, hoping to maybe cash in on some of the same discipline being doled out in the office. She hollered her surrender to the gymnast in jogger wear disappearing into the stairwell, ‘I’ve been bad too!…’

The moss covered wooden sign dangled precariously on the rusty nails barely holding it to its rotted post. The faded letters spelling ‘DISMAL SWAMP’ spanned the forgotten, foreboding message board.

‘Of course it’s called that,’ frowned the eye-rolling heroine, tying her hair up in double buns and feeling vulnerable at the trailhead leading into the mangroves and muck.

The location pin provided by Hefty was done so under duress, and the aspiring superhero wondered about its authenticity. Then again she doubted that the fat villain would have lead her astray with his balls on the line. He had even produced the last text he sent poor Blakey showing the map with the locator arrow hovering over the Red River State Wildlife Management Area, a two hour drive north of Baton Rouge.

‘This is the place,’ sighed the ardent adventurer, reluctantly stepping her purple runners onto the squishy trail. She had to hope if Blake was still in the swamp that she wasn’t under it.

As the brave girl warily waded down the perilous path it gradually became muddier and more misleading. ‘Oh Lexy, what are you doing?’ The daring young female asked her superheroine persona, using the chosen moniker formed from her initials; Lia Evelyn Xavier. “Lex” was plagued with uncertainties and doubt. She was concerned that she wouldn’t find any trace of Blake and at the same time terrified that she would, and that it would lead to her lifeless body. She was afraid of becoming a victim herself. She was scared of everything that she would or wouldn’t find, or that might find her. She was just simply scared.

Besides her justifiable jitters, Lex was also second guessing her attire. A flashy, bright purple, long sleeve leotard with a gold trimmed tribal pattern wasn’t exactly incognito against the backdrop of the swamp’s dull and dreary earthtones. She could be seen for miles by gators and girl snatchers alike.

However spandex was what Lex felt most comfortable in. It was what she wore when she was best expressing herself. It helped her to be creative and contemplative. It gifted her with confidence and fueled her competitiveness.

Slipping into a spandex suit always put Lex in touch with her body. It made her aware of each ladylike curve and every toned muscle of her forged and fit frame. The feeling of the smooth, thin, stretchy fabric caressing her skin made her feel bold, beautiful and sexy.

An open leg, spandex bodysuit is what the apex athlete wore when she won all her major gymnastics titles; the highly competitive, highly stressful National, World and Olympic championships were all conquered by this tiny blonde gymnast wearing nothing but a skin tight lycra leotard.

Spandex was her uniform. Just as a nurse wore scrubs or a soldier donned fatigues, when Lex was in her leotard she was dialed in; she was at work.

Lex knew what she chose to wear was a bit crazy, but it also made her courageous. ‘Fuck it,’ she chirped, looking over the clingy clothing hugging her shapely, sculpted body, ‘Ready or not, here I come.’

Not exactly sure what she was looking for, Spandex Lex kept her eyes and ears open for anything unusual. Searching for prints was impossible in calf deep mud. The swamp devoured any sign of footsteps.

‘SHLURP… SQLORP…’ the gooey ground slurped and squelched with each long leg the lovely Lex strained forward. Every mucky shoe step she planted in front of her seemed to sink deeper in the treacherous trail.

‘Ugh! This awful goo,’ lamented the laboring Lex, ‘It keeps sucking my legs down!’

The trail eventually opened up to a muddy glade. There was no way to tell which way the path continued. Beyond Lex was mud, and more mud for as far as she could see through the scattered mangroves.

Her intuition suddenly made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She felt as if she was being followed as she glanced over her shoulder. ‘This is no place to get into a foot race,’ Lex cautioned herself as she sloshed through the open sludge, trying to pick up her pace.

‘GBLWOBLBLBLBLB…’ belched the swamp as Lex’s legs suddenly plunged deeply down into it. The gooped gymnast gasped concernedly at her dramatic dip. The saturated soil beneath her felt fluid and awkwardly unstable. The bog came to life with burping bubbles as Lex’s knees settled into the morass. She felt her thighs slowly sinking deeper as the absence of a bottom alerted the heroine to another looming threat. She knew right away what she had stumbled into.

‘Quicksand!’ whispered Spandex Lex, as she struggled her sinking legs. The liquified earth churning under her trapped body causing her to wobble and lose her balance. She planted her hands in the muck to steady herself as the ghastly goop gurgled and splattered up the backs of her thighs. ‘Uhn!’ she whimpered, as the mud sucked her deeper, ‘It’s swallowing me!’

The defiant damsel wiggled her legs, trying desperately to free herself from the terrible trap. Each twist and turn merely caused the helpless heroine to sink deeper in the grabby muck. Soon the gourmandizing goo was seething and slurping around her heaving hips.

‘GRGLRGLRGLOOMP…’ expelled the ooze, as Lex dropped down rapidly to her tiny waist in the thick bog. Soupy mud poured in mercilessly around her disappearing body as she sank ever deeper.

‘Oh NO!’ cried the sinking superheroine, feeling the slimy soil beginning to soak through her spandex. Lex bit her lip despairingly. She was quickly running out of time.

The leotard lass had escaped quicksand once before. During her abduction, the drugged and desperate damsel had managed to reach a root and pull herself from the grip of the sucking pit. This time fortune did not present Lex with an exit strategy. There were no roots or ropes or anything around her that she could use to climb out of the perilous pudding that was slowly enveloping her.

The realization that Lex was likely doomed to a drowning death caused the overwhelmed athlete to panic. She plunged her arms down into the slurpy swamp, frantically trying to keep the menacing mire from sucking her under. Her writhing and resisting was only quickening her quicksand demise. Bubbling mud oozed over her breasts as she despondently fought and struggled.

Pausing her exhausting defiance to catch her breath, Lex tried to remain calm and still in hopes of buying some precious time to gather energy and ideas. But the swamp was insatiable and continued to ceaselessly engulf the hopeless heroine. She cried out in terror as hungry bog consumed her spandex covered shoulders.

‘No! Please!’ begged Lex to her quagmire captor, reaching for nothing, pleading to nobody and going nowhere but down, ‘Help! Someone! I’m sinking in quicksand!’

Embracing the horror of her final few moments above the sucking clag pool, Lex saw the irony of her predicament. Her quest to become a superhero had started three years earlier in the bowels of a bottomless bog. That journey had come full circle and was about to conclude in the same gruesome way.

Lex tearfully thought of her dear friend RJ, her gymnastics teammates, her lover Ty, and Blake, the missing friend whom she felt she was letting down the most. ‘I’m sorry,’ sniffled the saddened, sunken superheroine, up to her chin in gurgling muck and fretfully resigning to her horrific fate.

With one final instinctive impulse to stay alive, Lex squirmed audaciously but the quicksand had already won. The beautiful spandex-clad girl vanished under the sinister swamp mud that chugged and churned hideously in the spot where she had gasped for one last breath of air…

[cerberus]

That was a short series, I was hoping she's last a bit longer than two episodes. Still these things happen to the unwise and unprepared. Who's up next?

[Jinn]

That was a short series, I was hoping she's last a bit longer than two episodes. Still these things happen to the unwise and unprepared. Who's up next?

*SPOILER ALERT*: That was called Traffic Stopper (Part I)…

[cerberus]

That was a short series, I was hoping she's last a bit longer than two episodes. Still these things happen to the unwise and unprepared. Who's up next?

*SPOILER ALERT*: That was called Traffic Stopper (Part I)…

[Jinn]

Please enjoy Part 2 of ‘Traffic Stopper.’
It’s a long road full of twists and turns but I’m confident you’ll dig the ride…

IMG_0011.jpeg

Traffic Stopper (Part II)

-Undercover-

Spandex Lex’s lungs were starving. The suffocating superheroine was intent on holding her breath under the thick mud until the bitter end. She was dangerously close to the point of blacking out, but the lovely Leotard Lass staunchly refused to give in to the irrational temptation of inhaling a mouthful of fluid filth.

Her steadfast stubbornness was about to be rewarded.

Something or someone was frantically disturbing the surface of the bog above her. Was it the swampy stalker who had stoked Lex’s hair-raising intuition? Were they a fearless friendly or a fiendish foe? Whoever it was they were grabbing onto Lex and dragging her up and out of the muddy morass, by her arm and her hair.

When Lex’s mouth breached the surface she exhaled and breathed in so deeply that she thought her chest might explode. The doze of oxygen was so intense that the drowning damsel felt she might pass out from the euphoric head rush it caused, as her lungs enthusiastically inflated.

The blinded beauty reached out with her hands for anything and everything. Her fingertips found something corse and braided; a rope. Her savior pushed on her back from behind, lunging her forward along the lengthy lifeline toward safer soil.

Just as Lex had scurried to the shallow edge of the perilous pond, she could hear the panting and gasping of the mystery female struggling behind her. The other end of the lifesaving line had become limp when the small tree limb it was anchored to buckled and broke. The unidentified angel of mercy had been rendered helpless by the sudden increase of slack in the rope and was herself slipping into the quicksand.

With more stable swamp beneath her, Lex traded the role of rescuer with the grounded girl. She grabbed the rope and pulled with all her might, slowly extracting the helpless helper from the slimy, sucking sludge.

At the edge of the death pool, both goo-covered girls lay gasping and gulping the stagnate but sweet swamp air.

As Lex wiped the mud from her eyes and her face she was taken aback by the identity of the filthy female before her. It was none other than the brunette cheerleader from Hefty’s office.

‘Ohmygosh! You’re…’ began an astonished Lex, as thick globs of Dismal Swamp gunk dripped from her legs and leotard.

The girl raised her finger quickly and quietly to her lips as if to sternly silence the saved superheroine. Lex nodded. The cheerleader frenetically pointed to the direction of the trail and motioned her hand, signaling the mud-plastered pair to not waste any time getting up and getting out.

Lex trailed behind the charging cheerleader whose gait was almost at a full gallop. She took notice of the thigh-holstered Glock 17 attached to her hero over her soiled stocking, which stirred some assumptions and raised some questions. The uncomfortable silence between the two girls was driving Lex crazy.

As they approached what Lex assumed was the brunette’s matte black Subaru Impreza just beyond the trailhead the cheerleader turned without warning and grabbed the unsuspecting Lex by the neck. She heaved the lady in lycra into a shallow trailside pond before jumping in herself. The baffled blonde was as shocked by the coolness of the water as she was by the frigid treatment of the cheerleader.

A perplexed Lex observed as the cheerleader began to rinse herself in the clean water before the gymnast followed suit. She surmised that it was probably a good idea not to smear half the swamp on the interior of a gun-toting girl’s sexy STI.

It wasn’t until that same STI was flying insanely down Highway 1 did its daredevil driver finally speak.

‘Do you mind telling me what the unholy hell you were trying to accomplish back there?’ snapped the incensed cheerleader, as she weaved the car crazily around other vehicles on the busy road.

‘I was trying to save Blake,’ answered Lex, attempting to come across as confident and competent.

‘Oh yeah?’ questioned the sarcastic girl in a soiled white and violet LSU cheerleader midrif top, swamp stained pleated skirt, mud-caked Asics kicks and a totally destroyed pair of formerly white, thigh high nylon stockings, ‘And how’s that working out for you? Hmm?’

Lex thought the chiding question was rhetorical, but the angry girl’s raised eyebrow glare suggested she was waiting for a reply. The spandex superhero opened her mouth to answer before being cut off.

‘You almost got the both of us killed back there in that goddam muck hole,’ she scolded, dropping a lecture on Lex loaded with extreme disdain, ‘You’ve spooked a major player in a giant human trafficking investigation. In doing so you’ve also alerted the killer cult responsible for kidnapping your friend with your tough guy chest beating. You’ve endangered the lives of countless innocent women and girls, including Blake Mildmay with your reckless “vigilantics” and you’ve probably blown my cover.’

‘Your… cover?’ repeated the soaking wet, guilt ridden Lex, cowering in the passenger seat and looking like a drowned rat.

The chastising cheerleader reached into the armrest compartment and produced a thin, black leather wallet containing an I.D. card and a badge, then tossed it onto Lex’s thigh. ‘Special Agent Deborah Foxlea, FBI,’ announced the angry agent as if the obligatory introduction was unbearably annoying.

Tears welled up in Lex’s eyes as she examined the serious looking credentials. She remembered what her best friend RJ had told her when she revealed her plan to become a superhero. ‘The moment it stops being the right thing is when it hurts you or someone else,’ he had warned her, ‘If it ever causes someone to suffer unduly then it’s over.’

His conditional blessing was haunting and binding. She had indeed been reckless. Her actions may have cost the very same life that she was trying to save. Her foolish, failure-destined quixotic quest was its own undoing, she feared. Perhaps the “Spandex Lex” experiment was never to be. Regretful tears rolled down Lia Xavier’s cheeks.

Agent Foxlea regarded the remorseful, dirty do-gooder sobbing in the passenger seat as they sped southeast toward Baton Rouge. She actually felt enormous compassion for Lia Xavier. It was the gymnast’s plight three years earlier that had lit a fire in Foxlea’s heart. The adept agent cared very deeply for the beautiful gymnastics superstar although they had never met. She had worked her ass off for Lia, and the world famous internet star was none the wiser. Lowering her voice, she tried to less aggressively explain the situation.

‘I’ve been working on this case… YOUR case for three years, Lia,’ revealed Foxlea, giving off a way more mature vibe than the sexy schoolgirl persona she was cosplaying. ‘I’ve been tracking Madre Terra and following all of their movements and studying everything they’ve done for that entire period. I’ve been working undercover…’

‘Is that what it’s called?! Undercover?!’ A crying Lex interrupted, raising her voice and her red eyed leer to the federal agent, ‘Getting high and fucking underage girls and pervy predators?!’

Foxlea ate it. She briefly closed her eyes and accepted the return fire from her unsettled passenger. ‘Sometimes we have to do horrible things to catch horrible people,’ she explained.

‘And that makes it ok?’ snapped Lex, taking her turn to critique the agent, ‘Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?’

‘I don’t sleep much,’ retorted Foxlea.

‘Cocaine will do that,’ snipped Lex.

‘That’s enough,’ growled Foxlea, growing agitated by Lex’s incendiary stabs.

‘You’re no better than they are!’ Lex blurted begrudgingly as she buried her weeping eyes in her hands, ‘You’re just another type of predator, that’s all.’

Foxlea sighed. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed, as her own eyes welled up with tears. Lex’s words stung deeply. More so because the young agent’s career to that point had been immersed almost entirely in this one case. She woke up everyday dialed in and determined to catch the people responsible for harming Lia Xavier, and a long list of other victims and missing girls.

Lia Xavier was Foxlea’s inspiration. The rape and attempted murder of this lone girl beside her had spurred the aspiring FBI criminologist to dedicate her life to hunting predators. That very same girl had just compared the federal agent to the disgusting scumbags she was pursuing. Although Deborah felt that Lia was probably right, it hurt like hell to hear it from her muse.

Nevertheless, Deborah Foxlea was hell-bent on stopping Madre Terra, regardless of what kind of monster that made her.

‘This is so much bigger than you and I, Lia. It’s bigger than our petty problems and bigger than our piss-poor first impressions of each other. It’s many times more reckless and evil than we could ever be in trying to stop it,’ explained Foxlea while wiping her tears, ‘Madre Terra is harvesting migrants and asylum seekers coming into the US.’

Lex lifted her face from her hands and listened attentively to Foxlea’s revelation.

‘They’re taking these vulnerable young women right from the smugglers and forcing them into sex slavery,’ Foxlea continued solemnly, ‘They’re using the girls to finance their cult activities and buy property.’

‘That’s awful… Truly, truly awful,’ frowned Lex with genuine disgust, sympathizing with the federal agent. Deep in thought, the spandex-clad heroine traced her fingertips over the FBI badge in the leather jacket while inquiring, ‘Why did they take Blake?’

‘Blake Mildmay is a symbol of female empowerment, strength, youth and leadership. Those characteristics make her valuable,’ pointed out Foxlea quite complimentary before adding, ‘She can also be perceived as popular, privileged and pretty. Those characteristics make her envied.’

‘I don’t think I follow,’ admitted Lex, who was comparing her own abduction to Blake’s and trying to make the connection.

‘All of those qualities are resented by the men of Madre Terra. Both Blake and you Lia represent powerful, successful young women. The kind of girls that chauvinistic religious males feel threatened by. The kind of girls that they long to either control or condemn.’

‘Threatened?’ questioned Lex, shaking her head in denial, ‘Blakey and I, we’re just normal girls. We’ve worked so hard to get to where we are and we don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to inspire others and share all the love we have with the rest of the world. Is that so threatening?’

‘Your naivety is adorable, dear,’ chuckled Foxlea removing Lex’s metaphorical rose colored glasses, ‘You have millions of adoring fans and social media followers. You can’t pretend like you haven’t noticed how shitty people can be.’

‘The trolls in the comment section are one thing,’ debated Lex, letting her long wet hair drape over her shoulders after untying her disheveled double buns, ‘But systematic kidnapping, slavery… rape… murder…’

‘Madre Terre is a death cult. Plain and simple,’ Foxlea interrupted with her summary, ‘They worship “Mother Earth” by enslaving and sacrificing women and girls that they call the “daughters of man.” They oppress and punish with merciless toxic masculinity. They view girls like you and Blake as the antithesis of their ideology. They’ve labeled you as a false idol because of your influence. They feel threatened because you have more sway over people than they ever will, and you’re not using fear to do it. While these kids are loving you and drooling over your Tik Toks and your athletic achievements and your fashion and your beauty they’re not paying attention to important matters like climate change or some other bullshit agenda that Madre Terra is pushing.

‘I feel a little uncomfortable being referred to as an idol,’ detested Lex, considering the effects of her far reaching social media presence.

‘Lia, sweetie,’ Foxlea chimed in with a reality check, ‘Whether you like it or not, you are an idol. People love you. They want to be you. They want to be WITH you. They follow you and worship you and that enrages Madre Terra. The men in that cult are planning on punishing girls like you and Blake for blasphemy. Their signature method of punishment is death by quicksand. They want to recycle all those women who they deem unworthy inhabitants of Mother Earth by ritually burying alive each and every one of them in a bottomless bog. Redemption by absorption.’

‘I feel sick,’ Lex declared, looking pale and nauseous in light of Foxlea’s insight. She assumed superheroing was going to be challenging and dangerous but she had no idea that the villains would be this barbaric and heinous.

‘I’m never going to sugar coat it for you Lia, because you deserve to know the truth,’ concluded the ominous agent, ‘The only thing more dangerous than an idol is an ideology.’

The girls rode silently and contemplatively for a while. Agent Foxlea’s temper had settled down, even though her driving hadn’t. The sound of the Impreza’s screaming boxer engine, the occasional blare of irate commuters’ horns and the odd skidding of tires broke the quiet inside the car.

‘Is Blake dead?’ asked Lex out of the blue, while staring at the Louisiana swampland whizzing by on the other side of the passenger window.

‘Not yet,’ answered Foxlea, quite confidentially as her long, stocking covered legs pumped the pedals between gear selections, ‘Madre Terra only performs ritual sacrifices during peaks in the lunar cycle and certain seasonal changes.’

‘The Summer Solstice is tomorrow,’ announced Lex worryingly, ‘And the full moon is Friday.’

‘Then I guess we have some work to do,’ recommended Foxlea, dropping a gear to put a slow moving transport truck in the sporty Subaru’s rearview mirror.

‘We?’ poked Lex, looking over at the filthy faux cheerleader, ‘So we’re a team all of the sudden?’

‘Oh please,’ groaned Foxlea, rolling her eyes and moving her gaze to Lex’s sullied spandex suit, ‘More like, I’m keeping you close so you don’t draw any unwanted attention with your sexy “heat score” bodysuit.’

‘Oh, I’m sexy now?’ teased Lex, crossing her tantalizing legs provocatively and mocking Foxlea’s snobby, curled lip facial expression.

‘What were you going to do if you ran into a group of those psycho mysogynistic assholes dressed like that?’ ribbed Foxlea, regarding the ultra-tight leotard clinging enticingly to the gorgeous gymnast’s shapely body, ‘Perform a dance recital?’

‘Says the cheerleader,’ parried Lex, pinching a pleat on Foxlea’s itty-bitty miniskirt.

‘I’m not packin’ pompoms, honey,’ noted the fiery federal agent as she swatted Lex’s hand away and patted the Glock holstered on her thigh, ‘What’s YOUR superpower?’

Lex thought of the moment during her graduation when her beloved BFF RJ asked her the very same question. She was suddenly renewed with the same glowing hope and resolve she had been nourished with during those inspirational moments. The recharged Leotard Lass simply turned her head and smiled wryly at the bold brunette in the driver’s seat before uttering, ‘Courage…’

-Underground-

The roll up door of the Ease-E Storage unit rumbled open, revealing a treasure trove of disassembled IKEA furnishings, a mountain of moving boxes labeled “MISC” and “ATTIC” and “KITCHEN,” an 18-speed mountain bike, a broken treadmill, an assortment of lamps, luggage and a lopsided barbecue among countless other knickknacks and clutter stacks.

Two feminine silhouettes quietly entered locker #23 and promptly closed the rolling hatch of corrugated galvanized steel behind them. The duo fired up an iPhone torch and began to zig-zag around obstacles in the dark toward the back wall where a large oak antique wardrobe loomed over the piles of packed away possessions.

Lex opened the tall creaky doors of the carved cabinet and beckoned the brunette behind her with a cordial whisper, ‘After you.’

The hesitant Agent Foxlea allowed Lex to take her by the hand and help her into the creepy confined closet, visible only by her hostess’s device light. After sealing themselves inside, the Leotard Lass stood scandalously close to the federal agent. So close in fact that they were more or less pressing their bodies against each other.

‘Hold me,’ Lex instructed, taking Foxlea’s left arm and wrapping it around her slim waist and placing her left arm over her shoulder.

‘I don’t slow dance on a first date,’ divulged the sassy, presumptuous agent, hugging her gorgeous guide and standing cheek to cheek in the cramped clothing container.

‘Oh, we’re on a date, are we?’ challenged Lex flirtingly as she placed her left hand delicately on the small of Foxlea’s back and reached up to grab the hanger rod with her right. The petite girl turned the rod toward the back of the cabinet until she heard two distinct clicks, then forward until a single click was attained.

‘Hang on, Miss First Date,’ the bodysuited beauty commanded cheekily with a gentle whisper from her soft lips against Foxlea’s ear, before giving her earlobe a playful nibble out of spite. The ambushed agent gasped at the gymnast’s jarring gesture as the section of floor beneath their feet began to buckle and slowly descend into total darkness.

As the small square elevator platform stopped several meters below the storage locker, an array of ambient luminance from an activating smart lighting system filled a vast underground bunker.

‘Holy shit,’ swore Foxlea complimentary, gawking with her mouth agape at the lavish secret lair coming into view.

‘Welcome to the Vault,’ presented Lex, showing off her semi-complete heroine hideout to her first official guest, ‘It’s a work in progress.’

The underground complex was comprised of two large twin chambers connected by a long, wide hallway with an arched ceiling.

The large room they had dropped into looked like a subterranean she-shed. Glossy hardwood floors spanned the room and continued throughout the length of the complex. Luxurious leather sectional couches gathered around a giant wall mounted TV screen and a cabinet holding a column of entertainment modules. A modern sound system was concealed in the walls and ceiling.

A beautiful, eclectic artwork collection was displayed in hand-carved frames along the walls; Renoir; Dali; Picasso; Banksy. A stylish kitchenette and bar waited to wine and dine guests in the corner. A quaint little stone fountain in the opposite corner featured a pair of chubby chiseled cherubs pouring water from a pretend pitcher into a circular pond.

The hall featured six doorways, three on either side that lead to smaller rooms of various sizes and functions; a spacious bathroom with a large walk in shower; a functional study trimmed with bookshelves, a conference table and a computer station that looked like the cockpit of a fighter jet; a service room housing a large maintenance elevator and all the pumps and pipes and panels that fed the arteries of the lair; a cute spare bedroom with bunk beds and a fooseball table; an awe inspiring primary suite with a four-post king size bed.

The final room was a walk-in wardrobe with a plethora of clothing, accessories and athletic attire including countless pairs of running shoes, heels, boots, pants, shirts, skirts, dresses, stockings, leggings, hoodies, jerseys, sports bras and hundreds of spandex leotards… a ridiculous amount of stretchy bodysuits of all shapes and styles, even by the competitive gymnast’s standards.

The Vault was completely fitted with all the essential amenities: plumbing, climate control, ventilation, internet, electricity and an industrial scale emergency power supply. By Gen-Z design it was a totally slappin’ self sufficient, stylishly sexy, secret superhero station.

‘What was this place?’ Foxlea regarded with wonderment as the girls perused down the broad hallway.

‘It was an old Cold War era bomb shelter. My boyfriend’s parents found it when they bought the storage business upstairs,’ noted Lex, running her hands over the coarse concrete walls coated with lavender paint, ‘I gave some engineering and interior design friends a blank cheque and a clean slate. I told them to have fun and get creative for me.’

‘It’s magnificent. It’s…’ Foxlea trailed off, at a loss for words, ‘The Vault?’

‘I named it after my favorite gymnastics apparatus,’ explained Lex gleaming with pride, ‘It’s where I feel the most at home when I’m competing. It’s the event that I won the majority of those.’

Lex pointed to a glass showcase lit up with a spot light on the far wall of the second twin chamber as they entered. The display case was full of trophies and ribbons… and medals; bronze, silver and gold; high school gold; State gold; National gold; World gold; Olympic gold.

The trophy case shimmered remarkably, overlooking a private gym loaded with an array of various exercise equipment, racks housing combat weaponry and stacks of tumble mats. Folded neatly on a small table was a jui jitsu gi with a coiled black belt sitting atop. Beside the garments a small bronze meditation Buddha kept watch over the dojo complacently.

Adjacent to the case loaded with priceless event hardware was a breathtaking life-size portrait of Lia Xavier in a sparkling Team USA competition leotard. The ecstatic elite athlete was standing tall and proud in perfect form on a landing mat in a packed arena with her arms raised triumphantly in the air. Her head was tilted back as her ecstatic smile shined to the heavens above. Flash bulbs were exploding around her. Semi-blurry outlines of teammates and spectators going berserk and seemingly levitating in celebration filled the background. Smokey wisps of fine chalk particles twinkled in the air around the athletic angel like magical glitter. It was the exact moment young Lia had achieved Olympic glory.

‘I’m impressed, Lia,’ shared Foxlea, soaking in the incredible achievements of this brilliant and beautiful girl. The admiring agent changed her tune and added apologetically, ‘Listen… About the way I acted earlier. I’ve underestimated you. I just want to say that I’m sorry.’

‘Deborah, I’m the one who should be apologizing,’ corrected Lex, taking the FBI agent’s hands, ‘I jeopardized all of your hard work. I put Blake and me and you in serious danger. I’m am so sorry. Please forgive me. I want to make it up to you.’

‘Maybe if we live past the full moon you can give me the deluxe tour of this place.’ suggested Foxlea forebodingly, ‘Let’s get organized and go save some girls…’

The stress of the situation was catching up with Lex. Her stomach was in knots, and her head was spinning with anxiety. Foxlea and her were about to head back into the swamps and into untold dangers. Malicious men, menacing mud and moonlit murder surely awaited them.

Lex had cranked the shower tap to extra steamy, despite the limited amount of hot water available at one time in the Vault. The scalding downpour felt soothing on her tense muscles. She relished the heat in a semi-meditative state as the rain shower head washed away the soap suds and scented shampoo from her body.

She placed one of her hands on the marble tiles and slid the other down over her dripping tummy. The soaking wet superhero gave into the urge to relieve some of her oppressive tension by touching herself in the delightful underground deluge of the walk-in shower.

Biting her lip, she stifled a moan as her frolicking fingers danced between her quivering legs. She squeezed her breast and tilted her head back, feeling an orgasm approaching like a stampede in the steam.

Suddenly, Lex was not alone.

‘Deborah!’ squeaked Lex utterly surprised, as Agent Foxlea entered the shower behind her.

‘I thought I’d cash in on some of this hot water before you spent it all,’ complained Foxlea, lathering herself up with a soapy shower puff as the jumpy gymnast looked on in petrified embarrassment. ‘What’s that look for?’ she teased her horrified hostess, ‘You’re acting like this is the first time we’ve bathed together today.’

Lex was caught totally off guard. She figured that this was payback for the flirty ear nibble on the elevator. Fair enough she thought, but she wasn’t exactly sure whether or not Foxlea had caught her masturbating.

‘What would your boyfriend think of you bringing a girl back to your secret lair?’ provoked Foxlea as she wiped the swamp stains from her skin.

‘He’d be pissed,’ returned Lex, trying to think of something witty to say to cover up her awkwardness, ‘Unless we sent him some super hot selfies.’

Her plan to ease her stress had backfired. Lex was more tense than ever. She stood silently facing the tiles. She felt like crying.

Foxlea could feel the poor girl’s anxiety radiating from her. She needed Lex to keep it together.

‘Hey, Lia,’ spoke Foxlea softly as she approached Lex from behind, ‘I know you’re scared, hun. It’s ok to be scared.’

Foxlea placed her hands on Lex’s shoulders causing her to twitch nervously. ‘It’s ok, hun,’ offered Foxlea compassionately, ‘Let me help.’

The mindful agent slowly and tenderly massaged Lex’s shoulders. The anxious girl relaxed and let her head drop as her guest kneaded her super tight muscles with her helpful hands.

The relief was intoxicating. Lex always had a problem seeking help for her anxiety. She quite often tried to stubbornly tackle it herself. It felt good to let someone help her. This time, in this place in particular the help felt really, really good.

‘You can keep going,’ suggested Foxlea, whispering in Lex’s ear as she squeezed the tension out of her upper arms.

‘Wh..What?’ asked a puzzled Lex, trying to meditate with her eyes closed as hot water and healing hands caressed her body.

‘You can finish touching yourself,’ clarified Foxlea, taking her turn to teasingly nibble an earlobe, ‘You need it.’

The bathing blonde Olympian would have normally been appalled at such an overt invitation. While she struggled with the temptation, Foxlea’s hands had journeyed down and around, and were gently feeling Lex’s shower soaked breasts. The sweet sensation of soft kisses traveling down her neck finally helped Lex make her decision. She took one of Foxlea’s hands from her chest and guided it down with her own to her begging vagina…

-Undertaking-

The bland looking, rectangular structure covered in moss and vines was as uninviting as it was unappealing. It looked more like a box than a building, lacking much in the way of having very many windows or doors or any distinguishable trim or trademark masonry.

‘What is it?’ inquired Lex, hiding in the bushes with Agent Foxlea as they spied on the decrepit looking brick bayou building from the thick Atchafalaya swamp foliage.

‘It’s an old levee pump station,’ answered Foxlea, wondering concernedly about the lack of activity surrounding Madre Terra’s makeshift holding house. It was fittingly code named with the uninteresting moniker “Pump House.” ‘There’s nobody home,’ assumed the observing agent.

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ guessed Lex, her hair tied in a messy bun and prowling pretty in a shiny pink and white spandex prototype LSU gymnastics suit.

‘No goons means no girls,’ frowned Foxlea, impatiently glancing at her watch in the early hours of the Summer Soltice, ‘Maybe they’ve already moved them to the Manse.’

The “Pump House” and “Manse” were two pieces of Louisiana real estate acquired by Madre Terra. Agent Foxlea’s investigations had determined that the Pump House was where newly vetted migrants were being held before their captors dispatched them to confinement or customers. The recently acquired Manse was assumed to be Madre Terra’s brand new headquarters. On full moons and solstices, both locations were rumored to host the death cult’s ritual killings.

‘Let’s check it out,’ suggested Lex, chomping at the bit.

‘Wait,’ stalled Foxlea, crouching in the brush wearing a borrowed, all-black ensemble comprised of a zipper hoodie, a spandex sports bra and biking shorts combo with a pair of 14-hole mid calf Dr. Martens boots from Lex’s wardrobe.

Foxlea tried to understand Lex’s attraction to simple spandex as a chosen uniform. She found the tight fit of her own selection made her feel more loose and dexterous, but like her undercover cheerleader garbs it lacked tactical appeal.

She stared astonishingly for a moment at the “Supergirl” beside her and marveled at how when she had slipped into a spandex bodysuit it had seemingly flicked some sort of switch. With the simple act of putting on a thin, elastic leotard Lex had gotten into “the zone.” She had become completely focused and fearless. Spandex seemed to transform the anxious, hesitant hero into a confident, strong superheroine.

‘I’ll go,’ offered Foxlea, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder and preparing for a solo storming of the Pump House, ‘One of us needs to stay here and wait for the calvary.’

‘It’s your backup, Deborah,’ mentioned Lex, bravely taking charge, ‘You wait for your guys and I’ll go look for my girl.’

Before Foxlea could interject, Lex was leaping out of the marshy undergrowth and prancing toward the spooky swamp structure.

‘Hey Lia,’ Foxlea quietly called to her courageous counterpart, ‘My friends call me Fox. I’d like it if you called me that too.’

The smiling superheroine briefly returned to crouch down and touch Foxlea’s face. ‘I never thanked you for saving me, Fox,’ she whispered, grinning mischievously at the agent before sneakily kissing her on the cheek and jumping back up onto her pink runners. Before the daring Leotard Lass turned to run into unknown peril, she pirouetted and gave a darling little leg kick while requesting, ‘My friends call me Lex, please and thank you.’

Foxlea was smitten. This sweet girl she had pledged her loyalty to several years before even meeting her had blown the FBI agent away with her spunk, her sexiness and her sincerity. She adored Lex. Ever since the ambitious agent had taken on the alpha athlete’s case she had secretly worshipped her.

Daydreaming about helping super sensual Lex to relax and release down in the Vault’s shower, “Fox” failed to notice the pair of shadows creeping up behind her in the bayou bushes. The click of a cocking hammer caused her to freeze on the spot. Before Fox could face her foes, two towering men had man-handled and muzzled the overpowered agent and dragged her into the darkness…

Passing on the chance to use the front door, Lex utilized a branchy cypress tree to skillfully climb up to the second storey of the Pump House. Jimmying a small square window, the intruding athlete slinked into the brick behemoth and snuck carefully around the wobbly wooden floor of the building’s upper level.

The poorly lit second floor hallway went around the outside wall, with all of its rooms located in the center of the structure. Each windowless room featured iron barred doors. ‘Holding cells,’ Lex whispered to herself, observing that they were also, ‘All empty.’

The sneaking superheroine could hear the faint sound of female whimpers echoing through the corridor. The cries became more audible the closer Lex got to the staircase leading to the first floor.

Slowly and silently, the spandex snoop tip toed down the long sketchy staircase to the large, open space making up most of the main level. Lex winced as squeaks and groans from the creaky wooden steps sliced noisily through the silence.

The center of the floor featured eight large square pits in two rows of four. Each room-sized hollow was lined with bricks and dropped down roughly nine or ten feet to a sandy bottom. Hand wheels and valves along the outer walls were attached to dozens of pipes that snaked their way under the bricked catwalks around every cube shaped cavity.

Lex was drawn to a particular pit where the quiet sobbing was emanating. Her eyes met those of a young lady curled up in a corner weeping into her knees, and rubbing what appeared to be a sprained ankle. ‘Ayúdeme! Por favor!’ meekly cried the lovely Latina girl with pretty legs in a floral printed dress and strapped sandals upon seeing Lex peeking over the pit.

‘Shh!’ shushed the Leotard Lass leaning over the hole with her finger to her lips, ‘I’m going to help you. Just stay still and be quiet.’ Another pit close by began to emit the sad sound of another anguished girl. Then a third. Then a fourth. The helpful heroine was going to need time to rescue all of these girls.

Time was something Spandex Lex was about to run out of. As she rose to search the dark building for a rope or a ladder or something to help extract the trapped women, the hairs on her neck stood on end. Her old familiar intuition was tingling again.

As she was about to turn around two unseen hands pushed the wary athlete aggressively on her shoulder blades. The shove sent her tumbling down into one of the deep vacant spaces.

‘UGH!’ coughed Lex as she landed feet first on the granular ground, tucking and rolling out to dissipate the impact of the landing. The shanghaied heroine sat in the sand and glared up at three stealthy silhouettes of men in hooded robes glaring down facelessly and silent into the pit. Without a word, they turned away in unison and disappeared.

Lex scurried to a corner to try and scale the bricks. She figured with the right momentum and footing she could launch herself up to the lip of the pit.

She ran clumsily though the loose sand at the corner, planting one leg on the wall before pushing off and up. The leaping lady in lycra was mere inches from successfully grabbing the top. After a few attempts, Lex took a break to recharge her powerful legs.

The flicker of torches appeared and grew brighter from somewhere in the distance. Shadows of several sauntering hooded figures could be seen crawling along the walls and ceiling above. The sounds of the moans and whimpers from the other subterranean cells also grew as the hooded procession surrounded the pit next to Lex. Eight men stood spread out around the square opening, each with a torch, each standing completely still and silent. One of the hoods set up a spot light and a tripod with a video camera pointed into the space below where the whimpering woman awaited her fate.

Lex could hear the girl begging for her life in Spanish as one of the hooded goons raised his arms and spoke. His words sent a chill down Lex’s spine. She had heard those exact words three years earlier from the murderous rapist that abducted her and tried to kill her in this very same swamp.

‘Daugher of man, behold your deliverance! Returneth thee into the Mouth of the Mother!’ recited the menacing monk-like figure to the helpless girl below him. Lex could almost feel the fear and uncertainty of the girl in the next pen. Her own anxiety was seething after hearing those words because unlike the girl in the flower dress, Lex knew exactly what was coming next.

The sound of a squeaky hand wheel rotating a quarter turn at a time filled the first floor of the Pump House. The ear piercing screeches were followed by the sound of huge volumes of fast moving water rushing through the large pipes that networked throughout and under the building. The brick walls themselves shook as a terrible torrent of liquid flowed fiercely somewhere below the pits.

Suddenly the weepy pleading of the girl on the other side of the bricks from Lex turned into blood curdling screams. The unpleasant sound of gushing and splattering mixed like an eerie orchestra with the horrified shrieking of the damsel who was in undeniable danger.

‘Oh Mother, oh Mother! Accept this offering. May your gullet be sated. May you be nourished by the fair flesh of this precious child.’ chanted the procession leader, with his arms still raised and the loose sleeves of his robe hanging down resembling the bat-like wings of a demon.

The girl was hysterical. She was begging desperately for mercy between screams of absolute horror. The other captives prayed and cried aloud for the tortured girl and themselves from within their subterranean prisons. No one would answer.

Lex tried intently to scale the corner again. When she finally got a finger hold on the edge her hands were met with a wicked stomp from a staff being held by a stocky robed thug. Back down into the pit Spandex Lex fell, before rubbing her sore fingers and leering up loathingly at the Madre Terra monster who had thwarted her escape.

The damsel next door let out one last long wail of despair before the sound of her plight ceased instantly, and permanently. Then there was only terrible, heartbreaking silence from the adjacent pit. The only sounds in the building were the quiet, mournful cries and sniffles of the remaining girls in the other holding pens. The lovely Latina girl was gone.

The hooded cultist procession had already begun to surround the pit where Lex was trapped. The held heroine glared angrily at the Madre Terra terrorists as they took their places, standing silent and still above her. An activated spot light and the tiny red light of the video camera signaled that evidence of what was about to happen was being recorded. The lead hood raised his arms and began to spout his sacrificial sentencing, ‘Daughter of m…’

‘Oh shut the hell up and get on with it,’ hollered Lex, cutting the man off before he could finish his incantation. The hooded men were aghast. The spandexed superheroine was terrified, but she refused to give Madre Terra the satisfaction of another sweet sounding fearful female begging for mercy. She spat disgustedly at her captors. They seemed to not know how to continue. Lex thought perhaps it was the fear, not the fatality they craved when they killed.

The face off was interrupted by the sound of a gun shot outside. The startling crack of a pistol was followed by shouting and several more guns dispatching multiple rounds.

The robed procession scrambled. Their hoods went flying off as the panicking men scattered in every direction.

‘The Calvary,’ whispered Lex with a smile. Agent Foxlea’s backup had arrived by the sounds of things. The front door burst open. Rifle mounted searchlights sliced through the hazy air like light sabers. Deafening gun shots filled the air.

The lead Madre Terra monk remained, spitefully staring at Lex. She could feel his resentful eyes like lasers on her even without being able to see them. He motioned for an unseen accomplice with a spiraling finger gesture before turning to sprint out of sight.

Even under the shooting and shouting of FBI agents and retreating Madre Terra thugs Lex could still hear the sinister squeaking of the turning hand wheel. She could sense the walls rumbling as a tsunami of water blasted through the pipes leading under her pit trap. She could feel the ground beneath her heaving upward several feet as the sand she was standing on became unstable and saturated. She feared as her fit, gymnast legs began to sink that before the hellish hoods fled they had turned the silty floor beneath her into quicksand.

The man-made mire had the consistency of gooey peanut butter, to the dismay of the sinking superheroine trapped in it. It looked and felt almost solid, but the moment Lex struggled the quicksand became fluid and swallowed more of her toned, athletic legs. The suction of the sandy soup was too thick to escape, too syrupy to stay above. The helpless heroine pumped and pulled her strong thighs desperately but the viscous goo only slurped them deeper and deeper.

‘Uhn! Inescapable ooze!’ moaned the Leotard Lass as the sucking sand in the pit steadily devoured her.

The gun battle had moved outdoors. For a moment it seemed as though there was no one in the building besides the drowning damsel and a handful of crying captives in their respective containers. Then shadows and shapes randomly raced around the pit catwalks above. Were they federal agents? Madre Terra goons? Escaping prisoners? It was impossible to tell in the poorly lit Pump House against the glare of the spot light.

Quicksand seeped up and over the trapped heroine’s heaving hips and poured in like concrete around her slender waist. There was no way she was getting out of that goop on her own. She needed assistance, and fast. Surely Fox had told her reinforcements that she was in here, assumed the sinking spandex superstar.

‘Help!’ Lex cried out urgently. The sticky sand was relentlessly climbing up her mid section and was beginning to slurp at the stretchy fabric clinging to her breasts. If someone didn’t take notice of her soon it would be too late to rescue her, ‘Somebody?! Please HELP! I’M SINKING!’

Lex tried to stay calm, slow her breathing and slow her descent into doom. All she could do was remain still and hope, while her body slipped ever deeper into the perilous Pump House “peanut butter.”

‘Hurry Fox,’ prayed Spandex Lex, waiting desperately for her pretty partner to arrive and save her from being indubitably swallowed by the merciless, sacrificial quicksand, ‘I need your helping hands again…’

[cerberus]

Oh dear, stuck and in need of help again. She hasn't got this superhero thing sussed yet, it's not the superhero that should need rescuing all the time. Still, hopefully she'll keep working on it for our entertainment.

[Jinn]

Oh dear, stuck and in need of help again. She hasn't got this superhero thing sussed yet, it's not the superhero that should need rescuing all the time. Still, hopefully she'll keep working on it for our entertainment.

Lex is kind a a misfit. No powers, no plan, no process. She’s still young and naive as hell. She has deep rooted trauma-induced mental health issues. She’s sort of bumbling and stumbling (quite literally) through the thick of it. She makes poor choices based on unchecked emotions and she finds herself (quite literally) in over her head on occasion. Lex is a mess.

All she really has in her superheroine repertoire besides incredible athletic prowess is blind ambition, a sprinkle of luck and a closet full of skin-tight bodysuits. I don’t know if that’s all Spandex Lex needs to win against a deranged enemy whose primary weapon is quicksand, but it’s going to be extremely fun watching her try (and get stuck failing).

Thanks for taking a ride. Next stop: Part III.

[65sinking]

Another great story!

I'm hoping that Foxlea will also spend some time in the quicksand. She would make a great ally for young, naive Lex. Someone with lot more experience and the backup to deal with bad guys, who can provide Lex with intel, and giving her the chance to grow in her role as a vigilante superhero. Something like Jim Gordon to Batman.

Also, RIP to the poor Latina girl, we barely knew you.

Looking forward to the next thrilling chapter!