Chapter 4. In which our heroine cleans the place up a bit

Cynthia woke up at about quarter past noon and promptly launched herself into the bedroom ceiling. You see, when she awoke on the floor beside the wreckage of her bed, she found herself head down, ass up, arms stretched before her. I had something to do with that. While she was sleeping I kept planting “seed feelings” in her body that made her feel uncomfortable in whatever position she was in. Quite unconsciously I slowly “herded” her into her posture of supplication. Of course, finding herself in that position when she awoke scared the living fuck out of her. Hence the drywall and carpentry damage.

She tried to shake it off and start her day, but now she had a bigger problem. Shortly after she turned on the shower, she heard the water trickling down the drain and began to shiver uncontrollably. It sounded too much like the water hose and drain in my training room. She couldn’t do it. So she plugged the drain and ran a bath instead.

«I’d rather have a bath anyway, » she rationalized, «I need something to soothe my nerves»

Even so, her whole body trembled again as she tried to wash her face. She couldn’t quite bring herself to put the soapy washcloth over her nose and mouth. So she soaped up her hands and washed her face that way. She was barely able to steel herself to splash water onto her face to rinse the soap off, but somehow she did it. She solved the problem of toweling her face and hair by squeezing the water out of her hair by hand. Blow-drying her wet face and damp hair this way hardly took any longer than before her irrational fear of towels.

She got dressed, fixed herself a late brunch, and tried to figure out what she was going to do about her wrecked bed. It was not just a matter of cleaning up. She was wondering whether she should replace the bed at all. Whatever madness was possessing her at night was clearly not going to change anytime soon. Why bother to replace it if she was just going to wreck it again?

Living without a bed would certainly not be a hardship for Cynthia. For centuries as an Amazon Warrior, long before she came to “Man’s World”, she frequently found it necessary to “sleep rough” in the field, on hard, lumpy ground. A nice soft carpeted floor would really not be a problem at all. So, no bed then.

All that remained, then, was to take care of the broken bed and ceiling. After backing her car out of the garage, she laid down a large tarp on the garage floor. Then at super-speed she ferried down heaps of wreckage onto the tarp. It still took her several minutes and then she still had to spend time vacuuming up splinters and bits of dry wall.

Done at last with the cleanup she changed into her Majestic Woman uniform, grabbed the corners of the tarp, and flew out of the open garage as fast as she could, hoping that no one saw her. Off to the nearest landfill, where she gladly dumped the whole mess, quite anonymously.

And now what about the rest of the day? Though she was already dressed for action, the thought of going on patrol filled her with dread. So she thought of a compromise.

«I still have the Betelgeusean invasion defense plan to finish».

She sat down to work on her report. Greased Lightning and Magic Lamp both had sent feedback on her preliminary analysis. She incorporated what she could into her defense plan. After another review of Power Man’s reconnaissance report, she was still quite certain that the Betelgeuseans had made a fatal error. It was clear that that Empire’s leadership was not what it had once been.

«I wonder if we could create some kind of rebellion? Something to make them too busy to come after us maybe? Something that might even topple the Empire?»

But she decided against it.

«We had best just mobilize for the attack. After we beat their asses we can see about creating an insurgency.»

So she finished up and fired off her recommendations to the executive team. She’d done good work and she knew it.

Now she had time to cook and enjoy a leisurely dinner, and time to be alone with her thoughts. Her thoughts scared her. She hardly recognized herself in the abused, submissive woman she remembered from her dreams. Lucid, horrifying, humiliating dreams two nights in a row. And yet her clearest memory from each dream was the overwhelming desire she felt for her abuser, the pleasure she felt when she submitted to his control, and the earth-shaking orgasms he gave her.

Last night’s anal rape had been horribly painful, and it seemed to go on forever. But at the end — with no sexual pleasure involved at all — she still had the most powerful orgasm of her life.

«I don’t know what’s going on with me. But these dreams are going to drive me crazy.»

This idea of submission had once seemed so foreign to her, but she had lived in “Man’s World” long enough now that she had seen it happen many times. Women giving up their independence, their careers, their very lives at the behest of some man. Until now she had never understood the reason for, the attraction of, submitting to another’s will. Even now she couldn’t understand why her dreams were doing this to her.

«It just doesn’t make any sense! Have I been outside the Queendom too long? Am I starting to “go native”?»

Her commitment to the mission of the Gods was undiminished. And she was doing good. She was making an impact. Even though no one here worshipped the ancient Olympian Gods, not even her closest friends, her fellow “heroes”, she knew the Gods must be pleased with her. She was certain that she was responsible for at least some of the change in the status of women in Western society. Sure, most Western women already had the right to vote before she came on the scene during World War II. And sure, even during the war, women in traditional male jobs, “Rosie the Riveter”, were ultimately a bigger boost to Women’s rights than even the newsreels of the Allies’ “Star-Spangled Warrior Princess” beating back hoards of Nazis with her bare fists. But she certainly believed that she was serving as a role model for women who wanted to live without a patriarch, for women that wanted to own a business, for women who wanted to run for public office, or even to serve, and bleed, and fight, and die for their country. No, if these nightmares were a message from the Gods, the message was not that they were displeased with her. She was certain.

She did believe more and more that these dreams were some sort of message from the Gods. She knew what modern science thought of dreams; she was neither stupid nor uneducated. But she also knew — in much the same way that the best scientists knew — that scientists didn’t know everything. Scientists couldn’t even explain the most central facts of her life: her two-plus millennia of youthful existence, her strength, her speed, her invulnerability, her ability to fly. The Gifts of the Gods, gifts given so that she might serve humanity.

So, were these dreams another gift? If so they were the strangest gift yet. Various of the gods who had given her her powers had been ascendant at one time or another in her life. In her youth Hermes had seemed to be the one guiding her actions; her young life over two millennia ago had been a thrilling blur. Then her first adult independence was guided by Artemis, who taught her to love nature even as she guided the arrows into her prey. Later her thirst for knowledge caused her to pray to Athena. And when she saw her citizen’s duty and took up arms to defend the Queendom, Athena continued to guide both her strong right arm and her tactical and strategic mind. And now, in her mission to serve the gods in Man’s World, strong and fierce Hera, Queen of the Gods, seemed the ever-present guidepost of her life.

«Maybe the time has come for Aphrodite to take center stage in my life.»

When Mamá used to tell her of the Gods’ attendance at her birth, of the original set of gifts they had bestowed upon Mamá’s “Child of Destiny”, she always said that the gift of Aphrodite had been “great compassion and beauty”. «But isn’t she the goddess of beauty ... and love? ... Sexual love? And yet if these dreams were sent to teach me about love, then they are strange lessons indeed. They were nothing like my imaginings about romance. But what would I know about that? To live as an Amazon is to live a life devoid of romance. Ha! Unless you’re a lesbian!»

Even counting her brief entanglement with Simon, she could only measure her total romantic experience with men in terms of hours.

But how could these dreams be lessons about love? In spite of her dream yearnings for her cruel “Lord”, he had made it abundantly clear that he despised her “love”. Strange, harsh lessons, if lessons they were at all. «Is Aphrodite trying to teach me that love is cruel? That there is a purpose in submissiveness? Or is it just that two-plus millennia of a near-absolutely sexless life a were finally driving me mad?»

As Cynthia tortured herself for religious significance in her life’s latest plot twist, I almost wanted to help her. “Your Gods are not gods,” I might say. “They are real; they exist; they are powerful beyond belief. But they have not been here forever. Far from it! They certainly are not creators of the universe, they are not here to shepherd and edify humanity, and they are definitely not unkillable.

“Your ‘Gods’ do have a purpose for you, and they have given you — and to a lesser extent your sister Amazons — incredible powers. But knowing your ‘Gods’ as I do, I am certain that their purpose is not the purpose they told you. Their purpose in empowering you is not altruistic. Their purpose is not to benefit you or humanity. I half-suspect their purpose is to put up a front that helps ensure their survival. I half-suspect that their purpose is to flush me out, to get me to expose myself, perhaps to destroy me, although they truly have no idea who or what I am.

“Moreover, dear Cynthia, you are being taught lessons, but not by your ‘gods’. The being giving you these lessons is much much older than your ‘gods’. Or at least older than their presence on planet Earth. My lessons are designed to mold you into an image that I desire, for my purpose, not yours. And certainly not for your benefit. I will turn you into my obedient slave, both in your dreams and in real life. And in the process, I will turn you from their tool into my tool. My tool to use against them. But that, Cynthia dear, is a labor for another day. We have a long, long time to become acquainted with each other before then.”

But Cynthia had heard not one bit of my little soliloquy, and so she spent the evening in fervent prayer. To Aphrodite, she prayed to understand her sexy, submissive, horrifying dreams. And then through her regular prayer litany: to Hera for strength, to Athena for wisdom, et cetera, et cetera.

The end of the day eventually came, and she tried to ready herself for her ordeal. It had been a strange day. She had not checked radio, TV, or internet for news of crime or disaster. Her Legion of Heroes communicator had sat with her cell phone all day, both untouched. She had not turned on her police scanner. She hadn’t even checked her email since sending out her Betelgeusean threat assessment. Almost her whole day, short as it was, had been consumed with the aftermath and anticipation of her suddenly potent sleep time.

And now it was time to sleep again.

«Will I resist him this time?» she wondered, «What is the point of resisting? In my dream, I am powerless in every way. Resistance only brings me sorrow, yearning, fear, and pain. But who am I if I am not strong? Will I become the kind of wretched ‘victim’ that I have always despised? I have already become that wretch anyway, on both occasions. And I loved it!»

«Perhaps the ‘military science’ approach is right after all.» A strange thought in the context of “dreams”, so perhaps I should explain. After she came to Man’s World, as a former military leader herself, she became fascinated with the follies and wisdom of Man’s World’s various military forces. One of the recent tenets of the American military was that, for a prisoner of war, complete resistance of one’s captors was actually counterproductive. Fighting the torture, so the reasoning went, would actually make a prisoner “break” sooner and more completely. The US military actually taught their soldiers, sailors, and airmen to pursue a bend-but-don’t-break strategy when taken prisoner.

Cynthia had always been skeptical of such an approach «Small compromises are the cracks in which large capitulations grow!», but now, at this late stage of her long life, she was gaining undesired experience at just how powerless “powerless” really is.

«Maybe they are right after all. My resistance thus far has certainly “been futile”, » she smirked, «Maybe cooperation might work better?»

Excellent idea, Cynthia. We would soon see how that would work out for her.

I could hardly wait for Cynthia to fall asleep. Shortly after midnight, more than an hour after lying down naked on her bedroom floor, she finally nodded off. Her dreams were the usual hodgepodge, and I was still waiting for my moment. In one strange scene, I was naked and prostrate before her, but I begged to serve her in her voice, and she commanded me to fuck her in my voice. I almost took that one but decided to let it slide. Wrong image.

Scene after scene slid by. Betegeusean triumvirate as the Three Stooges. Power Man and Greased Lighting in flagrante delicto (Power Man, oddly, on the receiving end). Yadda, yadda, yadda. Soon a historical scene, a story from her mother’s knee about how Heracles had conquered and enslaved the Amazons. She saw her mother, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, naked and prostrate before Heracles, head down, ass up, arms outstretched, begging in Cynthia’s voice, “How may I serve you, My Lord?”.

Now was the time.

In the penthouse, Cynthia lay before me. As she awakened, she began to leave her pose, but then she froze as my musk permeated her rousing mind. She hesitated and then decided. Resuming the pose of perfect submission, she humbly entreated me, “How may I serve you, my Lord?” Good. Very good. Let the games begin.

“Not now, baby bitch, I’m busy,” I murmured, not unkindly.

She didn’t know what to do! «He’s busy? Too busy to be fucking slaved over? “Discipline”» She visibly flinched as I dropped the seed, but then calmed herself, «No. No. Wrong attitude.».

In the absence of any command, it seemed to her that the safest thing to do was to stay put, so she did: head down, ass up, arms outstretched, awaiting the pleasure of her Lord. But her yearning for me was a tsunami pounding her shore. She felt the dripping wetness of her snatch, the hardness of her nipples rubbing the floor. In spite of herself, she began to squirm. She risked a furtive glance up. I was on the couch staring at my laptop on the coffee table, brow furrowed in concentration. The sight of me, combined with the smell, was like a drug to her. Involuntarily her pussy clenched, her nipples became even harder; they began to hurt. She wanted to leap up and ravish me, but she couldn’t. Even so, she knew she was going to go crazy if she lay prostrate much longer.