Chapter 3

SG remained at Toopermann's house for over a month. Her roommate and her classmates and teachers were told she had returned home for emotional reasons. It hadn't yet been determined if she would return to Marston, but if she did, it certainly wouldn't be this semester.

At the cottage, SG had become Regina's sex toy. When Toopermann was at work, the big woman made her wear a dog's collar and leash. When SG least expected it, she would jerk the leash and send her tumbling to the floor. Then she would pounce on her with surprising alacrity for someone so big and jam something, usually a food item, into the girl's rectum or vagina.

When she went shopping, she would tie SG's wrists behind her, slip the rope through her collar and tie it to a steel hook bolted into the ceiling of the broom closet just off the kitchen.

It was while she was in the closet that a revelation came to SG. She saw a bright cloud, and in the cloud was a female form more beautiful than any she had ever seen.

A voice came from the cloud. "Be strong, Supergirl. Be strong in spirit, and you will again be strong in body. Your weakness is your sexual craving, your lust to be humiliated. You have indulged it to your peril. If you are to live, if you are to have a life worth living, you must regain your dignity."

SG wept. She wanted to hear these words, yet she was afraid. Did she have the strength of character to pull herself out of his slough of degradation?

She heard the back door open and close, and Regina's heavy footsteps in the kitchen. Then there was the sound of packages being put on the pantry shelves. The refrigerator door opened and closed. Regina was putting away groceries.

Then the steps approached the closet. SG took a deep breath.

The door opened and light flooded in, momentarily blinding SG.

"Hello, dearie," said Regina. "Had a nice rest?"

She unhooked the rope from the hook and slipped her thumb under SG's collar. "Come along, then," she said, dragging her out of the closet.

As soon as Regina untied her wrists, SG struck. She punched the older woman in the belly, as hard as she could.

Regina gave her a look of rage and surprise, then crumpled to her knees.

"Party time's over, bitch," said SG. She grabbed a cantaloupe from the kitchen table and slammed it into Regina's face.

SG pulled off the collar and threw it across the room.

She wasn't sure what she would do with her new freedom, but she knew she'd need clothes and money. She found nearly $50 in Regina's purse. That was a good start.

Clothes were more difficult. All the stuff in Toopermann's and Regina's bedrooms was the wrong size -- and incredibly ugly. Finally, she found a grey trench coat in a closet. She'd just wear that over her nakedness.

As she walked back into the kitchen, Regina jumped her from behind and tried to plunge a carving knife into her belly. The blade cut through the trench coat but not her skin.

"That hurt," she said angrily. She flipped Regina over her shoulder, and the big woman landed with a resounding crash on the kitchen floor.

The good news was that, for all the damage that had been done to her emotionally, her body remained as resilient as ever. Still, the jab of the knife had hurt. Until a few weeks ago, she had never felt intense pain.

Or intense pleasure, for that matter.

She opened the front door and looked around. A retired professor she had seen around campus was walking his dog. He nodded to SG. She waved vaguely and waited until he had passed.

Where should she go? She knew she wanted to expose Toopermann and Regina for the sadists that they were, but that would almost surely involve blowing her cover. She also wanted to get even with Louie and his friends.

An opportunity to that came much sooner than she had expected. As she crossed the street that separated the cluster of faculty housing from the main campus, a Chevy convertible raced past. There was a screeching of brakes, and the car suddenly was in reverse. It stopped where she had just crossed.

Louie was driving. Three of his buddies were also in the car.

"Haven't seen you in a coon's age, Blondie," Louie called. He jumped out of the car and walked over to her, rubbing his hands together with anticipation. "Where you been keeping your lovely self?"

"Hi, Louie," SG said calmly.

His friends placed themselves around her, cutting off any possible escape.

"You remember Tom, here, and Buddy and Jim?" said Louie. "They certainly remember you. They helped fuck the hell out of you in the locker room."

"Yeah, I remember them," said SG. "But we're not in the locker room now. You wouldn't think of trying to fuck me here."

"You're right about that," said Louie. "But I got this fine car here, and we can take you someplace secluded. You know you want more of what we've got." He grinned wickedly.

"Go fuck yourself," SG said softly.

"What'd you say?" asked Louie, with a puzzled frown.

One of his friends grabbed SG's arm from behind. She broke free and wheeled to face him.

"Fuck off," she hissed.

Now Louie did the grabbling. He locked his big left forearm across her throat, as he had in the malt shop, and he reached down and began roughly fondling her crotch.

"Hell, we'll warm you up and fuck you right here on your own campus, bitch. Ain't nobody going to touch me, cuz I'm fucking untouchable."

SG breathed deeply. A wave of sexual desire had swept across her, a desire to be raped and humiliated. She had to resist.

She reached down and took Louie's huge hand in both of hers.

"That's it, bitch, guide me in," he whispered.

Then his whisper turned into a scream of pain. SG had crushed his right hand with a grip as powerful as an industrial vise.

Louie pulled away and fell to the ground, holding his right wrist in his left hand and groaning in agony.

The others looked at him, startled and unsure what to do. Then one threw a wild, angry punch at SG. She deflected it with her left hand and hit him in the side with her right. He gasped and fell to his knees.

The other two jumped her and knocked her down. One sat on her chest and tried to press her arms to the ground. Her legs were spread, and the other kicked her hard in the crotch. The pain took her breath away.

That was the break they needed. In an instant, both were on their feet, stomping her defenseless body. She curled up on her side to protect herself, but that just exposed her kidneys to vicious kicks.

A crowd had gathered, and Marston girls and faculty members were screaming at the men to stop -- to no avail.

One of the men leaned down and pulled SG's now naked body off the ground. He held her while the other pounded her belly with his fists.

Louie had recovered enough to stagger over to them. His face was full of pain and rage.

"You broke my hand, bitch," he croaked. He held up his hand, now swollen and red. SG raised her head and tried to focus on him. She was seeing double, and she felt dizzy and nauseous.

Then someone broke out of the crowd and lunged toward the men. It was Estelle. She had just arrived and had seen her friend absorbing a terrible beating.

She tried to push Louie aside, but he grabbed her by the throat with his left hand and kneed her in the groin. She moaned and sank to her knees. Then he kicked her in the face, and she plunged backward to the ground, blood spurting from her mouth and nose.

SG struggled to free herself and help Estelle. But the man holding her tightened his grip, and the other began pounding her with renewed fury. Her head snapped back and forth from his punches. The crowd surged forward, and Marston women began pulling at the men, holding their arms and clawing at their faces.

Finally, sirens overwhelmed the cacophony of the crowd, and the police pushed in. A captain in charge took one look at the situation -- two women badly beaten and a crowd of witnesses -- and decided that he and his men could no longer protect Louie Ungtjur from the consequences of his thuggishness, uncles or no uncles.

An ambulance arrived just as Louie and his friends were being handcuffed. Louie begged them to be careful of his injured hand, but the captain took on the task personally and managed to be unusually rough. Louie screamed, cursed and, to his enormous shame, wept.

The ambulance crew moved Estelle gently onto a stretcher. SG insisted on walking, though she was wobbly and obviously dazed. The amazing thing, the ambulance crew and many in the crowd noticed, was that she hadn't shed a drop of blood, despite the terrible beating she had absorbed.

--

The meeting, organized via phone by Dean Toopermann and Oscar Ungtjur, was held that evening in the board room of the Lackanooka National Bank. The topic, of course, was what to do with "Sallie Gale."

Though Toopermann and Ungtjur had only a nodding acquaintance and didn't particularly like one another, they recognized that they shared an urgent need to get rid of this troublesome young woman. Louie's Uncle Smithson, the country commissioner, was there, too — along with the police chief, the local circuit court judge and an emissary from Metropolis who owned a paving firm in Lackanooka. The firm had several country contracts and was useful for laundering money generated by less reputable business operations in the big city.

"Let's get right to the point," said Ungtjur. "This Sallie Gale, or whatever her name is, has created a difficult situation. Miss Toopermann has been reluctant to discuss her reasons for wanting to eliminate this problem, and I respect her wishes to keep whatever it is that bothers her confidential. But let me be perfectly frank about myself. The young woman has injured my nephew Louie, physically, and has hurt his reputation. Louie is not a bad boy. Just a bit rambunctious."

"She ain't been good for my reputation and the reputation of my force either," said the police chief.

"And I don't relish having to deal with the charges and countercharges arising from this afternoon's fracas," said the judge. "If I don't dismiss the laughable assertion that Miss Gale and her friend initiated the assault on your nephew and his buddies, I can forget about re-election — no matter how much you and the bank invest in my campaign."

"I understand," said Ungtjur. "So we all have our reasons for wanting Miss Gale to disappear. The problem is, how do we go about it? The doctor in the emergency room says that the other girl, Estelle Baroque, suffered several broken bones and lost a few teeth, but our remarkable Miss Gale suffered no visible injuries. And X-rays showed no bone fractures. Yet Miss Gale was much more severely beaten." He paused, momentarily flustered. "Beaten as a result of her unprovoked attack on my nephew, of course."

"Of course," said Toopermann, with a wry smile. "I can't believe I find myself in the same camp as your nephew, Mr. Ungtjur, but war creates strange alliances, and this is war. Miss Gale is a formidable enemy. While she does not appear to have super powers at anywhere near the level of Superman, I believe she was telling the truth when she said she was sent here by him. And I believe we cannot do her serious and permanent harm by the usual means. I can testify that what would kill a normal girl -- or even a normal very strong man -- is not going to work for her."

"I think I know what will," said Silvio Mozzarella, the road contractor. He spoke quietly but with authority.

"Miss Gale, as you call her, was not exaggerating when she said she has superhuman powers," he continued. "We know her. We've had unfortunate dealings with her in Metropolis. And we know that Superman sent her here."

"To break up a minor drug ring?" Toopermann asked skeptically.

"To get her out of Metropolis," answered Mozzarella.

"Why?"

"She was getting a lot of attention in the newspapers," Mozzarella said with a shrug. "It makes sense that Superman was jealous. She's just a kid, but she was putting almost as many of my associates behind bars as he was. And she pulled off some pretty spectacular rescues, like saving an entire village full of people from that volcano in Nicaragua."

"An intriguing theory," said Toopermann. "Now, let me suggest another, based on my academic training in psychology and long years of watching interactions between men and women. I think Superman wanted to get this young woman far away from him because she presented a sexual temptation he found very difficult to resist. What I learned about Miss Gale during my evening of interrogation suggests that she is, quite simply, a nymphomaniac, with a predilection for situations in which she is powerless and vulnerable. I would not be surprised if she seduced Superman and was sent here as punishment."

"That's all well and good," said Ungtjur impatiently. "But I'm less interested in Superman and his motives than in how to get rid of this bitch. Pardon my French."

Toopermann chuckled. "You think I don't use such language myself, Mr. Ungtjur. Yes, she is a bitch. She roughed up my sister this morning, in my very own house. But excuse me. I believe we interrupted Mr. Mozzarella and his thoughts on how to eliminate this 'bitch' of a problem."

"Yes," said Mozzarella. "Well, eliminating her permanently — killing her — is beyond the capabilities of my organization, at least for the moment. But we know how to incapacitate her for a long, long while. And maybe while she's out of commission, we will develop the means of finishing her off — her and Superman."

"And what is this incapacitating agent?" asked Ungtjur.

"Kryptonite," answered Mozzarella.

Toopermann snorted derisively. "You sound like a comic book villain, Mr. Mozzarella. My area of expertise is psychology, not chemistry. But I've studied the physical sciences enough to know that krypton is an inert gas, and you cannot make a mineral out of something inert."

"Maybe you should stick to her area of expertise," Mozzarella said icily. "You are incorrect when you say krypton is inert. Three labs in America have found ways to coax it into combining with other elements. One of those labs is owned and operated by my business associates in Metropolis. And as for the efficacy of our kryptonite, let me simply point out that it has several times been used to foil and temporarily disable Superman."

"I stand corrected," Toopermann said apologetically.

"No hard feelings," said Mozzarella. "In fact, to show my good faith and my commitment to our project, I have brought with me six vials of krypton gas. Each of you will get one, and I'll hang on to the sixth. They will provide us with protection from Miss Gale until a special shipment of kryptonite arrives on Thursday."

"And when that shipment arrives, who will bell the cat, so to speak," asked Ungtjur.

"My men and I will handle that," said Mozzarella. "It would make our job easier, of course, if one of you has the opportunity to gas her first, if she shows up. But in any event, we'll find her. And then I'll switch hats from big-city gangster to respectable small-town road contractor."

The others looked puzzled, but Mozzarella just smiled mysteriously and handed out the vials of krypton gas.

Oscar Ungtjur gave his to his nephew. Louie was more likely than he to run into Sallie Gale, and after their last encounter, he'd need something for self-defense.

SG, meanwhile, had been released from the hospital and had moved back into the dorm. Miss McIllhenney, Marston's president, paid her a personal visit, to console her for the recent attack by the Lackanooka bullies — and also to inquire delicately about Sallie's whereabouts for the past few weeks.

SG thanked her for her interest but refused to explain her month-long absence. The right time would come to expose Toopermann and her sister, but for now silence was the best policy.

Julia, who hadn't seen SG and Estelle get beat up but who had heard several first-hand accounts, had some questions for SG, too. After Miss McIllhenney left, she said, "Sallie, I don't want to pry, but I've got to ask you something."

"Sure," said SG.

"How come you don't look beat up? I mean, Estelle is in the hospital with a broken jaw and a broken rib, and one eye swollen shut, and you look like you just won the Miss America pageant."

SG smiled. "Thanks for the compliment. There's an explanation, but I just can't get into it right now. I'm sorry. Everything will become clear in a few days, after Estelle gets out of the hospital." She didn't tell Julia, but she wanted Estelle there when she got even with Toopermann and Regina and forced everyone who lived in this town to see what a shabby place it was.