Chapter 1 - Chapter One

Lara Croft and the Axis of Tantalus

Part 1

(2)

A faint high-pitched friction of metal on metal, like bed springs three rooms away in a sleazy downtown motel, cut through the silence of an empty bank vault in uptown New York city. Four unscrewed screws fell from their bearings and pinged off the floor. They were followed a moment later by the heavy metal clatter of a kicked-out ventilation grille. Dull florescent lights hummed in the resealed silence. No alarms.

Good show...

Lara Croft, adventuress, reluctant aristocrat, the world famous Tomb Raider, dropped from the ceiling of the vault and landed catlike on the metal floor, cushioning her fall by spreading her weight evenly over her four limbs. She scanned her surroundings. Gunmetal grey walls, three feet of solid steel according to Gambini’s intel, lined with security deposit boxes. A huge circular door dominated one end of the room, its metallic surface so shiny that it looked almost brand new. Its hinges were as thick as telegraph poles and two enormous mechanical bolts stretched its diameter and disappeared into matching sockets on the wall, locked tight. One way in, one way out. At least I won’t have to worry about any uninvited guests.

Some metal shelves stood at the far end of the room, lined with trays of precious stones and sparkling jewellery, bundles of cash and pyramids of solid gold bars. Nice, but not enough to tempt a lady of Lara’s sophisticated tastes. Then she saw it... that had to be it! A perspex display case stood on a waist-high podium in the middle of the room, its corners gilded by the yellow light of a halogen ceiling spot--which was, along with a few green emergency lights that flickered dully in the corners, the vault’s sole source of light. The contents of the case however could not be seen, for they were hidden beneath a small shroud of blue velvet.

Lara sauntered over to the podium. She stood with her weight shifted confidently to one side, one hand on her hip, and tapped the perspex case with a well-manicured fingernail. Not even bullet-proof, she smiled, really Mr. Gambini, this is almost too easy.

She’d just started checking for alarm wires when she heard, or rather sensed, someone behind her. In an instant her hands dropped to her thigh holsters and whipped out her twin .45 calibre pistols; turning she caught sight of a metallic glint flying through the air towards her, and something heavy collided with her pistols, knocking them from her hands and sending them spinning across the floor. They disappeared underneath one of the shelves at the end of the room.

Cursing herself for having let down her guard, Lara fell into a mixed martial arts stance. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the darkness that surrounded her, looking for an enemy, her every sinew braced in preparation for an attack--which never came.

Instead, a sleek and softly smiling asian girl dressed in red leather trousers and a satin bustier stepped from the shadows. Lara sized her up with a glance. She was smaller than the tomb raider, probably no more than 5’ 4” to Lara’s 5’ 9”, thinner and less muscular. But the way she held herself, relaxed yet poised, with no obvious weaknesses in her defence, warned Lara against taking her opponent too lightly. Her age was almost impossible to judge. Her face would have stood out in any crowd, not so much for its aesthetic perfection--although Lara had to admit she was a beautiful girl, with large, wide set oriental eyes, subtly prominent cheekbones, an elegant jawline that tapered down to a small, well defined chin, and full firm lips on which a sheen of moisture glistened invitingly--but more than this, Lara could almost feel herself being drawn in by the shifting shadows of innocence and corruption that played across the girl’s features. Depending on how the light fell on her, she could have been a youthful woman in her late twenties or a precocious teenager; a blushing virgin barely out of high school or a predatory seductress with all the secrets of the sensuous East smouldering between the slivers of her bedroom eyes. In a word, to Lara, she looked like trouble.

“Nice throw,”, Lara quipped, eyeing the twin sai daggers that lay with her pistols underneath the shelves, “but I’d try to avoid wearing leather trousers in the future, especially when you’re sneaking up on someone. They do have a tendency to chafe around the thighs”.

To Lara’s surprise, the girl laughed.

“Sneak up, yes, and chafe around the thighs”, she giggled, “I see, yes, I see. Ah miss Croft, you have such a quick wit. I see your reputation is well deserved”. The girl padded softly towards Lara, her footfalls silent despite the stiletto heels of her boots. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kaede Shizura”, she clasped her hands in front of her chest, palms together, and inclined her head in a two-fifths bow, taking care, Lara noted, not to take her eyes away from her opponent. “I have been a great admirer of yours for some time. Ah, yes, such strength, and yet you... retain? yes, you retain your femininity with such grace. Truly, you have been an inspiration to me”.

Lara stalked back a couple of steps and started circling to the left, trying to outmanoeuvre her opponent as she gradually closed the gap between them. There was something about this girl Lara just didn’t like. She could sense a genuine malevolence behind that sweet and innocent schoolgirl smile of hers.

“Well, that’s just marvellous, Kaede. Really, I’m touched. I’ll be sure to send a signed six-by-four and an invitation to join my fan club when I get back home to Wimbledon. But in the mean time, if it’s not too much trouble, I’ve some business to take care of”. She nodded towards the display case.

“Ah Ms Croft”, sighed the girl, “I am afraid I cannot let you take the axis”. The tone of sadness in her voice sounded almost genuine to Lara, “You see, my master, he has... how do you say... spared no expense to entice you to this place, and your escape at this time would be such an inconvenience to him”. The girl took another step towards Lara, staying just barely outside her striking distance. “And I must confess”, she smiled, “that I too would be most disappointed to encounter such a worthy adversary and not to... taste the nature of your skill”.

“My escape?”, Lara arched an eyebrow, “doesn’t that rather assume I’ve already been caught?”

Kaede laughed softly and took another step forwards, her eyes slivering like a leopard about to pounce on its prey. Lara decided not to give her the chance. She balled her fist and drove it up towards the girl’s abdomen with enough force to break a rib. Just at the point when Lara expected to feel the satisfying jolt of impact shudder through her knuckles however, her arm hooked and swung wide, her punch dissipating in thin air. Kaede had disappeared.

That’s impossible! No one’s that fast!

Lara spun on her heel, already anticipating an attack from behind, but before she could ready herself...

THWAP!!

Kaede’s palm smacked up against the tomb raider’s ass. Lara was shocked by the impact and jumped forward, immediately regretting the show of weakness when she heard Kaede giggling behind her.

“Why you cheeky little bitch!”, she gasped, rubbing her rear with one hand. The blow had left quite an impression, even through the layers of her trench coat and shorts, and a stinging palm print now glowed on her left ass-cheek. She turned to see Kaede standing a short distance away, still giggling like a mischievous school girl.

“Too-oo slo-ow”, she taunted in a singsong voice. With a flourish she stepped back and fell into a martial arts stance Lara had never seen before. Sinking down low on her legs, she beckoned Lara with an open palm, saying: “Let’s play a game Ms. Croft. I will let you take the axis, and I will let you leave this place unharmed, on one condition and one condition only: that you can land so much as a single blow on me. But if you fail, Ms. Croft”, the corners of Kaede’s mouth curled in a wicked smile, her whole aspect, framed between the straight black curtains of her hair, glowed with gleeful malevolence, “if you fail, I will punish you like the spoilt little English heiress you are”.

“I’ve a better idea”, said Lara. She fixed Kaede with a glare that would have backed down a prowling tiger, “I beat the living daylights out of you, take the axis and my pistols, and leave after I’ve received a grovelling and humiliating apology from you for ever having dared to make the inexcusable mistake of challenging me to a fight. How does that grab you, Shizura-san?”

“Oooh, I like this!”, enthused Kaede, clapping her hands excitedly, “This is like a... how do you say... a dream come true for me?”

This girl was really starting to get on Lara’s nerves. Against her better judgement she lunged at her and started throwing punches, jabs, hooks, uppercuts, using every trick she’d learned from years of martial arts training to take down her opponent. But to her dismay she found it literally impossible to land a single blow. The girl wasn’t even blocking. She was just ducking and swaying out of reach, almost casually, avoiding every single one of Lara’s punches like she could see them coming a mile away.

When one of the English woman’s blows telegraphed over Kaede’s head, causing her body’s momentum to spin her out of position for a fraction of a second, the asian girl took advantage by ducking under her guard. In a smooth sequence of movements she drew in close, grabbed the collar of Lara’s trench coat then side-stepped and pirouetted around her opponent’s body until their backs touched. Before she could even react, Kaede thrust her hips backwards and pushed her ass up against Lara’s, at the same time pulling the lapel of her trench coat away from her body and over her shoulder. Unbalanced, Lara lurched forward and stumbled away from her opponent, her arms twisting backwards and slipping through the sleeves of her coat. When she turned she was astonished to see Kaede standing a few feet away from her, holding the trench coat that she had until a second ago been wearing.

The asian girl brought the garment to her face and inhaled deeply.

“Mmmmm... Ms Croft”, she sighed, “you smell sooo good, like... sandalwood and warm vanilla. Chanel?”.

“Shalini”, Lara shot back, her eyes like ice, “thanks for noticing”.

Without missing a beat she charged her opponent again and pressed her attack, swinging lefts and rights, crosses, back-fists and body blows, any of which, had they landed, would have floored the asian girl in a single strike. But Kaede just smiled and back-pedalled, ducking and weaving away from Lara’s fists, mocking her opponent with her tantalising nearness yet somehow managing to stay just out of reach.

Okay then, Shizura-san, let’s see how you deal with something a little more advanced.

Feinting to the left with another hooked body blow, Lara pulled her punch short, spun in a tight semicircle and swung her trailing leg sideways and upwards, sending her foot snapping out like a striking snake towards the right side of her opponent’s face. As she’d expected, Kaede ducked at the last possible moment and her roundhouse kick swished through empty air. But in the split second it took the girl to regain her balance, Lara shifted her weight on her grounded foot, changed stance and followed up with a second lightning fast snap-kick to Kaede’s abdomen.

Unfazed, the asian girl caught Lara’s boot in mid-air, grabbed hold with both hands and moved forward, pushing Lara’s leg up and back towards her; effortlessly unbalancing the English woman, who had to hop and stumble backwards just to avoid falling flat on her ass.

“Dammit”, Lara gasped as her back collided with the vault’s unforgiving metal wall. Kaede followed a short moment later, slamming her full body weight into her opponent and pinning her up against the wall. Lara’s leg forced so far up above her head that her knee touched her shoulder. It looked like she was doing the splits standing up. If she hadn’t been in such great physical shape the position would have been unbearable. Even as it was, she was feeling the burn: the back of her thigh muscle was stretched to its limits and racked with excruciating pain.

“Ah, Miss Croft, what beautiful skin you have”, cooed Kaede, trailing her fingers softly down the back of Lara’s thigh, “you must wax, yes? to stay so smooth and supple”.

Lara hissed in frustration. There was nothing she could do, balanced precariously as she was on one leg, grasping behind her with both hands, trying desperately to find some kind of purchase on the wall. Kaede’s fingertips grazed the inside of her thigh and worked their way down towards the crotch of her shorts, which, due to Lara’s position, was pulled taut across her sex, already dangerously close to betraying the English woman’s modesty.

“Just between us girls”, Kaede whispered conspiratorially in Lara’s ear, “do you go all the way, I mean, down here?”, she pressed two fingers into the fold of Lara’s shorts, dragging them up and over Lara pussy lips, “You know, Balu-zhirion?”, she teased.

“That’s none of your bloody business, you little tra... hahhh!!”, Lara gasped in surprise, her strained reply cut short when Kaede suddenly pushed her shorts aside and thrust her middle finger knuckle-deep into the English woman’s pussy.

“So tight”, Kaede breathed into Lara’s ear, “just as I imagined. Nothing less from the legendary Tomb Raider”. She forced Lara’s leg up even further in order to gain better access to her sex, making it hard for her opponent even to breathe as she worked her finger sensuously back and forth inside her cunt.

“Take your (nngh!) finger out of me this instant, or I swear (hahh!) I’ll break it off!”, gasped Lara.

“Come now, Miss Croft”, teased Kaede, “I was hoping for a more interesting fight than this”. She crooked her finger inside Lara’s cunt and grazed her g-spot with the sharp tip of her fingernail, eliciting an involuntary shudder from the tomb raider, momentarily softening the venomous glare she’d been directing towards the asian girl. “After hearing so many stories of your skill?”, she worked her thumb underneath the crotch of Lara’s black satin panties and started grinding it slowly back and forth over her clit, “your strength? your speed? your bravery? But maybe, oh yes, I see now. They were all stories men have told me. Is that your secret, Miss Croft? Do you use this beautiful body of yours to distract your male opponents? Do you prostitute yourself to their aesthetic pleasures, to their thoughtless animal lusts, just so you can gain the upper hand?”

Lara pushed back against the girl with all her might. A thin layer of perspiration had started beading on her brow, and tiny rivulets rolled down her lower back. Swelling drops like condensation collected in the valley of her cleavage. Her exposed skin, slick with moisture, shone softly in the low light of the vault. She couldn’t believe this little tart was beating her so effortlessly. And her words, even though Lara knew they were taunts, just crude attempts to elicit an emotional response in her opponent, held enough truth to sting the tomb raider’s pride. Her palms skated over the wall behind her, and finally she found a hand grip in the form of a security deposit box handle. She braced herself, fighting against the flares of burning pain that ran down the back of her thigh, and started pushing herself away from the wall, forcing her leg down despite her opponent’s best efforts to hold her in place. Her whole body shook with effort as she slowly but surely overpowered the smaller asian girl.

Before she could turn the situation to her advantage however, Kaede removed her hand from between Lara’s legs, grabbed her belt buckle and pulled her off balance. She stuck out her foot and tripped the English woman as she staggered away from the wall, the cheap trick sending her sprawling towards the middle of the room. Lara flailed and stumbled for a couple of steps, thankfully managing to steady herself before she collided with the opposite wall. She was just about to turn and unleash a scalding string of expletives when she noticed a strange sensation, like something was missing from around her waist. She looked down and saw that her favourite leather belt, the one she’d been using for years as part of her classic tomb raiding outfit, had disappeared.

“Looking for something, Ms. Croft?”, smiled Kaede, dangling the belt in her hand like a trophy.

“Fine”, Lara took a second to compose herself--feeling anything but. She stretched out her open palm. “I’m going to give you to the count of three to return my belt, Kaede. If it’s not in my hand when I stop counting, I promise you”, she steadied her voice, injecting as much menace as she could into the following four words: “you will regret it”.

She looked Kaede straight in the eye and enunciated: “One”.

Kaede returned Lara’s glare with an apathetic grin, dissolving to a salacious leer. She had already gauged her opponents speed and strength and wasn’t in the least bit intimidated by the English woman’s threats. If Steele hadn’t warned her off from hurting Lara she could have broken her legs by now, caved in her ribcage with a gyaku zuki, shattered her pelvis with a well-placed ushiro geri. There was just no way she was going to lose to this pathetic gaijin bitch. Besides, the longer the fight lasted the better it was for her master’s plans. So she stayed put and waited for her opponent to make the next move.

“Two”.

If looks could kill Lara’s glare would have sent her opponent six feet under the topsoil already. She was starting to develop a genuine grudge against this girl. Just what in the bloody hell was she after anyway? did she want to fight her, or strip her? Or... worse? If she could just land a single blow, or even get a good grip on the crafty little bugger. With her superior strength Lara knew she was more than capable of beating Kaede--beating her to a bloody pulp. It was just a matter of speed. And as much as she hated to admit it, for almost the first time in her life Lara was up against an opponent she couldn’t outmanoeuvre.

“Three”.

Lara’s count hung heavy in the air for a moment, like the calm before a storm, then Kaede tossed the belt over her shoulder.

“You want it? Come and get it”, she said simply, her stance open, arms loose and relaxed by her sides. She wasn’t even bothering to ready herself for her opponent’s attack.

Lara felt a fresh wave of anger surging up from the pit of her stomach. She was determined to make this bitch pay for underestimating her No one treated her like this, no one! She was the countess of Abbingdon, for Pete’s sake, the scourge of the criminal underworld, the world-renowned Tomb Raider!

With a roar of sheer feminine rage Lara charged her opponent, fully intending to tackle her to ground and beat the tar out of her. But yet again, in the split second before she reached her, Kaede disappeared.

Lara wheeled round, trying at least to keep track of the girl, but she was no where to be seen. She felt a cool breeze whisper across the left side of her face and turned just in time to hear a soft laugh in her right ear. She whipped out a lightning-fast spin kick towards the source of the noise but again she was too late, her foot finding only air in its path.

Bugger this...

Lara made a beeline for her pistols, sprinting across the vault then diving and sliding towards them on the seat of her shorts. About two feet from her goal she collided with a pair of shapely leather-clad legs. A hand grabbed hold of her hair and she felt herself being hauled to her feet.

“Ah, Ms Croft, you are nothing but a dis-a-point-ment”, came the singsong voice in her ear once again, and before she could mount any kind of defence Lara found herself being dragged back across the vault, led by her long French braid. She hissed in frustration, stumbling and tripping all the way, completely unable to regain her balance as Kaede yanked her around like a dog on a leash. Finally, she managed to make a clumsy lunge for the girl’s legs. But her assailant dodged nimbly out of the way, sending Lara sprawling towards the vault door. She barely managed to stay on her feet and had to use both of her hands just to avoid slamming headfirst into the cold steel. She regretted doing so immediately, when she felt Kaede’s fingers slip inside the back of her shorts and pull them down over the curve of her out-thrust ass.

Shocked, Lara reached behind her and grabbed at the sides of her shorts, trying at once to pull them up and dislodge the asian girl’s grip. But before she could accomplish either task, she felt something thick and pliable wrap itself around her wrists and pull them together tight behind her back. Her belt! The bitch was using Lara’s own leather belt to bind her hands behind her back!

“Unngghhh!!”, Lara grunted as, unbalanced, and lacking the support of her arms, she fell forward and landed face-first on the cold metal floor.

“Get off me, you bloody degenerate! you syphilitic carpet-munching Jap bitch! (nngghhh!!) I am going to sodding well eviscerate you when I get out of this!”. Kaede positioned her ass over the small of Lara’s back and dropped her entire body weight down onto her opponent, crushing the air from her lungs. Lara’s eyes went wide and her breasts nearly bulged over the top of her low-cut neckline. The skin-tight rubbery material stretched like an overfilled water balloon, dangerously close to revealing the tomb raider’s nipples as she squirmed and writhed beneath Kaede; who for her part seemed to be having the time of her life. She was giggling like a schoolgirl, riding the English woman like a rodeo bull. She had Lara’s arms pushed painfully up towards her shoulder-blades and was able to stay in complete control of her movements by grinding her ass into the curve of her lower back.

“Eviscerate me?”, Kaede asked, mock-shocked, “that doesn’t give me much of an incentive to let you go, now does it Ms. Croft? No, I think you can ask nicer than that. Now, where were we...”

She held Lara’s wrists in place with one hand and started yanking her shorts down over her hips with her other hand, inch by inch revealing two flawlessly smooth alabaster ass cheeks, as full and round as any gymnast’s and separated by the tapering v of her black satin thong panties. After a great deal of struggling with Lara’s legs she managed to get the shorts about halfway down her thighs, where they became stuck on her empty holsters. Leaning back, she forced her palm in-between the two taut globes of Lara’s ass and started working her thumb under her thong and into her asshole.

Lara tensed up as soon as she felt Keade’s thumb rubbing at her rear entrance. She instinctively clenched her ass-cheeks, trying to prevent the asian girl from gaining entry. In response Kaede forced the English woman’s wrists up her back and towards her neck, pushing her arms almost to their breaking point. Lara blanched and had to bite down on her lip to keep from crying out. The pain was intense. Even with all her flexibility she could feel her shoulders starting to give.

“Come now, Ms Croft”, Kaede cooed in her ear, “what is it the Americans say? ‘Don’t be such a tight-ass’”. She wrenched Lara’s bound wrists almost level with the back of her head, sending jolts of shooting pain screaming through her shoulder joints. Lara hissed and bared her teeth. Tears of pain and frustration welled in the corners of her eyes. Another couple of inches and she wouldn’t be quick drawing her pistols for a month. “A crude aphorism, I’m sure you agree. But it does have a certain bearing on your current predicament”.

“Unnnggghhh!!”, Lara gritted her teeth, “Go...to...HELL!!”

Seeing that Lara wouldn’t be broken so easily, Kaede decided to try a different tack. She wrapped one arm around Lara’s neck so that her bicep and forearm pressed against her carotid artery and jugular vein, and started gradually tightening her grip, cutting off the blood supply to Lara’s brain with a potentially deadly sleeper hold. At the same time she pulled the tomb raider’s head back towards herself and leaned as far back as she could, contorting Lara’s limber body until she was almost looking up at the ceiling. The position was perfect for Kaede’s purposes: she wanted to inflict as much pain as she could on her opponent, without actually injuring her or leaving any lasting marks.

“No!! Let me (nnngghhhh!!) go! you BITCH!!”, Lara shouted. She felt like her body was being bent like a bow, the sinews of her neck and upper torso stretched as tight as harpsichord strings.

Kaede craned her neck around the side of Lara’s face and kissed her softly on the cheek. She took a moment to look into the English woman’s eyes, relishing the rebellious glint she saw there. Even with her brain half-starved of oxygen and her lower back an inch away from an injury that would leave her in wheelchair for the rest of her life, Lara still had a lot of fight left in her.

“You know what I want Ms Croft”, she whispered, “All you have to do is admit defeat - say it, just one word: shi-ri-zo-ku, I concede”.

“Unnngghhh!! Bloody fine!! You want some Japanese?!”, Lara spat: “Kusu O taberu na, soshite shin-e! anta busu (nngghh!) kusatta YURIZOKU!!”.

A flicker of annoyance crossed Kaede’s face. Just what was she going to have to do to break this bitch? Under normal circumstances she’d have snapped her victim’s neck for insulting her in her native tongue. But she knew Steele was watching her. He had video cameras hidden throughout the vault, and Lara was too valuable to him for Kaede to risk engendering his wrath by seriously harming her.

Fine, if she couldn’t break the bitch she’d just have to settle for humiliating her.

She leaned back and put almost all of her strength into bending Lara’s torso, feeling the English woman tremble beneath her, helpless to resist as every sinew in her sleek athletic body was stretched to its breaking point. From experience, Kaede knew just how far to push her opponent; years of martial arts training--not mention the numerous bouts of stringent bondage Steele had put her through over the past few months--had taught her how to push the human body to its limits without effecting any lasting damage. She had Lara just where she wanted her: right at the edge of her endurance; and she was determined to make the lush aristocratic bitch pay for her pride and defiance.

“Look up at the corner, Ms Croft”, Kaede whispered in Lara’s ear, “my master, a man you may never meet, will be watching you right at this very moment”. She trailed the fingertips of her free hand over the subtle curves of Lara’s abdominal muscles and up towards her breasts, which due to the tomb raider’s posture, were thrust out in front of her, their every curve and detail clearly visible beneath the stretched-taut skin-tight rubbery material of her aqua top.

“I’m sure you would find him to be a sadistic and wholly immoral man”, Kaede cupped Lara’s left breast in the palm of her hand and gently squeezed it. She tiptoed two of her fingers over the plump and luscious surface, paying particular attention to the English woman’s prominent nipples, pressing them down into her breasts and then watching them pop back up again--flicking at the sensitive buds like they were leftover peas on a dinner plate, much to the tomb raider’s chagrin.

“Sometimes, to punish me, he shoots me full of hallucinogens, straps me to a bondage frame and lets his lackeys fuck me and abuse my body for days at a time”, Kaede slipped her slender hand beneath Lara’s top and pinched her nipple. She rolled it gently between her forefinger and thumb, eliciting a breathy gasp from between Lara’s lips.

“As they rape me they look like demons, Ms Croft, oni no shimiru. Sometimes I’m so scared I want to die”, blowing gently into Lara’s ear, Kaede pressed the sharp tip of her fingernail cruelly into the English woman’s nipple, stopping just short of breaking the skin. Lara winced and had to hold her breath to suppress a cry of pain.

“But deep down, Ms Croft”, she intimated, “deep down, I love it. You might say, I need it. I want to experience the depths of despair. Can you understand my feelings, Ms Croft? Kaede no hontou no kimochi wakaru ka?”.

The asian girl peeled Lara’s top up, allowing her full 36-D breasts to spill free from beneath the tight rubbery material, their perfectly defined teardrop contours now in plain view of the camera in the corner of the room. Softly, Kaede cupped the underside of Lara’s right breast in the palm of her hand and started teasing the English woman’s nipple, flicking her index finger back and forth over the sensitive pink bud, which, to Lara’s dismay, quickly reacted to the stimulation, becoming taut and erect under the asian girl’s deft manipulation.

Even Kaede had to admire the sheer perfection of Lara’s breasts. Despite the backbreaking position her body was forced to adopt, her breasts swelled out from her chest like they were being held in place by an invisible wonderbra. Full and perfectly rounded, they were ideally suited to Lara’s sleekly muscled torso, without even the slightest hint of sag or overhang.

“My master, Ms Croft, will be most aroused by this little show”, Kaede tightened her grip on Lara’s neck, completely cutting off the blood supply to her captive’s brain. With her free hand she continued teasing the English woman’s breasts, alternating between whisper-soft caresses and deep-tissue massage, sometimes planting sharp slaps on their quivering undersides like a stern equestrian scolding her unruly steed.

“When I return to him after your defeat, he will take out all his lust on me. It will be quite painful”, she sunk her teeth playfully into Lara’s ear, “I can hardly wait”.

Lara’s eyes lolled back in their sockets. She was blacking out, the heady combination of pleasure and pain, contortion, helplessness and asphyxiation lulling her into a nightmarish state of semiconsciousness. Her world seemed to be folding in on itself, her senses falling down into a dark and claustrophobic hell until all that remained were the waves of pain throbbing through her lower back, the acetic acid burning like mace in her overtaxed and under-oxygenated muscles, and Kaede’s small, slender hand teasing and smacking her breasts, making it nearly impossible for her to maintain the kind of concentration it takes to come up with a feasible escape plan.

If Lara was going to get out of this scrape with nothing more than an aching back and a few unpleasant memories, as was her wont, now was the time to act.

“Your (unnghh!) master likes to s-see women s-suffering, does he?”, she croaked, darkness pushing in at the corners of her vision, “well then, (nnngghhh!) he’s going to bloody well love... this!”

Calling on reserves of strength she didn’t even know she had, Lara brought her feet together behind Kaede’s back, braced herself, then slammed the soles of her heavy leather biker boots into the back of the girl’s head in a powerful double-legged scorpion kick. For the split second of the impact Lara’s body was curved into a perfect O, her arms bound tight behind her back, her feet less than six inches away from the top of her head, in a pose that would have made even a seasoned contortionist wince. Kaede was caught completely off guard by the blow and didn’t even have time to cry out in pain before darkness swept away her senses and she crumpled to floor. As soon as Lara’s neck was free from the asian girl’s vicelike grip she likewise collapsed to the ground, coughing and hyperventilating.

The adrenaline that had been flooding Lara’s bloodstream began to fade. Now that she’d escaped the immediate peril of her situation, her fatigued body was starting to shut down and she was finding it almost impossible to keep her eyes open.

Damnit, not now, not when I’m so close...

She tried to get to her feet, but with her hands tied behind her back all she could do was squirm feebly on the floor. She could see the display case bathed in bright yellow light just a few feet away from her, tantalisingly close, but it might as well have been in a different continent for all the good it was going to do her. The last thing that went through Lara’s mind before blackness claimed her world was a question: just how in the hell had she managed to get herself into this mess in the first place?

End of Part 1