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		DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
		Kat's Revenge: A Love Story ——————————————————————————— by Van © 2001
		Chapter 8

AFTER MIDNIGHT
GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
SECURITY OFFICE

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Kat continued staring at the screen until the connection timed out.  A subdued version of the TESSERACT logo returned to the screen.  Margo... as an occasional, infrequent visitor, Kat mused, recalling Elke's remark about Jamie not being able to see Margo anytime she wanted... like Kat.  The catsuited bodyguard shuddered at the thought, of being alone... of not being with Margo.

The Gondaloo Security Office was severely spartan, virtually unused except on those occasions when Kat was on the island.  Nonetheless, it sported enough computing power to satisfy a small corporation.  Kat leaned forward and entered a series of commands in the touchpad keyboard built into the desk.  The screen cleared...  and the image of Margo Wells snapped into focus.  It was early morning in Seattle, and Kat knew that if her friend and employer (and sacred charge) was holding to her usual schedule, she had already been up for two or three hours.

The TESSERACT CEO was dressed in exercise clothes, and was performing a series of slow, graceful stretching exercises.  From the background, she was somewhere in the Biosphere, probably getting ready to take a run.  Kat smiled.  If Margo was exercising in anything but the nude, that probably meant she was going to visit one of her guests... one of her "Special Category" guests.

Kat leaned back in her chair and put her booted feet on the desk, watching Margo finish her stretches and begin her run.  Yes, Margo almost always had one or more of her celebrity friends salted away someplace in the Biosphere or Katacombs... chained to a wall, bound and gagged in a tiny cubicle, "exercising" on one of the diabolical machines not approved for use in Elke's Health Club gyms... and when Margo visited such a "guest," she usually went clothed... to confirm her power.  Kat frowned.  'The captor is always dressed', Kat mused.  Did I teach her that... or did she teach me?

Suddenly, a small window popped onto the screen, displaying a single word: "paragon."

Kat's smile returned.  Her staff was on the ball.  Kat leaned forward, her boots still on the desk, and pecked out the reply-of-the-day: "tower."  The small window cleared and new words appeared.

"Morning, bosslady.  Need anything?  M."

So, Michelle's on watch , Kay mused, picturing the tall, stunning, coffee-skined, African-American team-leader of her T-Sec staff.  Michelle usually dressed in business attire, carefully tailored to allow freedom of movement, and like all "M-cadre" members of Kat's department, was expert with firearms and blades, and Michelle could give even Lourdes trouble in unarmed combat.  Michelle was gorgeous, an ex-model.  She looked capable, but not particularly dangerous... which made her a better bodyguard for Margo than Kat in some situations.

"Just checking," Kat typed.

"Busybody!  M out."

"K out," Kat typed, and leaned back in her chair.  Margo was jogging along a mirrored corridor at her warm-up pace.  Kat watched as her friend and employer's pert breasts bobbed under her sleeveless T-shirt, enjoying how the muscles in Margo's long legs flexed as she ran, how her calf muscles shuddered just a little with each impact of Margo's running shoes, how her arms... Kat's smile faded.  Now who's acting like a 'lovesick puppydog'? she asked herself, leaned forward and tapped a key, breaking the connection with Seattle.

Kat left the Security office, the camouflaged outer door silently closing behind her.  She stretched and looked up at the countless stars, wheeling overhead in the indigo sky... and started walking.

She passed the freshwater swimming pool near the main concourse.  Kat stopped and stared at the dark, mirror-like surface.  It was the very pool Jamie had rescued her from, when Alex had delivered Jo and Kathleen, the "Aussie Keystone Cops," to the island, when the local 6900 nexus had gone bonkers and Kat had been dumped into the pool bound, gagged, and utterly helpless.  Kat closed her eyes, and remembered the feeling of absolute powerlessness, of knowing that unless someone saved her... she would die... and then Jamie, naked, bubbles streaming from her pale, freckled body, dove into the sunlit water... and did just that... saved her.

Kat shook her head and resumed walking.  She passed a verandah near the beach, and smiled.  She'd once enjoyed a lunch of cracked crab there with Margo... at that very table.  Margo had dropped a crab shell on the floor and Kat had teased her, accusing her of being a slob.  Margo had retaliated by tossing another crab shell, this time directly at Kat.  Kat replied in kind... and the lunch had degenerated into a full-blown food fight... followed by a game of "strip kung-fu" (in which the winner of an exchange got to claim an article of her opponent's clothing)... followed by a naked wrestling match... followed by other naked activities.

Kat passed a tropical gum tree, surrounded by a kneewall of plastered concrete.  Once Lourdes had spent most of a day tied to that tree, naked and gagged, forfeit for some stupid bet she'd made with Margo.  The slender Kiwi had been stretched against the tangled limbs and bound in a breathtakingly beautiful and contorted pose, half-yoga, half-ballet, with rope banding her perfect, slender, athletic body every few inches, her teeth clenched around an inch-thick living branch thrust in her mouth like a bit, with more rope making sure it stayed there.  Hours after the start of Lourdes' ordeal, Kat remembered coming silently around the corner... to find Margo, clad in bikini and sarong, rubbing fragrant oil on Lourdes' contorted body, whispering something in her prisoner's ear as she massaged the writhing captive's breasts and abdomen... and loins.  Kat had watched this tableau for several minutes... and then had withdrawn, unseen.

And now Kat was on the beach, across the Resort from Landing Beach, at the very spot she had once buried Jodi.  Kat looked up at the stars, remembering the night she had snuck into the Trickster's bedroom, pounced on the sleeping, naked scamp and bound her with thin cord, gagged her with tape, dragged her to the beach, bound her in a tight, punishing ball-tie with more thin cord, buried her in the sand, and replaced her tape-gag with a clever combination ball-gag, head-harness, dive-mask, and snorkel.  Kat shuddered in sadistic delight, remembering the way she's carefully smoothed the sand around her victim, leaving only a shallow depression on the beach, invisible from a distance of only a few feet... and at the bottom of the depression... a glass face plate covering a pair of wide, frightened, blue eyes... and the end of the snorkel, carefully painted to match the sand, Jodi's only source of precious air.  Kat remembered her last words to her terrified victim, before she had abandoned Jodi to a night of futile struggling, and staring up at the stars.  "High tide is an hour after sunrise," Kat had announced.  "I wonder if anyone will find you... before the ocean starts lapping into this little bowl I've built for you... before the wet sand buries you completely... before the water rises over the end of your breathing tube."  Of course, Margo had instigated the whole thing, and had been the one to rescue Jodi, at the last moment, just as the rising tide was splashing the panicked Trickster's face plate (of course).

Kat sat down on the sand... and stared out at the glowing horizon, at white breakers pounding the outer reef, barely visible across the relatively calm lagoon.  This place, Gondaloo, had seen a lot of spectacular fun, many of the Inner Circle's Legendary Moments.  This one... 'Kat's Revenge' it will no doubt be called, Kat mused.  ...this one would take it's place among other such "Incidents," enriching the Gondaloo Saga, enhancing Kat's reputation as "Margo's Jungle Kat"...  So why does it suddenly feel less like 'fun'... and more like I'm being a prize bitch? Kat asked herself.  Why do I have to be so... hard?

Kat stood and wandered back towards the Resort.  She passed an information kiosk and touched her signet ring to the display.  Instantly the screen came to life, painting the TESSERACT-Security interface.  Kat touched several points on the screen in rapid succession, the display cleared and...

Penny was displayed, asleep on her bed, still bound and gagged (of course).  Kat noted that Eve-L was letting her plaything sleep without the expandable rubber ball formerly plugging her ring-gag.  Kat knew this was technique, not kindness.  The more soundly Penny slept, the more fun she'd be in the morning (and the better the subliminals would do their work).  Even on this relatively crude display, Kat could see the lights flashing under Penny's chastity belt, twinkling like microscopic Christmas lights.

Kat touched the screen.

Jessie and Chelsea are asleep on Jessie's bed, both still naked.  At some point Jessie had released Chelsea from her frog-tie and retied her short blonde prisoner's ankles together.  She'd also blindfolded and gagged the little minx.  Kat noted that Chelsea's panties had disappeared from the head of the bed.  She surmised they were in the perky Brit's mouth, somewhere under all those layers of expensive silk... not that it seemed to be preventing Chelsea from getting her beauty sleep.  Jessie and Chelsea were lying together in the tangled sheets, side to side, one of Jessie's pale, freckled arms thrown protectively over the tan, flawless skin of her helpless captive's flank.  The pair were as close as two nested spoons.  Kat smiled. Young love.

Kat touched the screen again.

Jamie was very much not asleep.  The robot TIKLER arms of "Freckle Fox' Cradle" were dancing over the stretched redhead's torso, tickling her armpits, ribs, breasts.  As Kat watched, all six of the arms did an elaborate dance over the Aussie prisoner's left breast, teasing the outer margins of the pale, stretched globe, sliding in a coordinated spiral towards the erect nipple, then concentrating on the flushed areole, the nipple's dark coral sides, its very tip.  Despite her exhaustion, despite the hours of tickle torture she had endured thus far, Jamie pulled on her manacles and clamped boots, straining to escape.  She mewed through her gag, eyes wide, beads of sweat rolling off her face, staring in horror as her six robot torturers lifted away from her left breast, regrouped, and slowly descended towards her right breast.  Jamie was not having a good time.

Not having a good time .  Kat remembered something Margo had told her, way back at the founding of the "Inner Circle," when it was only Margo and Kat and Elke. 'What we do together should always be fun, and for fun.  It might be a trial, even an ordeal, but it should always be fun... for everybody.'  ...for everybody.  Kat broke the connection, blanking the screen... then turned and sprinted away, towards storeroom E-7... towards Jamie's torture chamber.

GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
STOREROOM ECHO SEVEN

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The door to the storeroom opened and Kat sprinted through.  Without pause or preamble she opened a panel on the "Y-bench" and punched a series of buttons.  Instantly, the robot tickle-torturing arms ceased their cruel wandering over Jamie's pinioned flesh and stowed themselves behind closing panels.  Jamie collapsed in her bonds, flushed and slick with sweat, her flattened breasts bobbing and chest heaving as she panted through flaring nostrils.  The exhausted redhead stared up at her nemesis... confused.

She wasn't the only one.  Eve-L's projected expression could only be described as incredulous.  "Kat...?  Kitty darling?" she demanded.  "Care to clue me in?"

"Quiet!" Kat barked, a sheen of sweat on her own face, panting from her all-out sprint.  The catsuited beauty pushed one final button, and Jamie's bonds, boots and manacles, released with a series of hollow pings and metallic snaps.

Jamie didn't stir, either too tired or too disoriented to decide what she should do next.

Kat reached down and lifted the naked, ball-gagged redhead, carrying her to her "Kat bed."  She lay the petite burden on the silk cushions, then rummaged until she found a roll of dermafoam tape.

Jamie watched, her upper body raised from the bed on locked elbows, as her ankles were crossed and bound with multiple bands of the wide tape.  More tape went around her legs, just above her knees.  (Jamie considered removing her ball-gag, to say something... but couldn't think of anything to say... and then the moment had passed.)  Kat rolled her onto her stomach, gathered Jamie's arms behind her back, bound her left wrist to her right forearm, her right wrist to her left forearm, then covered hands, wrists and forearms with neat, tight dermafoam wrappings from elbow to elbow.

Kat then sat down on the soft bed, rolled Jamie over, and hauled the prisoner's head and shoulders onto her leather-clad lap.  Captor and captive locked eyes as Kat's gloved right hand straightened Jamie's sweat dampened, tousled curls, taking careful care to straighten the wet fringe of auburn bangs.  Jamie's expression was one of carefully controlled fear, and continuing confusion.  Kat's was one of... affection?  Now Jamie was really confused!

Kat reached down and pulled the ball-gag from between Jamie's teeth, letting it hang from around the captive's neck like a bizarre necklace.  "You okay, Freckle Fox?"

"Now this is too much!" Eve-L protested.  "I demand you tell me what the hell—"

"Gag yourself! " Kat growled.  "Be elaborate.  That's a Black Knight order! "

Eve-L sighed, and began conjuring Virtual gagging supplies from midair.  Jamie watched in wonder as the Security Avatar stuffed five pair of silk panties in her mouth; gave herself a tight cleave-gag of elastic dermafoam; plastered several wide strips of dermafoam across and around her head, completely covering her lower face from just below her button nose to just under her gracefully pointed chin; then conjured a steel brank with which she caged her head; across her forehead, to either side of her nose, under her chin, and across the crown of her head; anchoring a wide steel panel tightly across her already silenced mouth; and finally locking a wide, heavy collar around her throat.  In a feat of astonishing dexterity, the glowering avatar clicked all the complicated, ratcheting and locking clasps of the brank together behind her head, locked the final master lock on the collar; rolled her eyes in silent protest, and tossed the key over her shoulder.

A pair of mocking yet artistic steel lips were sculpted on the gag-band of the brank.  This cold steel mouth began talking (with Eve-L's voice, of course.)  "There!  Happy?  Now, what the hell—"

"Zip it!" Kat barked.

Eve-L sighed and passed her hand over the front of the brank... and the lips were replaced by a polished, featureless plane of metal.

Kat's attention had already returned to Jamie.  "You okay?" she repeated.

Jamie nodded her head weakly.  "Y-es, I..."  Her voice was low and hoarse.

Kat produced a bottle of sports drink and held it to Jamie's flushed lips.  Jamie drank slowly, her jaw sore from the ball-gag.

"Thanks!" she whispered.  "I'm okay."  The tape-bound prisoner stretched in her bonds and locked eyes with her captor.  "Kat... I went too far.  I—"

"Hush, Freckle Fox," Kat cooed.  "No need to—"

"You hush!" Jamie barked, her green eyes flashing.  "I'm going to apologize and you're going to listen and..."  Jamie noted the amused smile on her nemesis' face.  The sardonic curl of the lips was familiar, but something was missing.  Kat's usual gloating hostility was... gone.  Jamie's anger wilted.  Not that I'm in any position to make her listen, the bound redhead admitted to herself.  "Please," the pitiful prisoner begged, "let me?"

"Let me save you some effort," Kat purred.  "The cage you locked me in and the cat costume, after Margo's jungle girl hunt?  I thought they were funny; and there's nothing wrong with turning the tables during one of Margo's games.  I learned something from the experience.  It won't be nearly so easy next time... no matter what secret traps Margo has hidden away on the island for you to hijack."  Jamie nodded gravely and Kat continued.  "It was the pink glitter you glued to my short and curlies and the pink nail polish and the 'Hello Kitty' decals you glued to my nails..."  Jamie's eyes were twinkling and her lips twitching slightly.  "If you value your miserable life," Kat cautioned, "I strongly suggest you not start laughing right now."

Jamie controlled her rising mirth (barely).  "I-I'm sorry, Katherine.  Please continue."

"I didn't appreciate having constant reminders of my defeat staring me in the face every time I took a shower or exercised for the next month."

"I'm sorry," Jamie whispered.  "I suppose it was too much... fer too long."  The helpless captive sighed, and stared up into her captor's face.

Kat noted that an element of fear had returned to her prisoner's freckled face.  She knew the unasked question on Jamie's mind.  'Is it over?'  Kat smiled... and popped the ball-gag back in Jamie's mouth.  "Apology accepted, Freckle Fox," Kat announced, then picked the helpless bundle up in her arms and carried her from the storeroom.

Kat carried her minimal, captive burden through the Resort, like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold.  Jamie sighed and snuggled her gagged face against Kat's leather-covered breast and closed her eyes.  Kat's smile broadened, and their journey continued.

Their destination was Margo Well's very own suite.  Kat carried Jamie through the entrance, past the library, office, sitting room, music room, past openings to several balconies and verandahs, and into the quite literally cavernous bathroom.  Carved into the cliff that sheltered most of Margo's wing, the bathroom was alive with ferns nestled into countless niches in the dark grotto.  During the day skylights and light-tubes flooded the chamber with indirect light.  At night, countless tiny, twikling lights tucked into cracks and hollows in the walls and ceiling lent the chamber an otherworldly air.

Kat carried Jamie to the shower area, carefully planted her prisoner's bare feet on the smooth tiles, and made sure the tape bound captive found her balance. Stretching in her bonds, being careful not to lose that balance (difficult but far from impossible, even with her ankles bound crossed), Jamie watched as Kat gracefully sauntered a few paces away and stripped.  Gloves, catsuit, and boots were tossed aside, and the now naked bodyguard rejoined her prisoner.

Water cascaded from all directions, deluging the naked pair in a warm, churning torrent.  The water slackened to a gentle shower and Kat used a soapy mitten to lather Jamie's short, freckled, pale body and her own sleek, taller, tanned form... then the flood returned.  It slackened again so Kat could apply shampoo and give both their scalps a sudsy massage... and then there was a final, torrential rinse.

Kat used a fluffy bathsheet to towel them both dry, then used Margo's cordless hair dryer and brush set to return Jamie's curly red mop and her own long, straight, dark hair to glistening, swaying order.  She returned the dryer and brushes to their built-in cabinet, and paused, eyeing other bodycare implements and supplies in the open drawer. 

Jamie was seated on a low bench, and couldn't see what had caught her naked captor's attention.

Kat smiled (sending a chill down Jamie's spine), and sauntered over to a closet alcove, one which held a rack of Margo's robes.  Still smiling, she pulled one of the terrycloth robe's sash free with a dry slither, walked over to her discarded catsuit, and retrieved a small blade.  She then walked back to Jamie, and pulled the ball-gag from her prisoner's mouth.

"The tickle-torture is over," Kat announced (sending a flood of relief through the bound redhead), "but..."  (The chill returned and Jamie swallowed nervously.)  "I've just had a delicious, spontaneous idea," Kat purred, "one which will give me closure."  Kat reached down and slit the tape binding Jamie's knees and ankles, pulled the bands of clinging dermafoam from the squirming, grimacing redhead's skin, and tossed them aside.  "I'm going to shave you."

Jamie swallowed again.  "Shave me?" she whispered.

"Payback for the pink sparkles," Kat said with a gloating nod.

"Do ya have to?" Jamie asked.

"It sounds like justice to me," Kat purred.  "You let me do this... and we're even."

'You let me do this?' Jamie thought.  How could I stop her?  Jamie stared at her nemesis, unconsciously twisting her encased hands in their tight, inescapable shround of dermafoam.  She's askin' me!   Green eyes locked, captor and captive stared at one another in the darkened bathroom.  This is the strangest olive branch I've ever been offered, Jamie mused, and was surprised to find she was slowly nodding her head.

"Cross your ankles under the bench," Kat ordered.  Jamie complied, and felt her ankles being bound with the sash.

"It will grow back?" Jamie asked nervously, as Kat walked back to the cabinet and returned with a silver tray.

"I promise," Kat purred.  "You want your gag back?"

"Gag?" Jamie asked with a worried frown.  "It ain't gonna hurt... is it?"

Kat reached down and thrust the ball back between Jamie's teeth.  "Big baby!" she admonished.  "I'll be careful.  The gag's just so you can have something to bite down on... so you can scream if you want."

How bloody considerate , Jamie mused as Kat sat down on the bench, using her bare legs to pin Jamie's already splayed thighs flat on the bench.  A buzzing sound commenced and Jamie did a half crunch to watch Kat running a silver electric razor through her own bush—Jamie did a double-take—Yes, Kat was running the razor through her own dark bush!  Crikes!  She's doin' herself too! Jamie thought, staring with wide-eyed wonder.

Her pubic hair mowed to a clearcut of barely noticeable stubble, Kat grinned and applied the instrument to Jamie.  The bound, gagged, and pinned redhead gasped as the vibrating, tingling head passed through her coppery red curls, shearing them away, leaving pale, bare skin and ghostly red stubble in its wake.

Next, Kat produced a small spray can and applied cool, mentholated foam to both their loins.  Lifting herself on her bound arms, Jamie watched, shuddering and squirming as Kat carefully, meticulously passed a safety razor over every square centimeter of Jamie's genitals and surrounding skin, until all evidence of Jamie's former red bush was completely erased.

Jamie's jaw ached.  She found she had been biting down on the rubber ball in her mouth without realizing it.  She watched as Kat applied the razor to her own stubble, until her own sex was slick and clean.

Kat climbed off the bench (and Jamie's knees) and carried her tools back to the counter, then stepped to a nearby sink and used a washcloth to clean the remaining shavecream from her loins.  She rinsed and re-wet the cloth, then slowly, smiling evilly, sauntered back towards Jamie.

The bound redhead squealed through her gag and squirmed in her bonds as Kat scrubbed her sex clean.  The washcloth was cold!  Jamie glared at Kat as the naked brunette knelt and untied her ankles.  "That was unnecessary," she groused when Kat unbuckled the ball-gag and tossed it away.

"The shaving?" Kat inquired with a sardonic grin.

"The cold water!" Jamie snapped, a grin of her own on her freckled features.

"It feels... different, doesn't it?" Kat asked.

Jamie gave a delicate shudder as she lifted one leg over the bench and stood.  Her rapidly drying, bare pubis did feel different... but that wasn't all.  Jamie locked eyes with Kat.  For the first time in memory... she wasn't afraid... not in the way she had been.  "Yes..." Jamie whispered.  "Different."

Kat laughed and picked Jamie up into her arms, then carried her from the bathroom and into Margo's bedchamber.  Jamie said nothing, simply stared at her captor... her rescuer? ...as she was deposited on Margo's huge circular bed.  She neither complained nor struggled as Kat crossed and retied her ankles with the sash that had formerly held them prisoner.

Kat went to a hidden bar and mixed a pitcher of hermosa (champagne and orange juice), then returned to the bed with the pitcher and one glass.  She filled the glass and held it while Jamie drank her fill.

"Eve, I'd like a light meal for two delivered as soon as possible, please," Kat announced, sipping from the glass herself.  "Something off Margo's 'A' list.  Finger food."

"Immediately , Your Magnificence," Eve-L's voice answered in a sarcastic, fawning manner.  "I've certainly nothing better to do, now that you've ruined my carefully crafted, months-in-the-making, tickle-torture regime for Primary Target and thrown the entire Fox Hunt timetable into the crapper."

"Thank you," Kat said lightly, then turned to Jamie, who was regarding her with amused affection.  "More?" Kat asked, holding up the half-empty glass.  Jamie nodded and Kat helped her drink again.  Kat then set the glass on the nightstand and snuggled close to her naked, bound (and giggling) prisoner.  "Eve, open the ceiling, please."

There was a very quiet rumble, and the entire ceiling of the bedroom retracted, revealing a clear, indigo sky filled with countless stars.

Kat lay on her back with Jamie beside her and stared upwards.  "Did I ever tell you about the time I first met Margo?" Kat asked.

"Uh... no," Jamie whispered.

Kat smiled.  "I'll tell you my story," she purred, "then you can tell me yours. "