Chapter 73 Stalked by the Scorpions
As soon as the heavy door closed behind the Brothers Chan, the quartet of
furious Scorpions moved forward as one toward their shapely captive as if
directed by an unseen choreographer. Ming-tsu backed away from them, her alert
brown eyes desperately searching the murky dimness of the spacious, torch-lit
dungeon hoping to find a weapon, an exit, a miracle. As Chiang and his sinister
underlings moved closer she made eye contact with their young leader.
Deciding for the moment to rely on the feminine charms that she had so
often used to beguile his amorous father, Ming-tsu tried to put warmth into the
nervous smile that she offered Chiang Chan. "Please, sir, I'm sorry. I had no
idea who you were. And besides -- I-I didn't mean it. I didn't really think
you were the thieves. It's all a terrible misunderstanding -- a mistake."
"And you're going to pay for that mistake, cunt!" The Ox, so long laconic,
had been stirred to a righteous wrath by her false accusations. He inched
toward her from her left, his ungainly body as ugly as his speech had been
vulgar, his bovine face a nearly featureless slab of flesh. Ming-tsu shuddered
in trepidation as the Scorpions closed around her.
The Ox's outburst startled an iridescent-eyed black cat from a prolonged
slumber in a distant corner of the dungeon; Dao watched as the annoyed cat,
whose job it clearly was to keep the dungeon free of rodents, padded on silken
feet toward the retreating courtesan. The leggy feline was restrained by a
long, silent, leather leash which allowed her access to the dungeon which was
her hunting ground when the humans had retired; she slid silently up behind
Ming-tsu, as cats are wont to do, and when the concubine's bare leg brushed
against the cat's fur, Ming-tsu almost jumped out of her skin with fright. Her
cry of surprise sent the ominous feline trotting back toward the corner whence
she had come, where she proceeded to preside over events like a judge in the
underworld.
Unnerved by the appearance of the black cat, Ming-tsu did her best to
suppress her sickening sense that impending doom was no further away than the
animal whose sudden appearance seemed to augur the direst of calamities.
Ming-tsu's gaze followed the cat as the silent, sharp-eared creature curled up
alongside the ghastly wooden frame that had haunted her dreams for two nights.
The cat twitched its whiskers mysteriously while it peered through one of
the twin circles of the Burmese Crusher. Ming-tsu could only wonder what black
magic the creature had seemingly used to search the innermost recesses of her
consciousness, so that it might scratch at her deepest fears and claw at her
rawest nerves. Ming-tsu could almost feel the dreadful wooden bands of the
breast crusher tightening inexorably on her tender globes of girl-flesh...
Zheng, on the other hand, seemed to interpret the materialization of the
ebony feline as a good omen for he and his comrades. "Look at those jugs,
boys!" exulted the Ox, as he moved closer, stalking his human prey. "It won't be
long now! " he growled in a gruff voice. "Why don't you turn around for us,
whore, so we can see what you've got!"
Ming-tsu blushed, more conscious than ever of how the tops of her honeyed
mounds spilled out of her low-cut chemise, how the turgid darts of her nipples
prodded aggressively against the clinging silk.
Dao advanced on the Ox's left, his thick tongue protruding from one of the
larger gaps in his uneven rows of crooked teeth. "Yeah, let's have a look at
that sweet little ass! By the sword of Genghis Khan, I want some of that, Boss!"
The flickering torchlight gave Dao an even more grotesque aspect than usual.
The tall, gaptoothed Scorpion resembled a ghoulish, lust-crazed jack-o'-lantern,
as he drew nearer. "Yeah, show us what you got, girl," he lied, "and maybe
we'll go easy on you!"
On Ming-tsu's far right, Lin, the skinny young messenger whom she had sent
on that strange errand on the Night of the Tiger, was literally drooling as his
lustful eyes drank in the ripeness of Ming-tsu's thrusting breasts, the sleek
lines of her silk-covered torso, the slimness of her waist, and the bare, supple
thighs that were more revealed than concealed by her brief black chemise.
The innkeeper's son had coveted Ming-tsu's delicious body since the crisp,
sunlit mountain morning {Chapter 7} when he had first laid eyes on her. She
had been a vision of loveliness when he and his father had entrusted the
voluptuous blonde fraulein to her care, but now her skimpy attire, combined with
the ambience of male dominance that permeated the cellars of the Black Pagoda,
had fanned the flames of his desire to to a raging hunger. Lin's disfiguring
skin condition seemed to have worsened in the dank, humid atmosphere; the
blotches on his face were ruddy and pustulent. "Yeah, baby, let's see some
more," Lin parrotted Dao in his high-pitched voice.
To Lin's right was Chiang Chan, still in his very early twenties, well
built and not bad-looking. But as she had with his father and uncle, Ming-tsu
searched his dark, intense eyes in vain for the slightest trace of pity.
As his colleagues inched closer it occurred to Chiang Chan that his
father's gorgeous concubine had been right about one thing. His men were indeed
the scum of the earth. But they were loyal scum. And they were loyal to the
Chans because of the occasional fringe benefits that fate and the Chans bestowed
upon them. Fringe benefits like the tasty Ming-tsu.
"Please! I'll do anything ..." Ming-tsu purred enticingly as she gave
Chiang Chan her most lascivious smile, running her moist pink tongue slowly
across her sensuous lips, lingering to taste their sweetness. "I can show a
handsome man like you a very good time," she added breathily as her dark eyes
darted warily from side to side "You have no idea of how I could please you,
Chiang Chan. I could give you pleasures such as you have never known, pleasures
most men have never dreamed of." She struck a rather brazen pose for a moment,
standing obliquely to him, her lush breasts audaciously out-thrust, one hip
sensuously cocked in his direction.
Chiang Chan was only a few yards away now. His gaze, focused and
rapacious, swept across the succulent curves that Ming-tsu's silken chemise
hugged so tightly. "I have no doubt but that you can, Ming-tsu," he said with a
wry smile. But then his smile hardened into granite. "And that you will."
The squadron leader moved still closer, as Ming-stu continued retreating.
She could feel the youngest Chan's dark eyes caressing her tawny flesh,
seemingly intent on raking the brief chemise from her body telepathically.
"You will indeed show us a good time, in good time, you shameless slut. But
first," Chiang added as his lip curled upward sardonically, "we 'street thugs',
as you called us, are going to show you a bad time. A very bad time."
Ming-tsu took another step backward, her dark eyes darting feverishly, from
one hostile thug to the other. As she retreated she bumped into one of the
blood-stained pillars that supported the dungeon. Mounted in the pillar was one
of the flaming torches that served to give the depths of the Black Pagoda its
eerie glimmering glow.
Seized by an inspiration, Ming-tzu reached up swiftly and grasped the
flambeau, a yard-long wooden pole on which had been mounted a thick, fibrous
wick which had been dipped in a foul-smelling pitch before being set aflame.
Holding the torch tightly in her right hand she feinted toward Chiang Chan and
Lin on her right, and as she did so, the other two Scorpions surged forward.
"Get her!" Dao bellowed, but as the Ox charged toward the athletic young
woman she quickly swung the torch back in his direction, setting the left sleeve
of his black tunic alight.
"Arrggghh!!" A great, dark shadow on the opposing wall lurched violently
sideways as the Ox screamed in pain and danced in circles in an effort to put
out the fire, which only succeeded in making it worse. "You fucking cunt!!"
"Who else wants some of this?" the wild-eyed temptress dared the
approaching foursome, as she continued to back away from them. "Come closer,
gentlemen," she dared them. "So I can burn your balls off!"
Meanwhile Chiang Chan had quickly stepped over to the cabinet his uncle
had pointed out to him and removed a long, tapering whip of unusual smoothness
and flexibility. Uncoiling the blacksnake, he gave Ming-tsu a menacing glare
and once again joined his comrades in stalking the torch-wielding courtesan.
Ming-tsu, mindful of the whip, and still a bit rattled by the untimely
appearance of the black cat, continued retreating toward the subterranean
passageway through which the Scorpions had brought her to the Black Pagoda not
long before. The entrance to the underground passageway was at the far end of
the cellar from the doorway that led upward, via the circular stone staircase,
to the main levels of Richard Chan's mansion.
"When I get my hands on you! Aaaurrghhh!" the Ox raged as the bright
orange flames continued to dance on his dark sleeve.
"Stop waving your arms about," Dao instructed as he stripped off his own
shirt in an attempt to smother the flames that continued to creep up Zheng's
tunic.
CRACKKK!! Chiang lashed out with his whip. With Ming-tsu's torch-arm
extended, obstructing her upper body, Chiang Chan correctly judged that her
pretty legs were her most vulnerable point of attack, and indeed the black whip
curled around Ming-tsu's smooth, honey-gold thighs, wrapping them in its cruel
embrace.
"Aahh!" Ming-tsu yelped in pain, as the lash seared into her supple
thigh-flesh, but when Lin tried to take advantage of her moment of pain and
distraction by lunging forward to grab her, he was rewarded with a faceful of
flaming torch that Ming-tsu thrust toward him.
"Aaeeiiiii!!" the boy wailed as he fell back, his hands clutching his face.
Ming-tsu detected the nauseating smell of burning hair as the Drooler
doubled over in pain. When he pulled his hands from his face, Ming-tsu saw that
his eyebrows and the unruly hair that descended over his forehead had been badly
singed.
CRACCKK! Chiang swung the whip again, this time aiming at her torch hand.
"Ouwww!" Ming-tsu recoiled, and quickly tranferred the burning pole to her
other hand, so that she could shake the sting from her right wrist.
"Go for her legs, Dao!" Chiang Chan ordered his right-hand man, and the
hairy-chested thug made a wrestler's low diving lunge toward Ming-tsu's bare
left leg.
Ming-tsu lowered her torch defensively, and that gave Chiang Chan the
opening he had been looking for; he began to swing the whip just as Dao made his
feint, and his timing was exquisite. Just as the raven-haired concubine's guard
dropped down to defend against Dao, the black tail of the whip found the opening
in her defenses and slashed viciously into the lush upper curves of Ming-tsu's
semi-nude breasts.
"Aaaaiiieeee!!!" Ming-tsu wailed in agony, as a lightning bolt of pain
coursed through her unprotected lust-melons. She staggered backward, trying to
transfer the torch back to Chiang Chan's side, but as she lifted her arm
defensively, the black whip-lash dipped low, once again curling around her
shapely thighs, scalding her soft flesh.
Ming-tsu grimaced in pain again, but kept her presence of mind as she
reached the reinforced wooden door that opened into the underground passageway.
Doing her best to shake off the effects of the Chiang Chan's slashing whip, the
breathless courtesan used her left hand to grope for the door-latch while she
used the torch in her right to fend off the oncoming Scorpions.
The troublesome latch at last fell open and the almond-eyed temptress
breathed a sigh of relief as she slipped backward into the dark, dank passageway
through which she had been driven by blows like a pack animal not an hour
earlier. As they had paraded her through the narrow passageway the Scorpions
had undressed her with their lewd stares, insulted her with their licentious
tongues, and groped her as if she had been the commonest of street whores rather
than the mistress of George Chan.
The underground passageway, she recalled, emptied out near the front of
the Chan estate, not far from the main gate. If she could only hold off the
four vengeful Scorpions long enough to reach the end of the tunnel .... Once
out of the passageway and in the blessed open air, she thought that if she could
endure another lash or two of the whip she could negotiate the low wall that
adjoined the south side of the gate. If so, there was a real chance that she
could lose herself in the throngs of passersby who always filled the
labyrinthian streets of Shanghai. It would be a roll of the dice and the odds
were certainly not in her favor; but she had come to the conclusion that she
stood no chance at all by staying and submitting meekly to whatever cruel fate
the denizens of the House of Chan had condemned her.
The low-ceilinged corridor through which she retreated cautiously was only
about eight wide; its narrowness was an asset to Ming-tsu in that it narrowed
considerably the front that she had to defend. As she backed her way up the
slight grade of the crypt-like passageway, Ming-tsu's heart was pounding like
the pace-setting drummer on an ancient galley. Trying to ignore the effects of
the stinging lashes she had suffered, the shapely courtesan continued to wave
the torch back and front of her, occasionally feinting at a Scorpion who had
dared to approach nearer than the rest.
The Ox was still on her left; even in the Stygian light of the secret
passage, the light given off by her torch clearly showed the increasingly
inflamed redness of his badly burned left arm. As he lumbered forward, the big
man's jaw was firmly clenched, half in an attempt to forget what was surely a
painful burn, half in a rictus of rage and revenge. When his foot brushed
against something soft, he kicked at it wildly, crushing the skull of one of the
ugly long-tailed rats whose yellow eyes peeked out of the dark corners in the
feline-free passageway.
Dao was in the middle, a determined leer on his gaptoothed face,
approaching warily, properly respectful of the way Ming-tsu swept the flaming
pendulum from side to side before her.
Chiang Chan hung back a little on her right, still carrying the punishing
whip which, by a bit of good joss for Ming-tsu, was impossible to use in such
close quarters. A typical leader, Ming-tsu mused scornfully, as she noted how
he lagged a bit behind, letting his minions face the greatest danger.
The thick, noxious vapors of the burning pitch gave the unventilated
underground corridor a hellish cast as Ming-tsu retreated, making it
uncomfortable to breathe and difficult to see. Lin, whose face and hair she
had burned, was nowhere to be seen. Either the Drooler was following in the
murky dimness behind the big bodies of the Ox and Gaptooth, or his injuries had
caused him to abandon the chase altogether.
"Do you really think you can escape us?" the cool, rational voice of Chiang
Chan called out to Ming-tsu gratingly as the Scorpions inexorably followed the
scantily-clad beauty deeper and deeper into the dim recesses of the passage. "Do
you dare to think that there is a hiding place in Shanghai where you will be
safe from the sting of the Scorpions? Give me the torch, girl, and put an end
to this charade. Each second that you delay only worsens your inevitable fate.
Give me the torch!"
"Come and get it, Chiang Chan! You are welcome to this end of it!" the
scantily-clad concubine hissed as she thrust the flaming weapon toward him with
a swift movement that almost caused her whip-seared love-globes to leap out of
her decolletage.
When her lightning-quick thrust drove Chiang back, Ming-tsu used her left
hand to brush sticky of cobwebs away from the right side of her face as she
recommenced her slow, tactical retreat, holding the fiercely burning torch in
front of her defensively. She backed up the incline a few more feet, and began
to sense that she was approaching the outer terminus of the tunnel as, little by
little, daylight began to filter into the dark passageway.
Ming-tsu noticed too, as she had when she had passed through earlier,
that while the floor and lower walls of the underground corridor were damp and
clammy, the upper walls and the roof of the tunnel were as dry as an
aristocrat's attic, and festooned with myriads of cobwebs woven by the countless
arachnids who had inhabited the upper reaches of the forbidding passageway for
decades. She herself was too short to be much troubled by the overhanging webs,
but her four pursuers were continually ducking to avoid them.
Slowly a plan began to form in her mind; she remembered one point in the
tunnel where the webs had been particularly thick, especially along the wall to
her right ... and she was nearly certain that she was approaching that point
now...
Ming-tsu, her eye-catching, torch-lit breasts gleaming with perspiration
and heaving with excitement, backed up another few steps and then glanced
upward to make sure that her memory had not played tricks on her. Sure enough,
she had just retreated into a six-foot stretch of passageway where the webs that
lined the roof of the passageway grew as thick as a waterfront fog. Noticing
that Chiang Chan had finally drawn up even with his unsavory comrades, the
clever courtesan took two more steps backward, drawing him on, and then after
retreating under the worst of the webs, she suddenly swung the blazing torch
upward toward the great mass of spider-silk that lined the ceiling and the wall
to her right.
"Burn! Burn!!" she exhorted the miniature conflagration as the sea of dry,
overhanging cobwebs burst instantaneously into a myriad of tiny flames
slithering like a thousand fiery fuses in Chiang Chan's direction, with one web
igniting another, and then another and another and so on, until one entire side
of the passageway seemed ablaze with a thousand points of light.
"Eeaaahhhh!!!" Enmeshed in the sparkling gossamer maze, Chiang Chan cried
out and tried to step back but bumped into the bare-chested Dao who had come to
his assistance; in a moment the two Scorpions were engulfed in a flaming silken
labyrinth.
Ming-tsu was exultant with the success of her ploy, as she watched the two
Scorpions beat at their hair and clothing. Breathless with excitement, she
continued backward toward the light with only the Ox in hot pursuit. She was
only a few feet from safety now!
Chiang and Dao were still screaming in pain and cursing like marooned
sailors when suddenly the daylight behind Ming-tsu disappeared as if a Cyclops
had stepped in front of the the mouth of a cave. "Wha-a-a?" Ming-tsu cried out
wonderingly. Had the Scorpions contrived with some capricious god to move the
entrance to the tunnel? She took another step backward, and then glanced over
to shoulder to see what had become of the light.
But whatever light that had been there was almost completely obscured by a
dark shape. A dark shape which suddenly began to hurtle toward her. She
quickly began to turn so that she could aim the torch at the onrushing figure ,
but it was too late. A split-second later the shoulder of the mysterious phantom
slammed into her back violently, tackling her and sending her sprawling forward,
face-down in the murky passageway.
"The torch, Ox!" Lin yelled. "Get it!! Quickly!" For her attacker was none
other than the fleet-footed messenger who had taken the other exit from the
dungeon, and had raced up the staircase and dashed out to the front of the
palatial grounds of Richard Chan's magnificent estate, just in time to thwart
her attemped escape.
Despite the violence of their collision, Ming-tsu had just managed to hold
on to the torch, but with Lin's body lying on top of hers, pinning her
shoulders, she was powerless to do anything but wave it harmlessly across the
floor. The foul-smelling odor of Lin's singed hair represented only an
insignificant triumph; it did little to comfort the tears of frustration that
welled into her eyes, as she pounded her left fist into the ground. So close
... she had been so close... But now ... Dire images inspired by dreadful
dreams flashed quickly before her eyes. Blood-chilling visions of bondage and
torture and rape. Dark dreams of sinister men utilizing all of the hideous
devices of the Black Pagoda to take a cruel revenge upon the beautiful young
woman whose torch-wielding counter-attacks had added injury to insult.
The Ox's huge foot, encrimsoned with the blood of the rat he had slain,
came down on her torch-hand, pinning it to the coarse floor of the passageway.
"Drop the torch, cunt! Or I swear I'll put it out by shoving it up your pretty
ass!"
Meanwhile Lin's hands were sliding the flimsy black chemise up over
Ming-tsu's torso. Moments later, his eager fingers were clawing at her black
panties, pulling them down over the ripe curves of her buttocks.
As the pressure of Zheng's gigantic foot on her hand redoubled, Ming-tsu
was forced to release her grip on the flambeau, which the lumbering giant
stooped down to pick up with his unburned arm. Just then Ming-tsu felt
something soft and furry under her bare stomach and then she gasped softly as
she felt the creature wiggle under her hiked-up top. Within half a heartbeat
the soft and furry feelings had become ones of repulsion and disgust as what she
imagined to be the creature's tail slithered caressingly around her right
breast.
Meanwhile Chiang and Dao were approaching, their faces furious, having
fought off the flaming cocoon in which they had found themselves by beating the
flames out with Dao's shirt. Dao's bare belly and chest had been stripped of
their bristling hair by the web-flames; his face was a mask of rage.
Ming-tsu felt a hot, sticky tongue insinuating itself into her left ear as
Lin's body ground his young body sensually against hers, pressing her painfully
into the dank floor of the grim corridor. "You've had your fun, baby," his
voice whispered salaciously, "but it's our turn now." But as disgusting as
Lin's caresses were, they paled alongside of the horror she felt as the furry
thing nibbled at her left breast. She squirmed violently, hoping to repel the
little beast, and then a sharp pain reminded her of the most distinctive
characteristic of rodents. Like their less repellent cousins, squirrels and
beavers, a thousand generations of evolution have taught rats to gnaw hard
objects. And the creature who had gotten himself entrapped in her chemise had
begun to gnaw at the only hard object within reach -- her left nipple!
Prompted by the pain in her breast and a wave of stomach-churning
revulsion, Ming-tsu desperately threw her body forward, unmindful of Lin's
weight, half crushing the squealing long-tailed rodent beneath her. When, after
a second great effort, Ming-tsu was able to lift her torso off the floor again,
the dazed animal slipped out of her bodice and scurried toward the light of the
torch, until it was dispatched to parasite paradise by the Ox's massive boot.
But Ming-tsu's troubles were far from over. The Drooler had her panties
down over the summits of her buttocks now and his fingers played over her
rounded asscheeks like a potter at his wheel, stroking, molding, shaping her
perfect bottom-ovals.
"Look at this ass, boys!" Lin exulted, as he fumbled with his trousers.
"Ohh, are you gonna get it now, bitch!"
Ming-tsu clawed desperately at the wet dirt and gravel in which she lay;
she had endured hundreds of male embraces, and not a few of them unwillingly,
but never in her life had she felt so naked, so defenseless, so humiliated, as
she did at that moment. She felt Lin spread her buttcheeks apart and then she
felt his newly liberated cock pressing crowbar-like against the tight ring of
her tender anus. "Stop yer wiggling, cunt!"
"Pig!" Ming-tsu screamed as she squirmed beneath the sex-crazed youth.
"Enough!" Chiang Chan's stentorian voice echoed resoundingly off of the
walls of the tunnel. "There will be time for that later," the squadron leader
scolded a disappointed Lin who tucked his rigid manhood back in his trousers,
but not before slapping Ming-tsu crisply across each of her perfect buttocks.
Chiang Chan shook his head in disbelief; his men would have been perfectly
happy to rape this beautiful young woman in the mud ... in a gutter ... in a
sewer. They were animals. But their cruel embraces were no better than she
deserved for her treachery...
"I'm not done with you, baby," the teenager whispered softly to the
bare-bottomed concubine, before climbing to his feet. "Not by a long shot!"
Meanwhile Chiang Chan completed his thought by adding, "There will be all
the time in the world," as he smiled gloatingly down at his father's mistress as
he pondered the strange vicissitudes of fate. Forty-eight hours earlier this
lush, exotic creature had clawed her way to the top of one of the great cities
of the world; but now she was lying face-down in this vile, vermin-filled
passageway, her half-naked body little more than a plaything for his bestial
crew.
Chiang Chan gestured for Dao and Lin to help Ming-tsu up. "This time,
keep her well in check, Dao, if you want to enjoy her later. I have other plans
for Ming-tsu. Special plans."
The two Scorpion jerked their prisoner painfully to her feet, her sheer
panties a silken band around the base of her rounded buttocks. Shamed by the
way the four goons ogled the fine, wispy tendrils of woman-hair that adorned her
mound of Venus, Ming-tsu used her free hand to pull the panties back into place.
Meanwhile, though, strong hands behind her, Dao's, had slid boldly up under her
chemise to cup her pouting breasts. The thug's bare chest was hot against her
back as his callused hands roamed greedily over the soft skin of her
love-mounds, a pirate staking claim to his booty.
"And I've got plans for these, sweetie," Dao boasted with a sneer as his
comrades enjoyed his antics.
"Squeeze those fuckin' tits, Dao! Squeeze 'em hard!" The Drooler seemed to
be the most excited of the foursome. The Ox merely stood in front of her,
hungrily eyeing her shapely body, while he blew on the raw, hairless flesh of
his left forearm, which would be blistered by morning. Of the four his burns
were by far the worst. Ming-tsu shuddered in dread as she realized that since
he the Ox was by far the strongest of the four, his revenge would probably be
the most horrific.
"Bring her back inside," Chiang Chan ordered. "You will pay, whore,"
Chiang Chan snarled, as he touched his coiled-up whip to the red mark his lash
had left on the upslopes of her splendid breasts, "for defying the Black
Scorpions. Take her to the Whipping Pit!"
