Monsterbait at Lake Abstinence

"...Please," Dina repeated.

The Crasher yanked downward on the chain around her waist, forcing her to her knees in the dirt, and spanked her once, hard, with the flat of the saw. The blade made an ominous wobbling sound in the air, preparing for another one.

"Who do you belong to?"

"You!" Dina cried.

She stole a glance at her own wristband, as the light rolled over from green to yellow.

Nobody got into this job without a certain amount of taste for what the monsters could dish out. Even at her most anxious, the thrill Dina got out of it wasn't all bad.

The light progressed to pale orange, however, when she allowed herself to think about what would happen later, once she was the one with the upper hand.

She stopped those thoughts before her physical state could escalate further.

"Show me that you understand," said the Crasher. "Kiss the water."

Dina crouched forward on her elbows and brough her lips to the surface of the stream.

"Deeper," the Crasher ordered, amusement creeping into his low voice.

Dina dunked her face all the way to the streambed, and was not at all surprised when the Crasher caught her by the hair on her way back up.

"I'll tell you when you can breathe, bad girl," he said, squeezing his handful of her hair tightly enough for her to feel the tension in her scalp. "I bet it'll be the first lesson in self-control you've ever gotten."

He brought the saw within her range of vision, to remind her it was there, and wobbled it slightly to make that eerie sound.

"Spend your breath on screams if you want," he said, "but it won't make me take mercy any faster."

Dina sucked in the deepest breath she could before the Crasher shoved her head back under the water.

The side of the saw snapped against her bare ass again.

Not having access to air made it hard to stay as calm as she usually did under such treatment. She couldn't focus on that soothing, in-and-out sensation of breathing. Even before she actually started to run low on oxygen, the difference was sharp.

The spanking continued, slow and deliberate, with no distractions available from the claustrophobic pain. Each time she thought it had been long enough that the next blow might not come, it did.

The light on her wristband, all that she could see in the dark water, shifted to bright orange. When the saw hit a little lower, touching her labia, she knew she had left a wet imprint on the side of the blade.

It had been years since she'd trained to resist asphyxia-induced sensitivity. Clearly, she was out of practice.

Just as she was wondering whether her alarm would go off before she lost consciousness, the Crasher finally wrenched her head upright, and she gasped gratefully at the cool air.

"You pass," he told her, releasing her hair. "Run away. Tell everyone you know. Never come back, and never forget that you're mine. Whenever you breathe air or drink water, it's because I let you. And every time you even think about indulging your dirtier appetites, you're going to wonder where I am, and whether I might still change my mind."

He unhooked the chain from around her waist and gave her one more whack with the saw, to get her moving.

Dina got to her feet, dusting dirt off her knees and the case of her phone. She took a few steps back toward the cottage, and then made a decision.

"How can you be sure I won't forget?" she asked sweetly, with a faint sprinkling of taunting.

Her wristband was still just below the red zone, she was out of breath and stinging and cold, and she wasn't at all sure how the Crasher might decide to step things up. But the longer she kept his attention on her, the less of the burden would fall to her teammates.

Dina was nothing if not a conscientious boss.

The Crasher blinked, transparent nictitating membranes sliding across his eyeballs under the lids. He looked like he was trying to decide if she was sick or just incredibly slow on the uptake.

"How much more of a reminder do you think you'd need?" he asked.

"You could march me around the edges of your territory," Dina suggested the most time-consuming punishment she could think of that would give her a chance to calm herself and study him better. "So I know exactly where not to come back to. And to make sure I think twice before ever taking off so much as my shoes again."

The Crasher opened his mouth to say something, then made a small sound of understanding, and closed it into a smirk.

"You're braver than most bad girls I've met," he acknowledged.

"And you're smarter than most revenants," said Dina.

The Crasher raised the hand with the chain in it, and beckoned her back to him with two webbed fingers.

Dina came closer, stopping tantalizingly out of reach of where he stood in the water.

"You want to protect the others?" the Crasher asked her.

"Yes," Dina answered plainly, in almost her everyday voice.

"It might be harder than you think," said the Crasher. "Now that I've already gotten started."

"What have you gotten started?" Dina asked, expecting him to tell her how much spanking her had whetted his appetite for the others.

"It has to do with rule number two," the Crasher said, leaning the full length of his naked, sinewy body slightly forward from where his feet were planted under the water. He raised the chain slightly.

"What's rule number two?" Dina asked, preparing to dodge a lassoing swing of the chain.

The Crasher gave the chain one twirl, building momentum, and then lunged, lifting one foot completely out of the water to close the distance. He wrapped the chain around the back of Dina's neck, securing his grip on her.

"Rule number two: the bad boys belong to me too."

With that, the Crasher flung himself backward into the stream, dragging Dina face-first along with him.

Instead of hitting the bottom of the streambed again, they broke through the water's surface into a roomful of air and light. Gravity changed direction, as if the surface were always down and never up, no matter which side of it they were on.

Their momentum from falling into the stream carried them back to their feet as they emerged from the water in the cottage's bathtub.

"Jeff?" said Dina, once she had blinked the water from her eyes.

"Boss?" said Jeff, both embarrassed and relieved.

Jeff was naked again, or maybe still, and immobilized dozens of logging chains.

His hands were chained to the showerhead, and his feet to the grate of the drain, tightly enough that he couldn't move in any direction.

Another chain attached to the showerhead looped around his neck, keeping his air and blood supply tightly rationed, and ensuring that he'd pass out quickly if he tried to use his size to break the fixture and free himself.

The showerhead itself was positioned precisely over Jeff's crotch, and as Dina watched, a droplet fell and struck his already prominent erection, sliding torturously down the underside of the shaft before getting lost in his pubic hair.

Dina reached for the taps behind him, to shut the water all the way off, but the Crasher held her back easily by the chain around her own neck.

"Really?" he asked, stepping out of the tub, onto the tile, and dragging her with him. "You thought I was just going to let you do that?"

He tossed his crosscut saw to the floor, so that he could hold her with both hands.

"When did you even-?" Dina started to ask.

"He's fast," Jeff explained apologetically.

It seemed that, around the water of Lake Abstinence, the Crasher was more than fast. He was instantaneous.

And Dina had given him fifteen whole minutes to work after she separated from the team, expecting him to spend all of it on stalking her.

Jeff's wristband shifted from yellow to orange with the next drop that hit him.

"Thanks for those monitors, by the way," said the Crasher. "Now I'll know exactly when he's as close to the edge as he's going to get. When he's in the 'danger zone,' where the slightest touch will set him off. Like, say, a sudden deluge from a massaging showerhead. I know, I know, it's you and the other girls who have the deepest weakness for that particular guilty pleasure, but it'll work well enough for him, by the time I get him there."

Jeff gyrated his hips, trying to get out of the way of the next falling drop.

It still hit his erection, this time on the side, right at the crease behind the head. It slid its way down along that fold of skin. The whole appendage bobbed up and down, as if trying to shake it off a little faster, and Jeff's muscles trembled, from his elevated hands down to his feet.

"You could try a trade, like the brave bad girl you are," the Crasher spoke in Dina's ear, holding her in place from behind, with the chain still pressing against her throat.

"What kind of trade?" she asked warily.

"Don't play the naïve ingenue," the Crasher shook her slightly. "You obviously came here already knowing rule number three: bad girls and boys who lose control, lose it all."

Holding both ends of the chain in his left hand, he grabbed Dina's hand in his right, completely trapping it in his tough webbing. He forced the phone out of it and onto the floor.

He brought her hand slowly, firmly, to her pussy, and held it there, just barely touching.

"If you cum, it'll be the last thing you feel before me cutting you to pieces." He stepped on the blade of the fallen saw for emphasis. "But if you do it for me on purpose, right now, I might consider letting your friend go before he breaks and joins you."

He brushed her fingers over the vicinity of her clit, and then let go to run his soft, filmy palm over each of her breasts in turn. He squeezed a nipple between two fingers that felt both insubstantially flexible and impossibly strong.

"I'll even help, if you want," he whispered.

"Don't do it, boss," Jeff told her breathlessly. "I'm the one who went off script when I got out of eyeshot of the others. Besides, they need you more than me."

Dina took advantage of the access to air, taking in slow, thought-clearing sips. In spite of the alarming turn this job had taken, she was still dangerously aroused herself.

"Where the hell are Laura and Kelly?" she asked.

#

Kelly held her headphones close and watched Laura groove to her own.

They were sitting across from each other at the small, square table in the cottage's kitchen, with the card game box sitting unopened in the middle.

They had both pulled their clothes back on at the lakeside, without any towels, so Laura's neat white blouse was sticking to her skin and showing the outline of her slightly overflowing pink bra.

Taking turns sharing their favorite music had been Laura's suggestion, a way to distract themselves from the urge to touch each other while they waited for Jeff to get back from the bathroom.

Both sets of headphones were synced to Laura's phone, and right now they were listening to a sparkly pop ballad of her choosing.

Kelly couldn't say it was reducing her urge to reach out and touch Laura, but it did give her something to think about.

The familiar belting voice and catchy refrain had her thinking about how she must have heard this song in the background a thousand times before, without quite believing that there were people who listened to it on purpose.

At the same time, the way Laura moved to it, dancing in her seat completely without irony, as if she were drawing power from every note, made this listening so different that the song might as well have been new.

Kelly wondered if Laura was mouthing the generic love note lyrics with such earnestness as a message to her, personally, or if that was how she always danced to it.

She wondered if joining in would shatter Laura's image of her, of the stoically prickly cool girl.

She wondered if not joining in would disappoint her and push her back into her shell.

She wondered if it was possible to give an honest reaction after having had all the rest of those thoughts.

Laura opened her eyes after a few moments of getting particularly lost, and smiled self-consciously at Kelly.

Kelly's head wanted to move.

She was going to let it.

She rocked it to the left, and was about to rock it to the right, making it clear that the first movement had not been a random bit of fidgeting that only happened to coincide with the beat.

A monitor alarm cut through the song, killing the rhythm.

Immediately, both Kelly and Laura pulled off their headphones and ran toward the noise.

"Jeff?" Kelly called out, knocking on the locked bathroom door.

There were several thumps on the inside of the door, someone pawing at the doorknob without being able to fully grasp it, before it finally unlatched.

Kelly jerked it all the way open

Dina lunged toward her for help and was pulled sharply away by some sort of leash. The other end of it was being held by a fish man who could only be the Crasher.

Jeff was squirming against another set of restraints in the shower. His wristband was the one blaring its alarm, though Dina's was glowing red, about to join in at any moment.

"Last chance," the Crasher was saying to Dina, while fingering her hard with one webbed hand.

Dina looked to Kelly.

"It's hopeless," she said. "He can teleport through water."

Kelly nodded.

Next to her, Laura took off running with a purpose.

"It's hopeless" was, of course, Dina-code for "It's definitely not hopeless, and I'm about to slip you the info we need to win."

Kelly began to remove her belt, in a posture of surrender.

The Crasher kicked the shower's hot water tap, turning the massage head to full blast.

"Oh... god," Jeff gave a strangled gasp before ejaculating into the pulsating warm stream, which would soon turn scalding hot.

The Crasher shoved Dina aside unfinished, picked up a crosscut saw from the floor, and stepped into the shower with Jeff.

"That settles that," he said.

Just before the serrated blade of the saw could touch the skin of Jeff's abdomen, Laura burst back into the room with two boxes of pancake mix from the kitchen. She tore them open and poured them both into the few inches of water collected in the tub.

The flour in the mix instantly absorbed the water it touched, including the deluge from above, turning it all into a dull batter.

The Crasher's eyes widened in panic as he realized the smooth water surface he had been counting on as his escape route was gone.

He tried for the door, but Laura and Kelly were both in his path, Kelly with her hex-marked belt at the ready.

Dina shut off the shower and set to work freeing Jeff.

Laura reached her fingers under both her white blouse and pink bra and flashed the Crasher.

Even surrounded by existing nudity, the motion of revealing her breasts had the same power as ever.

The Crasher's head turned, distracted, long enough for Kelly to fasten her belt around his neck.

The Crasher looked at her, irritated by her audacity, and tried to touch the belt with his strong, flexible hands.

The studded leather firmly repelled his interference, no matter how hard he tried to force his hands into contact with it.

He hissed like the trapped animal he was, as Kelly took his saw away and tied the loose end of the belt around his wrists, securing them behind his back.

She used the length of belt that stretched between the Crasher's neck and wrists as a handle, to drag him into one of the cottage's two bedrooms.

"You belong to me, bad girl!" he protested along the way.

#

Toweled off and dressed in clean slumber party clothes, all four Monsterbait Squad members lined up at the foot of the bed where they'd secured the Crasher.

His hands were still tied under him with Kelly's magic belt, which kept him helpless enough that they'd been able to tie his feet to the bed with ordinary rope. The bed's headboard and footboard were both made up of cage-like decorative wooden bars, so there were plenty of places to attach bindings.

Dina stepped a little way forward from the rest of the group.

"Good news," she told the Crasher. "You're about to get exactly what you've always wanted."

"I want blood and bone!" the Crasher raved, thrashing on the bed. "Suffering and solitude! I want to punish your unworthy urges in ways you'll never forget, and put a stop to all your filthy pleasure!"

"No," Dina said calmly. "You want it for yourself."

The Crasher shut his eyes against the four differently gorgeous figures in front of him, and shook his head against the pillows in a frenzy of denial.

"You don't deserve it," Jeff told him sternly. "Not after all the harm you've caused."

"But lucky for you," said Laura, "the Monsterbait Squad is on a specialized mission of mercy."

The Crasher opened the outer lids of one eye, unable to disguise his interest.

"We're here to fuck you well and hard," Dina confirmed, "and transport you to a monster rehabilitation ranch. All you have to do... is beg."

The Crasher shook his head even harder, struggling against his leg restraints with indignation. "I don't believe this."

"It might sound a little petty," Kelly acknowledged in her usual unconcerned deadpan. "But the belt needs your earnest verbal consent before it progresses beyond short-term holding mode. Once you say the words and mean them, it will strip all your magical abilities and hold them for safekeeping until your rehabilitation director determines that you're fit for release."

"I will not give you the satisfaction," said the Crasher. "I will never allow anyone satisfaction."

"Okay," said Dina. "Well, if you don't, we do have to put you down, like regular monster hunters would. Can't leave you to keep terrorizing people. But I seriously doubt it'll come to that. Everyone... Truth or Dare. Jeff, get the bottle."

"You're all sick!" the Crasher groaned, arching his back.

Jeff retrieved the empty vodka bottle from the gear bag, kept for over a dozen missions because of its perfect shape.

The four sat in a circle on the floor, at the foot of the bed.

"All restrictions are suspended," said Dina. "Everything is fair game."

She took the bottle from Jeff and gave it its first spin. It landed with its neck toward Laura.

"Truth," said Laura.

"How far has your illicit fraternization with Kelly gotten so far?" asked Dina.

Laura's face flushed almost as bright as her hair, even though Dina's tone was indulgent.

"Not far. We haven't even kissed outside of work yet. But that might change," she smiled shyly at Kelly, "when we're done here."

The Crasher made a gagging noise, which the squad all ignored.

Laura spun next, landing on Dina.

"Truth."

"Are you trying to come up with an excuse," Laura asked her, "to monitor and restrict Kelly and me full time, to keep us always hungry for each other, so we'll make better bait?"

"It crossed my mind," Dina admitted. "But instead, I'm going to wish you luck, and quietly think up ways to discipline you if you alter our squad chemistry."

"What have you come up with so far?" Laura asked, eyes subtly sparkling through her bashfulness.

"Wait for your next turn," said Dina, grabbing the bottle and spinning.

It pointed to Jeff.

"Dare."

"Show us your headstand splits," Dina said immediately.

The Crasher sat up in bed at this point, to watch. He was obviously trying to do it silently, but between his bound hands and the ancient box spring, it was impossible.

The squad pretended not to notice.

Jeff took a few moments to limber up, placed his hands on the floor, and lifted the rest of himself into a free-balancing headstand. In a slow, controlled movement, he spread his legs in a sideways splits, forming himself into an uppercase T with a perfectly flat top.