To review the characters in this story, check out this useful guide: Gai-Shift Encyclopedia of Knowledge
To understand the Gai Shift, please read the previous story Gai-Shift prior to reading this one.
Chapter 2: Captain Zana Hoffsteder
Chief Officer Drummand paused before the shop windows of Harrods, wincing at the shill voices of the paper-girls.
"London in grip of Biblical forces," called one. " 'Knightsbridge Angel' claims another victim," cried another. Constance could only stand before the shop window, waiting for the dread of failure to pass.
Five days had slipped by since Lady Petunia had been bound, gagged, stripped, and molested by a mythical winged form. Each night since then, another woman found herself gripped in the throes of a sudden inexplicable passion. In their window appeared the night visitor, a slender woman with blonde hair, a warped smile, and an insatiable appetite for quivering female orgasms. Each time, her victims would lay within her ropes and gentle fall of her wings, to quiver beneath dancing feathers and darting tongue. All of them remained roped in their cocoons of cordage until discovered the next morning.
And now something not a panic, not a fad nor fashion, and certainly not a dread gripped the capital city. Each woman responded differently. Some barred their windows or slept in the arms of others, seeking safety in numbers. Others flung their windows wide open or slept on roofs, inviting an erotic attack. And through it all, the papers had a field day and the police looked like bungling manni.
"Could this be a second Gai-Shift," cried out another paper vender. This brought a rise to Constance's scarlet eyebrows. Could it be, indeed? It had sixty years since the event that had shaped the world anew, the Gai-Shift, which allowed women to breed when they wanted to, as well as to determine the sex of their offspring. In a short generation, Man-kind had fallen from its thrones, becoming the chattel of the neo-women who ruled in their place.
If it happened once, could it happen again? Could the future belong to a race of aerial predators who could stalk and rope, ravish and rape at will?
Constance met the eyes of one of the shop manikins, a young women belted and strapped in leather, showing off the latest in a line of French restraint-ware. Pale blue eyes, Scottish eyes, looked out through the narrow slit in the leather helmet. They focused on the police women, casting an expression of weariness. The girl twisted slightly, causing her buckled, belted form to rock on the display hook.
Constance mused at this. How easy it would be to walk away from her duties and her impossible task of catching this flying molester. She could walk into Harrods and ask for a job in the display window. At that point, responsibility for the case would pass to another. And she could spend her days comfortably belted and strapped, hanging in monkish silence while stylish women regarded her predicament and made decisions concerning their maids. No one would know it was her. She could be free of all this.
She sighed, resting her head against the cool glass. Of course she could not do that, any more than she could accept ropes without a struggle. She had to stay on the case, and had to solve it. That was her way.
She turned and walked to the nearby tube station, leaving the poor girl with the pale blue eyes to rock alone in her enforced isolation.
A short time later, she entered the police station where she worked. Inside was pandemonium. Officers moved back and forth, carrying paperwork from the ongoing investigation. The transport racks were loaded with naked hanging women, their numbers forcing their bodies to rub against each other like meat in an overworked packing house. Constance ignored the ranks of suffering prisoners, crossing to the desk of the Routing Officer, her second in command, Samantha. The woman looked up, more harried than ever, her blonde hair wild in agitation.
"What's all this," Constance asked.
"It's a madhouse!" the younger officer shot back. "The city is so edgy that everyone is arresting everyone on suspicion of having something to do with the angel-attacks. And our officers are having to arrest the repeat-filers, just to keep them from putting entire apartment blocks into the straps."
"Did those girls in statistics come up with anything?"
Samantha burrowed through her papers, pulling up a single sheet. "Not much. All attacks happened at night, all attacks happened to women; obviously. But here are some interesting facts: all the incidences happened within the Knightsbridge district. Furthermore, of the five women attacked, two worked at Lady Petunia's in-town laboratory. Two of the others worked in shops in close proximity to those labs. The third was a deliverywoman who works the Knightsbridge district exclusively. If this is truly a heavenly angel, she's picking the targets of her wraith quite selectively."
"Any other impact?"
"Property values are up sharply in Knightsbridge. Seems a lot of women would like to live there now."
Constance smiled a catty little smile and was just about to say something when her attention was captured by the numerous women hanging dejectedly from their heels against the far wall. She blinked, attention riveted. Without a word, she left Samantha and crossed the floor as if in a trance.
When hanging inverted in suspension, the appearance of a body changes. Gravity alters the familiar sweep of the torso. A prominent hairstyle becomes little more than a hanging mass. Add to this the police gags that gripped the lower faces of the captives, and identification became dicey at best.
Even without the customary glasses, Constance recognized one of the prisoners. It was her feet. Constance remembered them well, having had to squirm on cabin decking bound in a demeaning package, forced to lick, kiss, and worship them in order to be released. It was humiliating, but not in a bad way, she reflected. Still...
"I'm going to question this one," she shot over to Samantha, who shrugged an expression that said 'fine, one less to do'. With that, she placed one hand on the trim thighs, the other on the tight buttocks, and rolled the woman down the hall. At the first available interrogation room, she toggled an overhead turnout, trundling her captive into a small, tidy, and well equipped cell.
Following procedures, she checked the prisoner's bonds. Her arms were snuggly belted across the small of her back, with a secondary strap pinning upper arms to her sides. Her ankles were cuffed and chained overhead. And the thick gag was in place. Everything was correct. Reaching up, Constance snatched away the toe-tag, smiling at the grunt from below.
"Inventory mismanagement," she read off the tag. "My my. Who would have thought a woman like you would stray from the straight and narrow?" With this, she knelt behind the hanging women, her leather skirt riding back, her thighs just touching the captive shoulders. Reaching down, she carefully unbuckled the strap holding the gag, making sure not to pull any of the lustrous jet-black hair. Then, grinning in satisfaction, she leaned around and watched as the thick gag fell away to reveal a face reddening from blood-flow and embarrassment.
"That damned Goldwaith," Captain Zana Hoffsteder grated. "Someone in her lab screwed up and they turned the blame on us."
"Please explain."
"I'd gone back to helming my old airship Sky Groper. Nothing major these days, just short milk runs between here and the continent. Brought them a load in from a Prussian laboratory, invention-exchange stuff, a couple of weeks ago. Paperwork checked out fine. Then I come back on another run and found myself placed under arrest. One of Petunia's lackey's, this little Indian witch named Rani, signed the warrant. Claimed we'd held back a box. We tried to show them our own inventory sign-offs but the officers just bound me up and brought me in." She craned her blue eyes upwards to the police officer. "What sort of a department are you running, Constance?"
"Everyone's a little tense right now. Okay, Zana, so what was missing?"
"A curiosity. Some sort of aeroplane."
"An aeroplane?" Constance had seen them-in museums. They'd proven to be pointless with the development of lighter-than-air transport. She thought of the kludgy devices, all canvas and spars, and frowned. "Must have been a big crate."
"Who cares," Zana spat, clearly discomforted by her strenuous position. "Its just freight, shipped from one bunch of eggheads to another. Look, Constance, I have an airship to run. Let me down!"
The captain failed to see the gag until it tucked back into place around her puffy cheeks, its pressure muting her humming protests. Constance waited for her to settle before explaining, "You once told me that people can omit and lie, but that torment can help collaborate a story. You even showed me that while we returned across the Atlantic together. So now it's my turn. You just hang there like a nice girl while I set you up. Think all about the crate, so you can cooperate with me when I finally take the gag back off."
Zana sputtered and panted into the leather band but Constance maintained her sweet smile. Meanwhile, hands as devious as snakes slipped around the hanging girl, settling on tender nipples. Beyond those pinching, intrusive fingers, the red-head's smile beamed like a jack-o-lantern. In her narrow lips, two clothespins jutted. Zana saw these and shuddered. It was only when her tender tips were hard that Constance seated the infernal clips in place, generously biting them into her flesh, dividing the torment between pain and pleasure. Then she stood, leaving Zana to moan face down at the floorboards, slowly spinning on her ankle chains.
Zana might have overcome the inversion and erotic pain from her breasts. She truly believed this. But then she felt the slender fingers parting her cheeks and the oiled tube being forced into her. She grunted at the invasion, milling her fingers and toes in fruitless defiance. Constance smiled at the show, humming to herself as she seated the enema nozzle nice and deep. Then she consulted the dial on the wall.
"What do you say we start with a nice oil-based laxative. Oh, and it's heated-just like a spa! Then, once we dredge it out, we'll try cold water, sorta an alpine spring sort of thing, eh?" Laughing to herself, she moved a dial to the correct location and pressed a button. Instantly the coiled tubing leading into the airship captain's ass stiffened. The grunts of dismay rose in tone as Hoffsteder struggled violently against gravity and straps. But it did her no good. All she achieved was a slight sway and a beaming grin on the police officer's lips.
She never imaged something could be so bad. Her guts and belly filled, pressured by the unnatural orientation. It felt like she'd swallowed a bucket of lead pellets. And yet the machine slowly injected more and more oil into her anus, filling her slowly with the oozing solution. Slowly came the feeling of loss of control, induced by the diuretic. She screwed up her eyes, hating the sensation.
Meanwhile, Constance's boots paced around the suffering girl. Occasionally a finger traced the trembling belly, jagging the tormented captain with nerve-flashes that shot through her like lighting. Constance left for a while, returning with coffee. Settling into a chair, she crossed her long booted legs and watched her suffering victim.
Eventually came a ping from the device. Zana squealed in horror as the tide turned and the machine began vacuuming out her innards. From the hose came embarrassing pulses and slurps, coating her discomfort with dishonor. Just when she thought that her very guts were about to be sucked up, a second ping sounded. A wave of chilling ice swept through her as ice water was injected. Would this never end?
Constance passed the time by pacing around her, a switch in her hand, eyeing the weakly struggling form. Every now and then, its tip would lick across Zana's flesh, rising a chirp through the gag. Constance enjoyed the game, pecking out a sharp flick now and then, always catching the captain by surprise.
Tears pattered across the floor.
Zana's body was in total confusion. Of course, she was in pain. But strangely, her pussy pounded in heated excitement. If only Constance would settle her wry mouth into her mound, her tongue lapping across her exposed sex. Her clipped nipples throbbed in urgency and her heart pounded. She could no longer tell what was happening with her guts; they radiated a deep pain that boarded on hot lust. Time had been replaced by urgent, desperate longing. She moaned Constance's name, over and over, into the stiff grip of the leather gag.
Suddenly Constance's face, blurred from poor vision and tears, swam before her. A sensuous and inverted kiss told her that the gag was gone. She wanted nothing more than to please her mistress and make the sensory overload stop.
"It was six feet long, that crate. And a foot or so on a side." Her voice quivered before the stress. She hardly knew what she was saying. It just came out.
"Did you take it, Zana? Did you steal the thing inside?"
"No I didn't! You must believe me! Why would I need an aeroplane when I have an airship? Why would I need a toy?"
Constance looked at her long and hard. "Who did you transfer the crate to?"
"I was off to the side during the unloading, seeing to other matters. Petra was checking the items off as they left the cargo hold. There were a half-dozen of Petunia's giggling lab-rats loading the crates into trucks. That Rani girl was checking things off. And that strange boyish one..."
"Sybil," prompted Constance, remembering Petunia's assistant.
"Yes, her. She was reading the labels off." She gasped, tears running up through her eyebrows. "You've got to believe me. Oh, please, Constance, do me. There is a rack of wind-up vibrators behind you. Please shove one into me. I'll do anything you wish..."
Constance smiled a tight little smile. The mystery was looking less divinicle by the second. As a reward, she gave the sky captain a small kiss on the tip of the nose, then shoved the gag back into place. Zana murfed in desperate hunger as she realized that she was being abandoned. There came two sharp intakes of breath as the clothespins were removed, a final act of kindness by the police officer to her comrade.
Samantha looked up as Constance left the interrogation room. "Done with her, are you? You want me to give her back her clothing and street her?"
"No. She had critical information and I don't want to risk a leak. Not now. Padlock the gag in place, then lock her in one of the maidens in the basement. Hook her up with feed and waste lines so she can stay in there until this case is closed."
"Is this tied to the angel case?"
"That, and I'm repaying an old debt." With that, Officer Drummand retired to her office to consider her next move.
01.06.09
story continues in Gai-Shift - Angel 3: 'Great Expectations'
o0o