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Lara Croft: A Tarzan Wannabe

By: justtheone



This story is not a proper crossover. I hope there are no classification issues when I post this.

[ This is not at all important, and since I didn't put in much physical description for her, you can imagine the character for yourself however you like -- but in my own imagination, the character of the photojournalist Karen Crowe is played by the relatively new porn star "Moretta Coxxx,"waifish and with braces ... only I'm picturing her a tad older and more world-weary than she appears now, though she still has those braces, and of course like all porn performers, it isn't likely she could ever act such a role as this convincingly. One shudders to even contemplate the attempt. But anyhow, her face and her body happened to be in my mind's eye, as this tale was conceived ... As for Free-Man the "Tarzan Wannabe" that she encounters herein, he bears a strong resemblance to the male performer, Ramon—if his porno persona has a last name, I've never taken note of it—and they have similar accents, even though it probably isn't appropriate to the background of my character as described below. Whereas Lara Croft herself, as always in these fantasies of mine, appears as realized in the vivid CG art of DeTomasso. ] 

1.

Karen had met this bizarre character once before, though to her immense disappointment he had refused to allow her to properly interview him at the time. He used to be an aristocrat, the heir to a tiny principality between France and Spain, but without an attractive coastline, it had never become a ritzy tourist hotspot like Monaco or Genovia. Some years back, he had abdicated, asking his people to set up a democracy for themselves, but they hadn't listened to him—bringing in some distant cousin to take over instead. Somehow he had arranged the changeover so the rejection of his title hadn't cut him off from his family's considerable wealth, but then he proceeded to rapidly exhaust that entire fortune, buying up a vast tract of forested land in India and turning it into a kind of safari park—only one that was never intended for safaris. He had shipped in lots of endangered species from all over the world, despite the protests of several scientists that said he was overpopulating his park, as well as mixing species that wouldn't normally interact in an environment and a climate that was questionable, at best, for the majority. Yet what he was up to never became widely publicized, while the work was in progress. Perhaps he was shielded by powerful friends. Perhaps it was mere chance. Whatever the reason, nobody stopped him—he kept bringing in more and more animals until he was finally bankrupt. And then he didn't let anyone else into his park, once the set up was complete and it had all been fenced off. No hunters, no tourists, no scientists. Nobody could enter but he himself, alone. He had decided to live in there, year round, solitary amongst the animals, in a treehouse, of all things ... or rather a series of treehouses, spread out across the territory ... 

What eventually became clear was that he had turned himself into an imitation Tarzan, with his own private artificial jungle to rule over. He had let his hair grow long, and wore nothing but animal skin loincloths. He didn't use the Tarzan name, however. Instead he chose to call himself Free-Man. And thus the name of his park or reserve became "Free-Man's World."

Crazy as all this was, he was left alone to do as he liked, at least for quite a goodly while. There were continuous and strident calls for intervention, always put forward "in the interests of the animals, for fear of the dangerous population instability". But no action was taken. Nobody could decide how exactly to handle the matter, and which government or organization should take the responsibility. There was obviously an appealing romantic aspect to what Free-Man had done, or was trying to do. So it would look very bad in the media to go against him now that he'd established his presence. And many predicted that he wouldn't last long on his own anyway. He would get sick or get lonely or get bored and come out on his own. He might easily get hurt or let one of his pets eat him. And if his critics were right, his park wasn't sustainable. Not big enough, and not consistently warm enough. The whole project would collapse on its own. Thus the varied Powers That Be decided to wait until their intervention would clearly and indisputably have the feel of a necessary rescue. Once the place had gone south, such action would surely be demanded by the public to save the remaining wildlife. Any preemptive moves beforehand would only seem like the tyrannical bullying of a visionary. 

And eventually Free-Man had fucked up his image in the way they hoped, and sooner than expected. What got him into trouble was poacher raids, and how he chose to deal with them, personally. As a jungle overlord, he saw nothing wrong with executing the poachers, to protect and also to avenge his animals. And then he went so far as to display the heads of poachers on spikes around his electrified fences. That soured public opinion, damn speedily. Nobody likes poachers, but the faces on those spiked heads were not the faces of sinister greedy bad guys, with beady eyes and black mustaches. They were young, scrawny, underfed faces, fixed into contorted expressions of terror and despair. 

So soldiers were sent in to get him. Lots of soldiers. 

Their first try didn't go well. In fact it ended up an abject humiliation. They couldn't find Free-Man in there—the jungle was too thick and hilly—and he'd set up nasty booby traps that injured several until the rest of the men (mostly raw recruits, barely trained) threw down their weapons and fled. 

Lara Croft was hired to lead the second attempt ... Not for money, of course—but after this chore was completed, she would be granted exclusive rights to a newly uncovered site she'd long wanted to take a crack at, without interference, on the far side of the country, one that had been previously forbidden to all foreigners. Her approach to hunting down Free-Man would be stealthier, more cautious. A much smaller, tighter group, every individual a hand-picked, seasoned professional. Real badass commando types, like you see in the movies. Lara had contacts in several military services across the world. And Karen Crowe would get to tag along. Though they were friends, to a point, Lara wasn't at all pleased with this idea. Oh no siree. But Karen was determined not to miss out, and three top men in the Indian government owed her bigtime favors, for scandalous stories she'd held back in the past. So Lara's objections were summarily overruled.

"Fine then," Lara said to her, after she got the government call, "But let me just say this—if you get yourself hurt in there by this nutcase, I shall be exceedingly displeased with you." 

"Gosh," Karen replied, laying on the sarcasm pretty thick, "your displeasure would be awfully tough to bear, wouldn't it?" 

"Yes," Lara told her, "I believe you'd find it would."

2.

She had known the park was hilly, but it turned out much hillier than she'd been picturing. Rollercoaster terrain, constant ups and downs, very steep. And the trees and undergrowth were so dense you couldn't see what was ahead of you, even from the tops of the hills. Not unless you climbed up into the canopy. Down in the bottoms, there was always either a creek to wade across—never deep or wide but strongly swift-flowing and icy cold—or else there was a mucky green bog. You couldn't walk through that stuff—you'd sink without a trace. Either they would have to use a log as a bridge, or just follow the edge one way or the other until the sludge gradually transitioned into another of the creeks. Time consuming and tedious. Lots of annoying bugs buzzing in your ears and flying up your nose. 

For all the talk of how overpopulated the park was supposed to be, and with big, fearsome beasts like lions, buffalo, elephants, and rhinos, they had yet to see any, or even hear any. No birdsong either, or the monkeychatter she'd expected—just goddamn bugs. Lots of cicadas, or something like cicadas, at least as far as the racket they made. "EECH-EECH-EECH-EECH!" Maybe most of the big wildlife had already died off, just as Free-Man's critics predicted. Wouldn't you see lots of bones scattered around, though? Maybe not. Maybe the bugs and fungus took care of all that mess real quick. 

"You ever meet Free-Man before?" she asked Lara. She had already asked her that yesterday, but she couldn't remember what Lara had said. 

"Once, briefly. Years ago, when I was still at university." 

"What did you think of him?" 

She shrugged, and then sort of tossed her head with a sniff. A very upperclass mannerism, or at least that's how it seemed to Karen. Also seemed like something a horse would do—especially since Lara had also scuffed at the dirt with one foot, at the same time. (She was actually kicking away a large spider, before it could leap on Karen's leg, but Karen didn't notice that.) "He was an intriguing sort of chap, I suppose. Rather charismatic. Shame about him losing his mind."

"Has he? Are you sure?" 

"What other explanation do you prefer?" 

"I don't know. I met him just before this business really started. Last day, before he sealed the fences and switched on the juice." That juice had been cut off, and his fences weren't sealed anymore. Lara's team—well, actually the first batch of soldiers that had preceded them—had smashed a large breach through the barrier, with a truck. "He didn't seem nuts to me. Just driven. Inspired. He really fascinated me."

"I can tell." 

"I'm not embarrassed to admit it. I thought he was fabulous. I hate to see the whole world turning against him like this. I don't think it's fair."

"He's a killer, Miss Crowe."

"We can't judge his behavior by ordinary standards. This isn't an ordinary place. The men he killed were not innocent. Men like that would have killed him if he hadn't got them first." 

"My task is just to capture him. I'll leave it to others to judge the man's actions. He'll have a fair trial, however it goes. More than can be said for his victims."

"In the end, he'll be vindicated, if I have anything to say about it." 

Lara just replied to that with a "Hmm." 

"I guess I must sound pretty starstruck, huh? Like the reporter girl with the hopeless crush on Superman. Lois, right? Is that her name?"

"Can't help you there. Funnybooks are not my kind of reading." 

"Surely you've seen one of the movies or cartoons or something." 

"Not as far as I remember. I've never taken much interest in the cinema."

Haughty cow, Karen thought. 

They were just rounding the top of another of the hills ... And at that moment, without intending to, the pair of them had happened to get quite a good distance ahead of the rest of Lara's team—all those burly commando guys were still halfway down the slope behind them. Much later, she found out one of them had got himself snarled in a thorn bush, and the other guys were helping to cut him loose. They'd called to Lara to wait, but she hadn't heard, thanks to Karen distracting her with her questions. 

And then both Karen's feet slipped out beneath her. And she bowled Lara over with her when she fell. Both of them tumbled together down a long, twisty mudslide. It happened so suddenly, and they slid away with such speed, they were both too shocked to cry out ... It took them off to the left, through the bushes, and then, curving again, eventually all the way back around to the bottom of the hill behind the rest of them team, almost exactly where they'd all just been a few minutes ago. When the soldiers reached the top of the hill themselves, they headed straight ahead down its opposite slope, never realizing what had happened to the two women, assuming they were still somewhere in front of them a short way and just hidden from their view by the thicket ... None of them spotted that patch of mud at the top of the hill that had been Karen's undoing, and Lara's too ... It wasn't a large patch. If Karen had happened to take that fatal step a few inches to either side, she would never have slipped.

Karen recognized this ridiculous turn of events as something that had happened in a movie from the eighties she saw on TV when she was a kid, but she couldn't remember what the name of it was, and she knew Lara wouldn't be able to tell her, because she was so much of a stuckup snot. 

At least the mud slide hadn't deposited them into one of the icky bogs, or that might very well have been the end of both of them.

Just after they'd helped each other to their feet, and brushed each other off, as much as possible, a man swung down to join them on the end of a vine. No, not really a vine—Karen saw a moment later it was really just a regular rope. 

It was Free-Man, of course. Taller than she remembered him being, and definitely much more muscular. She'd been afraid he'd turn out to be starved and sickly looking, but no. He'd been doing well for himself out here, it seemed. Baked brown as mud, from the sun. He wore a spotted loincloth and a matching spotted headband, to keep his shaggy hair out of his eyes, and nothing else except a thick leather belt with a big knife in it. The belt went around one of his thighs, rather than his waist. Oh, and he also had a necklace of animal teeth, or maybe they were claws, or maybe both. Wow. She wondered what kind of creature they were from. 

"Greetings, women," he said, "You are trespassing. But I welcome you to my land, all the same. For both of you are beautiful, and it has been far too long since I saw such beauty in the flesh." 

Lara drew one of her guns—she had lost the other. It must have slipped from its holster, while they tumbled down the mud slide. "My name is Lara Croft. Remove your knife, please. Set it on the ground slowly and step away." 

"I recognized you, of course," Free-Man said, still smiling. "I am glad it is really you—I feared perhaps it was only someone that looked like you, copying your appearance because of its popular appeal." 

"Yes, that has been known to happen, from time to time." 

"So they chose you to seek me out, after those other fools failed? I am flattered. Flattered and gratified. But I'm afraid I'm not going to surrender to you. If I'd willingly yield to anyone on this poor planet of ours, it might be you. But I cannot do it. Free-Man is my name. It's a promise also. A promise to myself, and to the world. I'll give up my life before I give up my freedom."

Lara shrugged. "If that's how you want it, I have no objections. I am perfectly willing to shoot you right now. Easiest thing in the world, to put a bullet through your heart. All I have to squeeze ... Are you quite certain that's what you want me to do?" 

"Lara, hold on a moment—"

"Hush, Karen. Let me handle this." 

"You can't just—"

"Do not worry," Free-Man said, "Karen, yes? She called you Karen? Your face is familiar to me—I remember those braces. We have met before, have we not? We have. Yes, you are a journalist. I see you have your camera bag with you." 

"I've come to record your side of things. To give you a chance to explain why you did the things you've done." 

"Yes, I see. Fine. Very good. We shall discuss those matters, later on. First, Lara and I must complete our business." 

"Yes," Lara said, "We must." 

"Would you really shoot me?" 

"If it was necessary, most definitely. Never doubt it." 

"But is it necessary? I am unarmed, after all." 

"You still have that knife I told you to put down." 

"Yes, you're right. As you wish. There. I've put it down. Now will you put down that gun?"

She snorted. "Why would I do that?"

"Because it isn't sporting. You shouldn't need a gun—not someone like you. Face me with your strength alone. I challenge you! Hand to hand!"

"Again, I have to ask, why would I want to do that?"

"Because otherwise you must kill me. I don't believe you want to do that. Perhaps I am mistaken. But I don't believe your blood is as cold as that. You'd shoot me if you needed to—but if there was another way? Here is my offer—I will not surrender to you at gunpoint. But fight me hand to hand, if you dare—pit your strength and skill against mine. And if you can best me, without a weapon to do it for you, then on my oath, I say I will yield my freedom to you. Then you can take me away wherever you want, and give me over to whatever foul authorities have hired you, and I will not resist or protest. This I swear. What say you, Lara Croft?" 

Lara just nodded and then turned to hand her gun to Karen. "Go ahead and shoot him, if you need to," she whispered. 

And then as Karen stood gaping, with her mouth hanging open, the two of them pounced on each other and started to wrestle in the dirt, right in front of her, both literally growling like wolves. Jesus Christ! 

After a moment, feeling like a moron, she jammed the gun in her jacket pocket and scrambled to get her camera out of her bag. 

3. 

Well, pretty soon she'd got some damn good shots. Unfortunately it wasn't likely she'd be able to get anybody to publish them. Nobody reputable, anyhow. Not without some severe cropping. 

They'd have to slice away so much to make them safe you wouldn't be able to tell what was going on in the shots. Shit. 

She'd been wrong before, thinking of how they were fighting as wrestling. Really what they were doing was kickboxing, looked like. Not that she was any real kind of expert. But they were trading punches and kicks, not rolling around on the ground. So kickboxing seemed like a more accurate classification. It was an even match, though Free-Man was both taller and thicker-built than Lara. Both of them were too good at blocking each other's strikes, for either one to score any significant hits.

Where things started to go wrong—and it happened real soon—was Free-Man's loincloth. The front flap of it started bulging up. At first Karen thought it was just flying up from his movements, but then even when he wasn't doing kicks or jumping around, the flap didn't drop flat again. It stayed sticking outward. Because it was being held up. It was being pushed. The fucking guy had developed a big stiffy under there. This duel was turning him on. 

Lara noticed, of course—how could she not? And she started aiming all her kicks at it. He was always able to dodge or block them. She just kept trying. Determined to squash that bulge with the armored toes or the thick soles of those huge clompy black boots of hers. 

"Not afraid to fight dirty, I see," Free-Man remarked. 

"I don't see it that way," was her reply. 

"It not your choice of target I object to—that's only sensible. Good strategy. But I'm barefoot myself. We're supposed to be weaponless. Those boots of yours are weapons in themselves. It's like you're wearing a pair of sledgehammers!"

"You can hardly blame me for the insufficiencies of your own attire, Mr. Free-Man." 

"I didn't say I wanted boots of my own. I want you to remove yours." 

"Well, sorry. You're out of luck, old chap, unless you're quick enough to take them off me yourself." 

Turned out he was. At least to get one of them.

Nearly cost him his nuts, to do it ... But the risk paid off for him. Rather than jump back from her next kick, or swipe it aside, like he'd been doing over and over, he stood his ground and caught her foot with both his hands, and then clawed the bootstraps loose before she could pull away. So with the boot loosened, when she did jerk her foot free, she left the boot behind. Her foot slipped right out. 

"Ha! That's one!" Free-Man crowed.

Lara scowled, but only for a moment. Then she did that aristocratic horsy sniff and head-toss that had struck Karen's notice earlier. And afterward her face had resumed its expression of calm, mildly amused determination. Since the soles of her boots were so thick—a good inch, at least—she couldn't just wear one. That would be awkward—throw off her balance. So Free-Man didn't have to take that other one; she went ahead and pulled it off herself, and both her socks as well, so they wouldn't get dirty or torn. She stuffed them both into the boot, and set it aside. Then the battle resumed, with both of them barefoot. A victory for Free-Men, if only a minor one. Karen knew she would have had a much harder time in Lara's place, trying to fight on without shoes. She had some basic martial arts training, and could have continued to hold her own in a gym, with safe floor mats, but not out here in the wild, with the muck and the bugs, and pebbles and jagged twigs littered around all over, to have to worry about jabbing yourself on. It would have been a continual distraction for her. Lara of course was made of sterner stuff, and so it seemed were her feet. No doubt she had decent athletic calluses, though not so thick as to give her feet an ugly lumpy appearance—like Free-Man's had. 


Lara Croft: A Tarzan Wannabe



Then Lara took another loss. And this was where it ruined Karen's pictures, or at least limited their commercial viability, in the mainstream press ... Free-Man tore open Lara's tank top. It happened almost accidently, after he finally tried something different than another useless kick or punch—he had leaped straight up, grabbed a branch over his head with both hands, pulled himself up there on top of it and then used it as a jumping-off point to launch himself down on Lara from above. He was able to knock her down by sheer bulk, though she quickly threw him off and rolled clear with a neat series of somersaults ... But as he was flung aside, he'd hooked his fingers in the shoulder straps of her tanktop, so they both tore when Lara rolled herself away from him. It was almost more Lara's doing than his. 

She had a snug sportbra on under the tanktop. But after she'd clambered back on her feet, in an act of bravado that was either very impressive or very dumb, she pulled it off over her head and tossed it away. She bared both those famous outrageous knockers of hers and then she even shook them at him, defiantly. 

Karen was stunned, but then she quickly figured out Lara's reasoning, or she thought she did—Lara knew that once it had been exposed, Free-Man would try to snatch off her bra. He wouldn't be able to help himself. And as long as the fight went on, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the bastard from getting his hands on it, eventually. A bra is too easy to snag and tear away. So she was denying him the satisfaction, ahead of time. Not only the joy of taking it from her, but of thinking it would matter to her. Lara was refusing to let him shame her. She was showing him she didn't give a shit if he got to see her tits—or at least she was pretending she didn't give a shit. Also, and this was even more clever when you think it through, she could use them against him. Two giant jiggly distractions, beaded and glistening with perspiration—he wouldn't be able to take his eyes off them. No straight man in the whole world could. That meant he'd stop effectively tracking her hands and feet, even when they were flying straight at his face to clobber him. And sure, he'd keep trying to grab her tits or slap them, and maybe he'd manage to get some contact there. But Lara would put up with it and shrug it off ... And he'd more focused on that sort of bullshit than pinning her, or defending himself from her attacks. He'd pay for that, in the end.

It seemed to work exactly how she imagined. Before one more full minute had passed, Lara had knocked him down three times in a row, without taking any hits herself. Free-Man kept dragging himself back upright, but more slowly and more awkwardly each time. He was getting woozy. 

She had almost got him worn out. 

The next time she felled him, with a kick in the ribs, she didn't wait for him to get up again. She decided to end the bout. She dropped on top of him, to pin him. She flipped him over facedown, first—she didn't want to have straddle that embarrassing bulge in his shorts—and then kneeled on the small of his back, and twisted his left arm behind him with both hands. "Do you yield?" she demanded.

"No," he bellowed, "I won't! Not yet!" 

"You're done, Mr. Free-Man. I've indulged you long enough, haven't I? Now surrender gracefully, like a proper sportsman, or I shall break your arm." 

But he gave one last desperate heave, and catapulted her off his back. He only got himself a momentary reprieve—not enough time to get up. With a curse, she sprang right back on top of him, less than a second later—the proverbial blink of an eye. But he'd rolled himself over. She got him pinned again, but this time she was doing it the way she hadn't wanted to. Face to face—straddling his middle, pelvis to pelvis. 

And he continued to struggle—instead of holding his wrists, their hands had clasped this time, fingers lacing—they strained and shoved their grips against each other like the game of "mercy". And he didn't just strain with his arms—he kept bucking up his hips. She was strong enough to stay atop him and keep him from wriggling clear, but not heavy enough to keep his body pressed flat. He kept bucking and bucking—grinding up his bulge into her wide-spread crotch, every time.

And gradually, but inexorably, it must have got to Lara—the feel of all that wild desperate thrusting—his engorged manhood right against her mound—it got under her skin. Karen witnessed it. She watched it happen, and got a photo or two ... Lara Croft, losing her cool. Lara Croft, overheated, overwhelmed and then finally undermined by unwanted sexual stimulation. 

Yes, she still had her shorts on, and so did he, screening her parts from his. But it wasn't enough of a defense. The cloth was too thin, and she was spread too wide, and they were rubbing together too savagely ... and perhaps, though of course because she was a woman, there had been no visible bulge in her shorts to give it away, perhaps all the same she had become excited in the course of the combat in the same way Free-Man had. Perhaps seeing his blatant arousal was part of what had triggered her own. Maybe she hadn't been conscious of it. Or maybe she had. 

And then, the way she'd taunted him—the way she'd chosen to flaunt her tits at him. Maybe there had been more to it than just messing with his head. Maybe she'd done it for the thrill of the thing, as well. Not only showing off and teasing him to win, but showing off and teasing him for fun. For a charge.

Holy crap, Karen kept saying to herself, as she watched Lara's face, and watched her expression change and change again ... Holy crap. Holy fucking crap.

From a hellcat snarl of battle frenzy, it dissolved to wide-eyed, tight-lipped surprise and confusion. "Oh! What is—Oh! Oh no!" And from there it turned to dismay, and then to terror. 

She tried to leap away. Free-Man wouldn't let her—Lara couldn't pry her hands free, and when she tried to roll to either side, he rolled with her. They rolled over twice but each time ended up in the same position, with Lara still astride him and his bulge. But now he'd clamped his mouth over one of her nipples, or rather as much of her tit as he could fit between his lips, sucking it hard as he could—Karen could hear the slurping sounds he made on it—and he continued to buck like a rodeo bull, except this was a bull who wouldn't let his rider be thrown off. Lara gasped and then shrieked, and started shaking her head wildly—an endlessly repeated, but entirely pointless refusal ... "No! No! Never!" Her braid had come partly undone, and her bangs were sticking up funny, with some bits of leaf caught in them. "No! No! God! God! Guh-huhrrh!" 

Karen saw her calves bend backward from the ground, so both Lara's muddy feet were sticking up in the air. Her toes clenched, and then they all spread out as far apart as they could stretch, and then curled tight again, and then spread wide again—and then curled back tight, and that time they stayed that way. Karen found herself hypnotized by those movements—knowing they were happening outside Lara's control. Imagining the physical sensations that would be triggering such helpless spasms. 

Then Lara looked over beseechingly straight in Karen's eyes. "Help me! Help me!" But Karen was frozen. She felt guilty for it, but she just stared. Lara's look changed from pleading to ashamed, but then she looked disgusted—with Karen? With herself? And then she shut her eyes and turned the other direction and let her face slump down against Free-Man's shoulder, and then after that, with a long, sad moan, she let her whole body go limp. "Nuuhhooohhuuhuurrghh ..."

Free-Man rolled her over, so now he was on top, but to Karen's surprise, rather than continuing to grind on her, he released her. He jumped up to his feet with a beaming smile, and then he did the silliest thing Karen had ever seen anybody do in real life—he planted one foot on Lara's bare belly, not pressing down but just resting it there, and then threw his head back and howled while he drummed on his pecs with both fists. Yep, he really did that. He went all out. It wasn't the silly ululating Tarzan howl, though, from the old movies. Instead he simply howled his chosen name. "FREEEE-MAANNNN!" Lara didn't move. She lay spread-eagle—except for one forearm covering her eyes—panting. Was that a wet stain soaking through the crotch of her shorts? Or only a shadow or some dirt? Karen couldn't tell, she was too far away. 

Then he took a step back and put his hands on his hips. "I win, Lara Croft. You lose. Now get up on your knees, right here at my feet. Do it! Don't pretend to be asleep! I know you can hear me. Move!" 

Lara did it. She sat up and pulled herself around, moving very slowly, and she was trembling, and her face was blank like she was in a trance ... but she did it. She knelt submissively in front of the triumphant, gleeful Jungle Lord, sitting back on her muddy bare heels. She didn't look up at his face. She kept her head slumped, and Karen could see she was biting her bottom lip and sniveling a little. And she'd turned shy, all the sudden—she had crossed her arms over her torso to hide her tits. As if it mattered anymore. 

"Good," Free-Man said, "But not quite good enough. I want you to kneel upright—raise your ass. Don't sit back like that on your feet. And after that, push your shorts down. Quit covering those wonderful tits. Put your hands down, and push down your short around your knees, and your panties too if you have any on, and show me your cunt. Bare your body for your conqueror. Bare your cunt. Show me how wet and hot it's got for me. I've felt it through your clothing—now I want to see it plain. Show me! What are you waiting for, Lara? Are you ashamed? You should be ashamed—but now you must face your shame. Unless you are too much a coward? Too scared? Do it then! Do it! Obey me!" 

Lara sniffled, and then breathed a heavy, reluctant sigh ... Was she really going to do it? Would she meekly obey him? 

I should so something, Karen told herself, I've got her gun. I need to do something. It's time for me to act! Why am I just standing here like a dumbshit and letting this happen? What am I waiting for?

She knew why. It was awful and she didn't understand it. But she knew why she was still hesitating. She'd act—she'd use the gun—but in another minute. Just another minute.

Why do I want to see her pull her shorts down for him? What the fuck is wrong with me?

Slowly, her hands fumbling, Lara unbuckled her gunbelt, and then unbuttoned her shorts and unzipped them. Because they fit her so snug, they didn't immediately drop down her thighs, of course. She had to hook her thumbs under the waistband at her hips, to peel them down. But before she lowered them, she lifted her chin. To meet his eyes with her own. 

"Don't make me do this," she said, "You've won, like you wanted. Fair and square—more or less. I have surrendered to you. You've proven your strength to me, and your manhood too. Now do the honorable thing. If you just let me go, right now, without any more mistreatment, I promise I'll lead my team off your land and never trouble you again."

"You didn't say please, Lara Croft."

"Please, Free-Man. Please don't take this any further."

"I will let you go, but you're going to show me your cunt first."

"No."

"Yes. Or I won't let you or your friend go at all. Instead I'll tie the both of you to a pair of these trees, right here, and cut myself a switch, and stripe both your bottoms until you beg for mercy." 

Karen gasped, her head spinning, and her stomach too. Both of you, he'd said. Shit. But I didn't do anything! I deliberately kept out of it! 

He went on: "If you don't want me to do that, you will humble yourself for my pleasure, as I've commanded. After you show me your cunt, I shall you show you my cock. And then, Lara Croft, you will suck it for me. If you want mercy from me, you must earn it. Are you going to earn it?"

Lara flinched as if slapped. She let her head droop again. She started to push down her shorts ... Now the top of her asscrack was revealed ... But then the shorts stuck, at the widest part of her hips. She had to wriggle, to loosen them ... 

But Lara didn't go through with it. Instead, springing into action like a Jack-in-a-box, she somersaulted backwards, to gain a little distance, and then leaped back to her feet. Her spirit wasn't broken after all! She was ready to fight again! 

That was what Karen thought. But then Lara whirled around on her toes and sprinted away into the trees. 

Free-Man didn't chase her. He just laughed. He laughed and laughed, almost falling down in his merriment, slapping his thighs. 

Karen couldn't believe she'd just seen this happen. It was even more shocking somehow than everything leading up to this. Lara Croft had just fled like a rabbit! Who would have predicted that?

Then again, there was the old line about discretion being the better part of valor. She'd got clean away, after all. And she still had her shorts on. Whatever else Free-Man had taken from her, he hadn't gotten her to give the last of her clothing up. He'd bested her, but it was clear now he hadn't completely broken her. Not like he'd imagined he had. 

Also, though, she'd abandoned Karen. Oh crap. Now Karen was all alone. Except, well, no. Actually she wasn't, was she? 

Karen looked at Free-Man. Free-Man looked at her. He was no longer laughing. The look he was giving her was serious. Not overtly threatening, but thoughtful. Calculating. 

"Well now," he said. "What did you think of all that? Quite something, wasn't it?"

She didn't say anything. She had no idea what to say. God, he scared the shit out of her. She had wanted to be able to keep liking this guy. To stay on his side, as she was when this had started. Now, after seeing what she'd seen—Jesus. She couldn't move. She was literally petrified.  

He stepped toward her. She had the gun. Time to use it. She snatched it from her pocket and pointed it at his face. "Stay back. Stay right there." 

He just shook his head and reached out for the weapon. "Give me that wretched thing." 

"I'll shoot you!"

"No you won't. That's not what you want."

"You don't know what I want!" 

"I believe I do. You are no enemy of mine. I know I need not fear you. That means you have no need to fear me."

"You said you were going to ... going to beat me! You said you'd tie me to a tree!" 

He snorted. "Come now, you didn't take that seriously, did you? It was a game. Nothing more. Couldn't you tell? But that was between Lara and me, and it's done. Now listen. I'm going to take the gun away now. If I'm mistaken about you, you will fire and slay me. I'd rather you didn't. Here we go." 

She didn't fire. He pulled it out of her hand, then just tossed it away into the bushes. 

"Filthy devices. That's that. I'm going to pick you up now. You can struggle if it comforts you, but nothing you do will be able to hinder me. So I would advise you not to waste your energy." 

"What? Wait! Hey!" 

Without fuss, he seized her by the hips and lifted her off her feet, and then draped her facedown over his shoulder, at the waist. A fireman's carry, right? Wasn't that what this was called? Her head hung upside down behind him, her nose against the small of his back. Blood rushed to her head and thundered in her ears—she thought she might pass out. 

"Hey! Put me down! Hey!" 

"Hush," he said, and carried her off. "Please stop kicking or I may have to bind your legs." He had a hand right on her ass, clamped down very tight. Jesus, a couple of his fingers were pressed down into her buttcrack. 

"You can't do this! Why are you doing this? You just said we weren't enemies! Just talk to me a second! Where are you taking me?"

He didn't bother answering. 

4. 

Ten minutes or so later, Free-Man carried her up a long rope ladder into the treetops—which took him another ten of fifteen minutes to climb. One of his treehouses? Not exactly. It was only a smallish platform, at the top. No railings or roof. Even huddled in the middle of it, as far from the edges as possible, she still trembled with vertigo. He'd brought her really high up. Really really fucking high. And Christ he must be fucking strong, and fearless too, to be able to haul her up all that way by himself like he had done—climbing a rope ladder one handed, with her slung over his shoulder the whole time, never pausing for any breathers. She'd kept her eyes tight shut the whole time, and clung to him as close as she could squeeze with both arms locked around his middle, but it was still a miracle she hadn't thrown up.

He had a hollowed-out gourd up there, with water in it for them both to drink. Then he took her camera bag away and flung it off the platform.

"Hey! Jesus!" 

"No more photography, Miss Crowe. You shouldn't have been taking those earlier pictures, without my permission. Remember, this is private property—my property." 

"You bastard! You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to destroy my camera!" 

"Only way to make certain. I apologize for your loss, but my privacy is too important to me." 

But her bag was pretty well padded; maybe her camera could have survived. At this height, though? The memory card, at least—that should be all right, provided she ever got a chance to recover it. Wait, Free-Man was talking to her again—what did he just say? 

"Are you listening to me? I said now I must search you. It will have to be a thorough search." 

"I don't have any other weapons on me. Well, a dinky little pocketknife, but nothing major. Here. See? You can have it." 

"I must make sure that's all you're hiding. I will also be looking for radios and tracking devices. Give me your jacket." 

"Tracking devices! Jesus, you've turned really paranoid out here on your own." 

But then he found one hidden in the seam of her jacket. 

"What the fuck? I had no idea that was there! I swear!" 

"I believe you, Miss Crowe. No doubt Lara had it planted on you without your knowledge. A sensible precaution, in fact, should you become separated—which is what's happened. She would want to make doubly sure. Since there was one, there is likely to be another—or more." 

"Are there?" That did make sense, didn't it? Shit. 

She thought he would simply pat her down. But instead he started unbuttoning her shirt. 

"What are you doing? Stop!" 

She tried to grab his hands, but he swatted them away. "I warned you, this is going to be a thorough search. I cannot afford to miss anything." Having finished with her shirt buttons, his hands proceeded further downward without a moment's pause, unbuckling her belt, unbuttoning her khakis, and tugging down the zipper. She was so astonished and mortified, she just watched this happening for half a minute without struggling, until he began to drag her pants down her legs ... 

"Hey! Dammit! Stop!"

"The sooner we do this, the sooner this is done. It will go easier for both of us if you cooperate. Now, be sensible, Miss Crowe. I've explained my reasons. Do not make me lose my temper." 

She gave in, shrugging off her shirt as he finished pulling off her pants. Of course he had to slip her hiking shoes off, in order to do this. So that didn't startle her. But she did feel further alarm, when he pulled off both her socks, right after he'd got her pants out of the way. She had long, too skinny, bony-looking feet, very pale, with knobbly-knuckled, monkeyish toes. They were extremely ticklish and always embarrassed her, a little—she thought they were ugly and didn't like to be barefoot, especially outdoors—but it made sense that she had feet like that, because they matched the look of her legs. They were also long, too skinny and bony-looking the same way, and equally pale, with knobbly knees that bulged too big on them. 




Lara Croft: A Tarzan Wannabe



"Oh, come on! Do you really think you're gonna find something hidden in my stupid socks? Like there would even be any room!"

"I had to make certain. In my youth, I would occasionally hide things in my socks, at school."

"What kinds of things?"

"It doesn't matter. I shall need to examine your underwear as well, you know."

"You're kidding! You gotta be fucking kidding me!" 

"I assure you I am not. Now, are you going to hand them over politely, or will I need to remove the articles myself?" 

"I'll do it myself. But I know you're just messing with me now. I hope this as fun for you as you hoped it would be, when you thought this bullshit up." 

"No more stalling, Miss Crowe."

Shielding her privates as best she could with her hands and her folded legs, she slipped off her bra and panties and flung them in his face. "There! Make your stupid examination! Just be quick about it." 

She wished she could have handled this more bravely and stoically, like Lara had when she lost her top. But she didn't have it in her—this was really seriously freaking her out. She might even pass out. She felt an urge to throw up again, and she also had to pee. She wished her body wasn't so scrawny and frail-looking, and that she didn't have such noticeable tan-lines. Noticeable wasn't the word—blaring was what they were. She wished she could look aloof and commanding like Lara could, even with her boobs hanging out ... God, the gritty planks of the platform were real rough on her bare butt. It had been uncomfortable enough sitting on them with her shorts on. Now she hoped she wouldn't get a rash or a splinter there—that would be perfect, wouldn't it?

And boiling hot and humid as it was—even all this way up in the goddamn sky, they weren't getting any breezes—she suddenly got chilly for a minute and started shivering. And it wasn't all just from terror. It was all the sweat on her body that had been contained under her clothes rapidly evaporating off her skin all at once, now it was exposed to the air and the sun ... Jesus. This is how people get sick—nothing fucks up your system like your body temperature changing too fast. And already it was shooting back up again—the chill had passed and she could feel a fresh coating of grease welling up from her pores all fucking over her. Gross. 

With a smirk, he gathered up all her clothing into both his hands in one big bundle, and then hurled them off the platform the same way he'd tossed away her camera. 

Karen screamed. 

"Hush," he said, "It had to be done. Only way to be absolutely certain, with technology as advanced as it's become these days. I've seen tracking devices the size of pinheads—and that was in my previous life. Who knows how much smaller they've figured out how to build the damn things these days?"

"You—you fucker! My God! I don't believe you did that! All my things! God! Fuck!"

Free-Man stood up, unhooking the end of a rope from a branch. She hadn't noticed it over there before, off to the side. Now she followed the line with her eyes ... She could see it stretched upward but at an angle, and a long, long way, anchored at the other end to the top of another tree. She realized he intended to swing away on the thing—and it looked like it would take him quite a distance, long as it was. Not just to the next neighboring tree, but maybe three or four further along. But then he gestured for her to stand up and join him. Jesus—he expected her to swing on the thing along with him! But they were so high—much too high. That was impossible! She'd never be able to do something like that!

And she was naked! Absolutely stark naked! 

"Come, we must depart," he said. "The trackers, however many are still active, they are still broadcasting too close to us, remember—down there directly below us, on the ground or perhaps in the branches, if some of your things got caught on them as they fell. We must put more distance between us and them. The more the better. This is the quickest way. I have ropes like this throughout my realm. Do not be afraid. I will not let you fall. If you relax, you will enjoy yourself. It's like flying—but without a plane. Real flying. Close as we can get."

"But—but—I can't go like this! Not like this! You can't be serious!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, please. Gimme a break. Don't play dumb, you asshole. I'm naked! You stripped me stark naked and threw away all my clothes! And now I'm supposed to swing away with you like this on the end of a fucking rope! You're nuts!"

"Don't be so childish. You've no reason to be embarrassed. You're a fine-looking girl. A bit too thin, perhaps—makes you look younger than you are. And you don't seem to get enough sun. This will be good for you. For your health." 

"Oh yeah? Glad you think so. That's very flattering. Fuck you! And fuck off! I'm staying right here! I'm not even standing up. You took my clothes, but I'm not gonna play along any more. I'm not gonna let you see my tits or my slit! Forget about it!"

Free-Man removed his loincloth. "Does this make you feel better about it? Now we're the same." 

Jesus! He was hung. She should have been better prepared—she'd seen the scary bulge it made before in his shorts. Even so, it was more than she expected. Longest damn cock she'd ever been exposed to in real life. And right now it was no longer hard. If it was that damn big when it was limp ... Jesus. Usually big hulking tough guys turned out to have tiny junk—it was a major motivator for making them get ripped, in compensation. Or else the dumbasses turned themselves tiny with the steroids they used. The one guy she'd known with a cock that was almost that big had been scrawny and freakishly tall, with his hands, his feet, his nose and his ears all weirdly oversized out of proportion, to match with his dingus. Had just looked silly on him. Not so with Free-Man. 

His crotch was shaved, too. That was unexpected. How did a guy like this, living the way he did, even manage that? Just using his knife every day? Yeah, sure. Looked more like he kept himself waxed—what, did he use a tar pit around here somewhere? Maybe honey from a beehive. 

But the effrontery of it! Didn't matter how impressive his cock might be—didn't give him the right to just pop it out and wave it in a girl's face, whenever he felt like it. Not cool. 

"Are you gonna rape me?" she demanded. "Is that what you're planning?" 

He shook his head. "No, Miss Crowe. I do not force myself on women. You are an attractive girl, and I would enjoy fucking you, I think. But I will not take you against your will."

"What about what you did to Lara?" 

"What about it? That was combat. She started the battle, not I. And in the end, she yielded to me. You witnessed everything. She had nearly broken me, but then she relented—she chose to yield. She had become ... enflamed. We both felt the fire, equally. She allowed it to consume her. It was no rape—it was a contest of nature." 

Wow. Holy crap. He really seemed to mean what he saying—he really seemed to genuinely believe that shit. There's a level of crazy you just have to roll with. You learn that, as a journalist. Karen took a deep breath to steady her nerves as much as she could, and then cleared her throat. This is no ordinary man, she reminded herself. He's made himself a whole world of his own, with his own laws. The weirdest part was there didn't seem to be any malice in him. He had a funny quality of innocence—but the fucked-up dangerous innocence of a child that playfully cuts up little animals in his backyard, because he hasn't learned why that's bad. And this guy was a grown man. So that kind of excuse wouldn't fly. 

She finally said: "I ... I want to be able to accept what you're telling me. I'm trying to see things as you see them, and I want to think I can believe you, and in your sense of honor—that I can trust you, I mean. Not to ... abuse me, while I'm your hostage, if that's what I am. I hope you're not lying to me." 

"Are you going to get up and come with me? Or must I leave you here? I will leave you here, if that is your decision. Lara and her men will locate you before much longer. But if you stay, we must remain enemies. If you want to know my 'side of things,' as you said before, then you must come with me. But on my terms." 

"Which means ... let's be straight ... means naked."

"Yes. But both of us the same—as nature made us. No disguises. No pretenses."

Very cunning of him to leave it up to her, seemingly, in the last moment. Sly fucking dog. 

"All right." She got to her feet, wobbly awkwardly, because in the tight huddle she'd been crouching in, her legs had partly fallen asleep. Also she was still trying to keep her tits and bush covered, with her hands.

"Lower your hands, Karen. You will not be able to cover yourself and hang on to me, at the same time. Besides, you'll be behind me." He turned his back to her. "I won't be able to stare at anything you don't want me staring at."

When she took her hand from her crotch, her palm was sticky. Just a little in the middle of it, but still. It wasn't pee that had dribbled out of her. Free-Man mustn't find out. She rubbed it dry as much as she could, scrubbing it vigorously against her hip bone, hoping she didn't leave too visible a smear of shininess there on her skin. She could tell it was there, but it was faint and hopefully it would evaporate completely before Free-Man had a chance to notice it. 

5.

They must have travelled umpteen miles. His network of ropes and platforms was quite elaborate. In the Tarzan movies, he swings around all the time on leafy vines—but vines aren't really arranged conveniently like that in the real world, are they? Nor are they thick enough and strong enough. At least not in this part of the world. But probably nowhere outside of fantasy. 

Twice, rather than taking long swings, they slid for much greater distances along straight, slightly slanted horizontal lines, dangling like a cable car or a ski-lift from a triangular handle attached to a little pulley wheel that ran along the top of the rope. She had seen "slide-lines" like that before, in movies and things—she had no idea what they were really properly called. She wondered how he got the wheels back to the other side, after he used them. Because of the angle, the slides would only work one direction. She'd seen ones with cranks built into the handles, but these weren't that sophisticated.

She couldn't get over how high they always were. They never, even at the lowest point of a rope swing, got below three stories off the ground, far as she could judge. Maybe it wasn't quite that high—she could only "guesstimate." But God—they were high enough that if she'd lost her grip and fallen, she wouldn't just have broken some bones. She would have splattered on the ground like a watermelon. 

She kept her eyes shut, most of the time. Tried not to whimper. Her stomach gave her a lot of trouble. Free-Man may enjoy this kind of shit, but she couldn't imagine she ever would. She clung to his body not just with her arms but with both her legs. She clung as hard as she could, and as close. If it had been possible to merge their bodies into one, simply by squeezing them together, she would have made that happen. 

A bizarre sensation, of course. Pressing her bare tits against his bare back. Feeling his asscheeks against her crotch. And with her legs wrapped around him, this made her vagina feel stretched open. Her uncovered, unprotected slit, the whole time, was in direct contact with his sweaty and slightly hairy, slightly prickly skin. 

It wasn't the kind of contact you could ignore or put out of your mind. It wasn't a feeling you got used to and forgot about. It was a constant, insistent, nagging reminder of her nakedness—and his—and her vulnerability. She had put herself completely into Free-Man's power. He could do just about anything he chose to do with her. She would not able to offer much resistance, if he decided to take serious advantage, despite his earlier assurances. The fact that she'd agreed to stay with him didn't exactly change the fact she was his captive. No, it hadn't altered that fact at all. 

She was his captive, and she was stark naked, and completely helpless. She'd had her chance to get away from him, but she'd thrown it away—though who knows if he would have stayed true to his word, if she'd said she had decided to stay behind. That might have only made him turn ugly and brutalize her, on the spot. 

Her nipples were achingly hard, too. Squished against his back, it made them pulse continuously under the baking warm pressure. Hot, shivery flashes, like jolts of electricity, all through her body. It was like her nipples were two buttons, attached to a big battery—and since they were being continuously pushed, they triggered zap after zap, zap after zap ... But the current wasn't steady, for some reason. Even though the buttons were being held down without any breaks in the pressure, the zaps she kept feeling had breaks between them. She kept feeling them in pulses. She realized eventually they were hitting her in time to her heartbeat, pounding in her ears. Well, sure. That made sense. All a matter of bloodflow. 

Gradually she felt the same electric pulses start surging inside her crotch, and then outward from it, though her belly, through her thighs, through the soles of her feet and her tightly-curled toes. 

It was her clit, pressing on his butt. Her clit had woken up and stiffened into ultra-sensitive receptivity, just like her nipples, only more so. Because it was her clit. A woman's primary pleasure organ. 

She was getting wet again, now, too. Much worse than before. With her vagina stretched wide like this, goo was seeping out of her in a steady trickle. Would he be able to feel it on his skin, on his butt? He probably would. Oh God. How shameful. What would he think of her? It was sure to give him ideas ... 

She realized she was groaning a little, out loud. Shit. Hopefully he would think it was just the distress in her tummy, from all the giddy swoops. Partly it was, after all. Partly. 

"We've come far enough now," he said. This platform they'd just reached was larger than most of the others they'd been on, but there was still no railing, or any furniture on it. There was a basket of fruit, however, and another gourd to drink from. Except it turned out to have some sort of wine in it, instead of water. She was thirsty enough to drink quite a lot anyway, even though she wasn't too fond of the flavor, and it made her nose sting inside.

"Can't you get us something to put on now?" she asked, "You must have some other animals skins or blankets or something stashed somewhere."

"I do, yes. But I much prefer to stay this way, and keep you as you are. I wish you would relax. You really needn't keep covering your breasts with your arm like that. To be honest, it only makes you look silly." 

"I can't help it. I can't get used to this. What the hell do you expect? Nudity may not be a big thing for you, but I'm different. This is like a crazy mortifying dream I can't wake up from. Please don't look at me like that. You promised you wouldn't stare at me." 

"Did I?" 

"I really wish you'd kept your stupid shorts on. It really ... really weirds me out to have your see your dingus flopping around, whenever I look at you."

"Why do you keep staring at it, if you don't like the look of it?"

"I don't stare at it! In your dreams! It just never stays still! Every time you move, it jiggles around! Catches the eye, whether I want it to or not. How can you stand the feeling?" 

"You act like someone who has never seen a man naked before." 

"I've seen plenty of men naked, not that that's any of your beeswax, but not in this kind of context." 

"I don't know what you mean by that."

"Well, shit. Gosh. I don't know. I mean every other time I've seen a penis it's been—well, stiff, or at least mostly stiff or partially stiff. I mean, on account of the ... circumstances ... They don't move around so much like that. They still waggle around and things but they aren't always jiggling." 

"Hmm. If I understand you correctly, you want me to make my cock stiff." 

"No! I didn't say that! That wasn't what I meant at all!" 

He laughed at her. She felt like an idiot and she couldn't think of anything else to say to improve the situation. So she put her back to him and took another big swig from the wine gourd. Bigger than she should have, probably. It wasn't evenly shaped—she had to tip her head far back to get it to pour properly. 

And then while she was occupied that way, tilted back taking that drink with her eyes closed, Free-Man started groping her. His fingers were tunneling into her channel before she knew what was happening. She twisted and leapt clear of his hands with a shriek—ended up almost throwing herself off the platform. 

Free-Man caught her by the shoulders and pulled her back to safety, but of course his hands immediately went for her tits and vagina again. She could feel his cock against her ass. It wasn't limp anymore. It stood tall along her spine, and she could feel the throb of it against her skin. 

He flicked her clit. She almost passed out. Her legs turned to jelly and she dropped into another protective huddle, trembling at his feet. "Stop that! Oh God! You mustn't touch me there like that!"

"Why? Why not?"

"You said you wouldn't! You said you wouldn't force me!" 

"I'm not forcing you." He crouched to get hold of her again, and since she was sitting on her heels, perched on the balls of her feet, he could snake in his fingers underneath her from behind into the inch or so of space between her bottom and the surface of the platform, and between her heels—goosing her again, right on her tenderest spot. He targeted it perfectly, the jerk. 

"Yahhaahh! No! Please!"

"All I did was touch you. Like this."

"EEEHuuhnnh! Free-Man, quit it! Why are you being so mean? You're tormenting me! Don't laugh at me! Why are you laughing?"

"Because you're funny. You're cute, too, when you're like this."

"Gah! I said stop! Please, I'm serious! Why do you keep tormenting me?"

"Because you keep making such cute little noises and cute little faces."

"Hnnhh! Ehhurrhhn! God! Help me!" 

"Stop trying to shield yourself. Open up for me so I can touch you better."

"I won't. I don't want to." 

"Yes you do. You are in heat, woman."

"I'm not. I'm not an animal." 

"Yes you are. We all are. Now face the facts. Your hot little cunt is hungry for me, so hungry for attention it's drooling. Yes, that's right. It's drooling, I said. It is streaming juice, down your legs—and it's doing that for me. It's moistened itself for me—for my cock. Tell me I'm wrong, if I'm wrong."

"You're wrong."

"You're a liar, Miss Crowe. But that shouldn't surprise me—you are a journalist, after all." 

"I'm not a liar! I'm not! You're full of shit and you're crazy! You're a lunatic!" 

"We both can smell it, Miss Crowe. It doesn't take a special nose. We both can see it, too. And we both can feel it." He grabbed at her—not for her crotch but just the inside of her left knee, just brushing her skin there for a second with his fingertips. Then he held up those fingertips in front of her nose, showing her the fluid glistening on them. "Look. Taste it, here." 

"No, I don't want to. I won't. Don't make me."

"I won't. I'm not going to force you. I told you before. Do not fear me. You need not fear me. I am no monster. But please explain, why do you deny your desire? Why do you want to resist it?"

Why, indeed? Now that he asked her flat-out ... Suddenly the question was something of a stumper. "Because ... because of my integrity. As a journalist. I can't write a story about you if we were to have sex." 

"Why not?"




Lara Croft: A Tarzan Wannabe



"Because my integrity would be compromised!" 

"Would it? Does that matter so much?" 

"Yes! Of course it does. But you wouldn't understand such things anymore, would you? Living like an animal like you do." 

He smiled. "Think of it as an exclusive. All journalists want an exclusive, is that not so? What can be more exclusive than this? I have not had a woman in two and a half years, after all. I thought I would not need women anymore, once my new life began, in this place. I thought all those kinds of desires would fade away, once I had separated myself from the corruptions of civilization. But I was wrong. I'll go farther—I was foolish, thinking as I did. My desires have only strengthened. It can be agony."

"I'm sorry. It's your own damn fault. Serves you right. You shouldn't have taken off my clothes. It wouldn't be so bad, for either of us. We wouldn't have become aroused like this, at least not so bad, if you hadn't made me get naked this way and then got naked yourself." 

"So you admit now that you are aroused?"

"Yes of course I admit it. I might as well, in the face of the evidence. No point pretending otherwise. Not anymore."

"But yet even so you claim you truly do not want to fuck?" 

"It's not ... it isn't that I don't want to. But it's not something I can let myself let happen." 

"Because of your journalistic integrity."

"Exactly, yes." 

"But when you go home, why not, if you wish to write of this experience, why not write simply as a woman, rather than a journalist? Why not write as my lover? You think no one would wish to publish such an account? That doesn't sound correct to me. I think regardless of your so-called integrity, many more people would be interested in reading about us having sex, rather than just some objective interview, as you originally intended. Wouldn't a bit of fucking make this a much better story?"

"Jesus. I have no idea how to answer that one. Jesus God. You just won't let up, will you? Why can't you just let up on me? I can't stand this anymore. I just can't keep doing this. You're gonna make me start crying in a minute. I mean it. I'm gonna break down and start crying. Then you'll be sorry."

His response to this was to lunge across and kiss her. It was quite a kiss. Everything a kiss is supposed to be, or almost everything—at least a kiss from a man like this. Fierce. Commanding. Irrefutable. It was not a tender kiss. There was nothing like love in it. But God. It was powerful. It stunned her. Laid her out flat on her back, limp and dazed. As if he'd electrocuted her or punched her on the nose. Except he'd done this without hurting her. Not to say it wasn't violent—because it was. It was an outright act of assault, and only excusable—just barely, kinda—because it was pleasurable. So pleasurable. God. 

He didn't just kiss her mouth like that. He had grabbed hold of her hair, on the back of her head—her hair was short, bleach-blonde. Holding her like that let him swivel her around, wherever he wanted to put her. So his mouth moved to her neck, and then to her collarbones, and then up to one of her ears. He bit and sucked on the earlobe. He did that pretty hard, but it still felt good—thrilling. And then he lunged downward, arching her body, to do the same things to her nipples, one after the other. God! God! They were so sensitive! Too much to take! 

Now she was all the way down—flat on her back, and he was on top of her. Her legs were spread and her knees were raised high, and he fit himself between them. God, his cock was lined up to enter her, pressing her slit. All he had to do now was push and he'd be inside her. He'd be fucking her. All he needed to do was start moving. All he had to do was start. 

When was he going to start? God. Oh God. Why hadn't he started yet? 

"You're not fighting me," he whispered, as a few drops of sweat dripped off his nose on to her chin and neck. Any other man, that would have annoyed her and grossed her out. This guy, at this point, it felt awesome. "You're not trying to get away." 

"Where could I go? What would be the point?" 

"Do you want me to stop? Tell me now if you want me to stop." 

"Oh God. Oh God. Don't make me do this. Don't make me. I can't stand this anymore. I can't hold out. Why are you treating me this way? It isn't fair. You shouldn't have done this to me."

"You didn't say stop. Are you gonna say stop?"

"Oh God. Wait. Just wait. God. Why did you have to do this to me? Why did you strip me naked?"

"Because I wanted to see you naked, of course. Because I wanted to pin you down like this and fuck you."

"Oh my God. Everything you said before. All that crap about tracking devices. That was complete bullshit, the whole time. Just an excuse." 

"Of course. And it worked. Not just to make you naked. It excited you, too, didn't it? When I took your clothes. When I took you captive. You knew what I wanted. You knew exactly what would happen."

"Yes. Yes I knew it. I knew all along. Oh God. It made me wet. Right from the start, it made me wet. I couldn't help it. I just got wetter and wetter. I knew you were gonna take me. Oh wait! I can feel you! I can feel it pushing into me! Oh God! Free-Man! You're too big for me! It feels too big!"

"No it's not. You're wet enough. You'll take it easy. I can feel it."

"Wait! Wait! I'm not ready yet! I'm not ready! I'm frightened! It feels—Ahhuurrh! Not yet! Wait! Please! Slower, at least. Go slower. Please. Don't hurt me with it. Don't make it hurt." 

"Last chance, Karen Crowe. Do you want it in you now or not? Tell me you want it or I'll take it away." 

"Don't take it away. Don't take it away. I want it. I want to feel it. I'm scared but I want to feel you."

He started pushing in again. Not just teasing, this time, but for real. 

"Oh! Oh shit! Shit it's big! It's really big! Wait! Wait! I can't! I don't think I can! Give me a second! Give me a second! Ahhuuhh!"

"There's a lot more to go, Miss Crowe. You're only taking the tip. Is it too much? Shall we stop? Shall I take it out? If you don't like how it feels and you don't want it anymore, you have to tell me." 

"Please. Please oh please I can't ... I can't do this ... It feels ... It feels so ... Ohhuunnhh ... Don't make me do this ... Please! Please!" But she never actually said stop or pull it out. Not unequivocally, when it counted most, right then. She implied it, sure. She meant to say it, but she never quite did, not straight-out. She found she couldn't. She found she didn't want to. 

He had left it up to her, she left it up to him ... so both could excuse themselves and blame the other for pushing things too far, past that proverbial Point of No Return ... 

He put it all into her, at long last. He plunged into her right to the root and made her scream. Then he did it again and did it again and did it again, and he kept on doing it and doing it and doing it. 

She screamed. She screamed. She kept on screaming. 

"Take me, girl. Take your exclusive, journalist. It shall be in depth. An in-depth exclusive ... all—for—you!!"

Ha fucking ha. He thought he was so clever, so witty. But then again, she was hardly in a position to argue about that. His cock, after all, was inside her balls-deep and he was fucking the shit out of her, in spite of all her earlier reservations and protests. So yeah, in fairness, one had to grant the guy a degree of cleverness, of savage cunning. If he wasn't clever, that made her an absolute dumbshit, didn't it? A total pushover. 

His cock was stretching her out pretty bad. Both inwards and outwards, God Almighty. So much for journalistic integrity. Journalistic integrity was officially compromised—as well as the integrity of her pussy, ha ha. Free-Man's huge cock was compromising the bejesus out of it. A terrible feeling, but it was glorious too. The terriblest part was how glorious it was. It was so unfair that this kind of thing should feel so good. So perfect. That a man should get to do this to a woman's naked body, a woman's pussy—invade it and pummel it this way, with his stupid dirty penis, of all things—and a woman had to let him, for no other better reason than that it was so goddamn incredibly pleasurable. Not that it always was ... not for just any and every guy ... and thank heaven for that ... but when it was, when it was the right kind of guy, and he was doing it in the right kind of way, then oh man. Oh yes. Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck indeed. It felt so good it made you scream. You couldn't help it. You screamed your stupid head off. 

"I want you to come for me, journalist," he told her, "I want to feel your integrity compromise for me on my cock. Surrender your objectivity, journalist."

"I have ... I already have ... You've taken it all!"

"Not quite, not yet. Not all the way, journalist. You wanted to understand me. Understand this. Take your exclusive and compromise on it! Come for me! Now! Come on my cock!"

She did as she was told. She gave him what he wanted. "Yaahhrraahh!!" She screamed when she felt it starting, she screamed again as it took her over, and then she screamed once more after it was done, in sheer appalled astonishment for how terrible and glorious it had been. 

He pulled out of her and she thought he was ready to come himself, but he had only pulled out to turn her over on her hands and knees, so he could plunge back into her from behind for some doggy style. 

"Wait, wait—let me rest a minute. Let me get my breath back. Hoohrrh!" 

He didn't listen to her. He just went right back to town. Actually he fucked her harder this way than before. She wouldn't have thought he could do it to her any harder than he'd already been going, but now it turned out that wasn't the case. 

"Jesus! God! That's too much! It's too much! Guuhahhrr!"

Actually it wasn't, she only thought it would be. She thought it would start to hurt, but that didn't happen. She was too much in the groove. Arousal raises all one's thresholds. It's crazy how crazy you can get, when you get crazy. Once it's going good, if it gets real good, it gets better and better. If your partner doesn't burn out too quick. Usually they did, in Karen's experience, but Free-Man hadn't yet. So he'd taken her to a higher, crazier sexual level. Taken them both up there together. Higher and crazier than she'd ever been, probably. And it was nice up here, wasn't it? Yes it was. Real nice. Real transcendental shit. 

While he kept pounding her, he started playing with her butthole too. Circling it with a fingertip to tease it, and sometimes jabbing into it a little, to make it clench and squirm, and to stretch it open some, and then gradually some more ... Normally she wouldn't have liked that kind of thing at all. She would have freaked out if any other guy in her life had tried to start that kind of crap back there. But she didn't mind it right then when it was Free-Man doing it. Not in the present tripped-out state she was in. 

Not when she was just about to come again already ... It hadn't taken long. It was different than the first one, triggering from a different spot inside her, because of the different position. She'd never been able to come from doggystyle before. She knew for lots of girls it was their favorite, but for her it had never done much, until that moment. Now she got to see what she'd been missing. Well, not see. To feel. To experience. To discover. The plain everyday word "see" just didn't do this moment proper justice. 

"God! God! God DAMN!! How the fucking hell are you doing this? How you keep doin' this to me?"

His only response was to go "Heh" and then "Hurr hurr hurr." Infuriatingly smug sounds, but he'd earned the right to some smugness, it had to be said. 

And then he slid his cock out of her pussy to put it into her ass. 

She squealed and she wriggled and she kicked, but she let him do it, all the same. She'd been pretty much prepared for this. His cock was well-lubricated, with her own juice. And he didn't ram it in mean—he did it slowly and carefully. Not to say it went in easy, because it didn't. A great deal of patient and insistent force was required to work the bastard all the way in there. But he got it in, eventually. And it didn't feel too bad in there. It didn't exactly feel wonderful, just yet, but it didn't feel too bad either.

"Oh my God—you're in my ass! You took my ass!" Why had she let him do this? Why did she feel proud of herself for letting him do this? "Nobody's ever done this to me! God!" 

Once it was planted all the way down to the root, far as he could burrow, he rolled them both over, lying flat on his back with her arched backward too on top of him, and still impaled. He pushed his knees up under the arches of her feet, to elevate her legs and widen them. And then he reached around her to her crotch and fingered her clit, to make her shudder and bounce around. So this way he didn't exactly hump her ass—what he did was hold himself almost perfectly still, but making her vibrate on top of him, and on his cock embedded in her bowels. It was bringing her off for the third time, with his fingers, that finally brought him off right with her in the same moment, that time. From her motion, her spasms, and from squeezing inside on him. 

After he took himself out of her, he stood up and made her blow him. 

"Do I have to?" she said, trembling on her knees as she looked up at him, and at it, "I don't want to."

"But I want you to," he said.

"It was just in my ass. You just reamed out my fucking butthole." 

"Yes. I did. Take it in your mouth and suck it."

"But ... but it's gross." 

"I know. That's why I want you to do this for me. Will you do this for me? Even though it's gross. Please. Suck my cock."

It was nifty how he managed to make that sound like a polite formal request and yet a firm compelling hardass masculine command, at the same exact time. Worked at her from both directions. 

She gave in and did it. Closing her eyes and keeping them closed was a little bit of a help. The taste wasn't as bad as she feared. There was no poop taste—not that she'd know what poop tasted like. But there was no poop smell either. It still had a funny flavor, stronger than usual—not at all what cock normally tasted like, in her experience. But it wasn't horrible, or not too horrible. 

Pretty soon she felt him getting fully hard again, in her mouth ... "How long do I have to keep doing this?" 

His answer was to shush her and grab her hair and push her mouth back on to it. Making her take it deeper than before, until she started to gag on it. He let go of her and eased up the thrusts after that, but only so long as she kept sucking it. Soon as she tried to take another breather, he grabbed her hair and got mean again for another minute. 

So fine. After that bullshit she didn't try stopping anymore until she'd got the fucker off again. 

6. 

Free-Man had left her alone on the platform, to fetch them water and some food. They'd emptied the wine gourd, together, and finished the fruit. He said it wouldn't take him longer than an hour or so to return. He didn't tie her up or anything. Nor did he make any threats. In fact it never seemed to seriously cross his mind that she might try to get away, as soon as he was gone. And realistically, what could she do? Even if she were brave enough, or stupid enough, to try to climb down off the platform by herself—and she knew she simply wasn't physically strong enough for such a long climb, without the aid of ropes—because of course he'd swung off on the one rope that connected this platform to the rest of his crazy network, and he'd be using that same line to come back on—let alone the problem of vertigo, there remained the fact she was nude. Not only nude, but with semen crusted all over her face and her tits. Her left eye was still stinging, where a gob had hit right in the corner. She could feel quite a bit in her hair as well. More of the stuff was still oozing from her ass, from the first time he'd come. Every time she thought it was done emptying out from there, she'd move a little and then feel more start flowing. Pretty demoralizing. 

She simply couldn't face the prospect of attempting an escape in this condition. Without any supplies or protection of any kind. Even if she made it down alive somehow from the tree—which she wouldn't, but if somehow she did—she couldn't bear the thought of walking around down there barefoot on the mucky jungle floor. All the bugs and fungus and slime and snakes and rodents and things. It was too gross and scary to imagine. She knew she'd end up with some horrible infection her American immune system had never learned how to handle. So all her toes would turn green and have to be amputated, probably. That was the kind of luck she had. 

Worse than that was the thought of finding Lara's team, or them finding her. Rescue was the absolute last thing she wanted to happen, in her present state. She would just die, from the sheer humiliation. It wasn't that she never wanted to be rescued, but not until later. After she'd been able to clean herself up somewhat, as much as was possible in this environment. Also after she'd completed a proper interview with Free-Man. She was pretty sure she could talk him into one now, and she was also pretty sure he would let her go after that without any further hassle, in a little while. Tomorrow morning, most likely. Now that he'd had his fun, or maybe after he'd taken a little more, he would probably carry or escort her to the fence line and then send her on her merry way. Hopefully he would fashion some clothes for her, first. Something basic for the essentials, out of animal skins or leaves, like Tarzan made for Jane ... That would be fitting. She might enjoy wearing an outfit like that, at least for a short time. She might look quite fetching in that sort of getup. 

"Karen!"

Oh Christ! That was Lara's voice! 

She looked over and there Lara was, or just her head—peeping up over the rim of the platform. She must have climbed up the damn tree. Well, if anyone could do something like that, besides Free-Man himself, it would be Lara fucking sweetass Croft. 

"Are you all right? Free-Man isn't here?"

She nodded to the first question, shook her head for the other one. Lara hauled herself the rest of the way up on the platform. 

Karen was surprised to see she was still topless. But perhaps that shouldn't have surprised her. Her top had been torn so bad it had been ruined before, and where would she have got herself a spare? Especially if she hadn't rejoined the commandos yet, who probably would have given her something. What about her bra? She must not have been able to find it. Lost in the middle of some bush, probably. She had got her boots back on, though. And she had one gun in her holster—no doubt the one Karen had been too stupid or too chickenshit to use, when she should have. Apparently Lara had been able to find it but not the other one. But then she probably hadn't wasted a lot of time looking for the thing. Because all this time she would have been searching for her. Wow. Strange thought.  

"How were you able to find me up here?" she asked. 

Lara gave her a funny look, and then looked away, adjusting the straps on her boots. "It wasn't difficult, Karen. I followed the screams. I could hear you miles away."

"Oh. You could?"

"Yes." 

"Oh. I see. Oh."

"It was a good thing. Made me dread finding you, though. I thought he was torturing you." 

"He was. He was!" 

Lara didn't manage to answer this right away. But then she coughed and said "Yes, of course. Quite. I only meant I was afraid I'd find you with your skin flayed off or your eyes gouged out. Something of that nature. Like he treated the poachers." Her attempts to make things better only made it feel worse and worse. 




Lara Croft: A Tarzan Wannabe



Karen could feel her cheeks burning. She must have turned as red as a strawberry. "Don't you judge me, Lara!" 

"I assure I don't. I wouldn't." 

"I was helpless, on my own. He ripped all my clothes away!"

"I see that, yes."

"I had to do whatever he wanted. Lara, he ... he sodomized me. I couldn't stop him." 

"I know. I understand. I understand perfectly." 

She did, too. That was the worst of it. Karen could feel it. It was just exactly like she said. She had meant it to sound different, a cliché reassurance—but the real meaning was there, in the tone. Lara was seeing right through her. Somehow Lara knew exactly how it had gone down. 

"I couldn't help what happened! I couldn't help it!" 

"There's no need to explain yourself. No need at all." But she could tell Lara was completely disgusted with her. She was feeling genuine pity for Karen, as well, yet even so that didn't disguise or soften the contempt.

It made her furious. But what could she say? There wasn't a single thing Karen could say to her that would make any fucking difference in the slightest. 

"We need to go now," Lara said. 

"How? I can't make that climb. There's no way. I'm sorry but I'm not good at things like that, like you are." 

"You'll have to hang on to me then. Cling to my back, like you did his." 

"Are you sure you can handle my weight?" 

"To be honest, no. But I haven't any rope on hand. We've no other option." 

"It's too risky. Why don't you just leave me, for right now? Free-Man isn't hurting me. Not anymore, I mean. In fact I think if you give me a little more time I can reason with him, maybe. You should go find the rest of the team. Then come back here. Hopefully by then I can convince him the best thing is to give himself up."

"Karen, I don't believe you're thinking clearly. I'm afraid your plan just isn't feasible."

"No," said Free-Man, arriving with a thump on the platform behind them, "She's right. It's not." 

Lara drew her gun and covered him, but Free-Man showed no concern. He had two large leather bags on straps slung over her his shoulder—the food and water he'd gone to fetch. Before he set them down, he turned his back to Lara, carefully looping the end of his rope around a branch, just like last time, to keep it hanging there ready and waiting for use again. 

"Stop moving or I fire," said Lara, "Final warning." 

When he turned, he still didn't look at her—he looked right at Karen.

She flung herself on top of Lara, grabbing for the gun, shrieking. "No! Don't kill him!" 

The gun went off, twice, but didn't hit anybody. Karen had pushed it skyward. 

"Get the hell off me!" Lara roared, kicking hard but not managing to dislodge her, "Idiot! You're out of your mind!" 

"I won't let you kill him! He's not a criminal!" 

Lara rolled them over—she nearly rolled them off the platform altogether. But Free-Man caught hold of her braid and dragged her backward, forcing a yell from her. "Gahhrr! Let go! Fucker!" 

She finally succeeded in jerking her weapon from Karen's grip, but an instant later as she was swinging it around back on Free-Man, he kicked it out of her hand. It went off again when his foot struck it, and then once more when it bounced on the wooden platform beside them. Again, those bullets didn't happen to hit anybody. And then the gun was gone—it bounced off the edge of platform and plummeted out of view.

"Shit," Lara said. And yes, she just said it, in a low, resigned voice, not shouting it or screaming it. Like she was gonna give up the fight. But she didn't. Instead, lashing her entire body like a whip, somehow she flung both her legs up backward over her head and hooked her ankles together behind Free-Man's head, and then jerked him forward off his feet, flipping him over top of her and slamming his face to the platform. Luckily for her he lost his hold on her braid, when she did that, or her neck might have got broken as he flew over. Karen thought she would have knocked him out, or maybe even killed him, hard as he landed. But it turned out she had only busted his nose. He continued to struggle. In fact he tried to copy her move, more or less—tried to catch her neck between his legs to flip her the same way she'd caught him. But Lara twisted out of the way too fast for him. 

Karen put herself back in the match, tackling Lara from behind. She reached around her with both hands, going for her exposed nipples. She grabbed hold of them both and squeezed and twisted them as hard as she could. Now Lara screamed. A proper scream—like the kind of screams Karen herself screamed, when she needed to scream. It was good to hear one like that out of this bitch, for a damn change. Not just another one of her too-tough-to-crack grunts or gasps or curses ... But then she flipped Karen over her head the same as she'd just done to Free-Man, only she did it just with her arms, rather than using her legs that time. 

Karen lost her grip on Lara's nipples. But her face landed nose-down on Lara's lap, rather than smacking the wood like Free-Man's poor nose had ... and then this gave Karen a wild notion. That moment of soft, slimy contact with the sweat-slickened skin of Lara's thighs against her nose and her mouth, her lips and her teeth ... Well, it was basically how Free-Man had bested her the first time, wasn't it? If that shit had worked once, it would work again.

She drove her face towards Lara's crotch, clawing at her shorts to try to tear them open and tear them down ... Lara scooted away, kicking again—she would easily have fended Karen off, except Free-Man pounced on her again as well. He jumped on top of both of them, actually, his weight squishing Karen deeper between Lara's legs, so it was almost impossible for her to breathe beneath him, but also shielding her from Lara's kicks and punches with his body. 

She could feel his cock, erect again. Stabbing between her shoulder blades, the way they were piled.

While he and Lara grappled hand to hand, torso to torso, Karen continued to tunnel for Lara's cunt with her fingers and her tongue. She never quite managed to get Lara's shorts off or even unfastened. But she was able to force her way beneath them, partially ripping the inseams. And to push the crotch of her panties out of her way, to get her mouth in there right on Lara's slit, and at her button ... 

Believe it or not, she was wet already, when Karen first tasted her. She hadn't expected that, but Lara was. And then she got wetter and wetter. Soon she started to scream again. Proper screams like that earlier one. Screams of distress, and of shame. And it got even better. In only a little while longer, the arrogant bitch started to plead. 

"Don't! Don't do this! Karen! Stop it! You gotta stop! Karen! Not like this! Not there! Please! You're killing me! Please!" 

Beautiful. Perfect. Then she both heard and felt the heavy impact on the wooden platform of Lara's upper body collapsing backward against it. She was faltering at last. Still writhing—still struggling—but now she had weakened enough to allow Free-Man to pin her flat. Two more shuddering thuds—Karen knew without having to see it that those were Lara's wrists, smacking the wood under Free-Man's clutches. 

"Damn you! Stop! Karen I can't—I can't stand anymore! Karen! Dammit! Please!" 

But then suddenly Free-Man starting sort of bicycling his legs—pedaling his feet against the top of Karen's bare butt. Doing that pushed her backward out from under him and away from Lara, and then he nudged her sideways. "Out of the way now," he said, "Roll over out of my way. Good, good. Good girl. Yes. Now here we go."

Soon as he'd steered Karen out of his path, he was stuffing his cock right where her tongue had been a moment ago. Lara wailed as she was penetrated, while Free-Man himself howled in triumph. 

"There it is! There! Ha!" 

"You bastard! Oh! You fucker! Shit! Oh!" 

"Yes. Yes. Twice now I've beaten you. But this time you shall not run away from me. This time I shall have the prize I've won."

"You'll pay for this! I swear to—Guuhhrrn! I swear to fucking god I'll make you pay!"

"Yes. Yes. But now it is your time to pay. Yes it is. Yes. Uhhn. Uhhrrn. It's good. It's very good. I knew it would be good."

"Ah shit. Ahggh. Ahrrhhnn. Shit. Ahuuhn."

At first, Karen was glad to watch this. She really was, for a short while. Now Lara would learn. She was getting what she deserved. And Free-Man wouldn't have been able to beat her this time without her help.

But he was enjoying it too much. And he never even glanced at her, anymore. It was like he'd completely forgotten about her. The way he'd pushed her aside so fast, with no real acknowledgment of what she'd done for him, for them both ... All he'd cared about was getting himself into Lara's cunt. And the look on his face—the noises he was making. He hadn't been like this at all, when he was fucking her before. He had become a completely different man. And the pleasure he was feeling—it was obvious he was enjoying this a thousand times more than he'd enjoyed screwing her, barely an hour ago. Christ!

"Look at me, Lara! Look up in my eyes!" 

She wouldn't. She kept them shut with her face turned away, biting her lip so she wouldn't cry out anymore. Though her nostrils flared with every stroke she took. 

Karen found she couldn't take her eyes off Lara's giant breasts—so much grander than her own. The way they jumped up and down in rhythm to the fucking. Karen's tits, such as they were, didn't do that, not like that. They were much too shrimpy. She was too flat-chested. 

She noticed Free-Man couldn't take his eyes off them either. Well, of course he couldn't. But God, the light in them—the delight. Like a kid at Christmas. He stopped holding her wrists, so he could clutch those boobs instead, circling and flicking at the nipples with his thumbs. That got Lara to make noises again. Little yelps and whimpers. She didn't move her arms—Free-Man wasn't holding them down anymore, so she could have tried to hit at him again, but she left them lying limp over her head. All the fight had gone out of her. Like she was tamed.

Realizing this, Free-Man took a rest, to make some adjustments ... He slid himself out of her and raised up on his haunches, pushed Lara's legs together and then got busy undoing her belt buckle and the buttons on her shorts, so he could peel them down her legs and all the rest of the way off her, over her booted feet, and her panties too—they were colored a bright neon yellow. Karen hadn't noticed that before. Lara let him do it. She didn't struggle or protest at all as the last of her things were stripped away. For he removed her boots and socks as well. "I want you naked. You should be naked. When I fuck a woman, she must be naked. I want the whole woman, you see, as nature intended. I want to see all she is, every detail laid bare. No barriers, no disguises." 

Well, soon enough he'd got her that way, just like he wanted, every bit as naked as Karen was, from head to toe. Except for those fingerless gloves Lara always seemed to wear—did she ever take those things off, ever? He didn't bother taking those.

Her bush was bushier than Karen would have guessed. She would have thought Lara was the type to keep it shaved bare, like she herself always did. But no. It wasn't wild bristly seventies-style—a well-groomed, neat black arrow, but it was thick and striking. There were white globs caught in the hair. And God, her cunt was so red, and gaping so wide. Like it couldn't close itself anymore. You could see right down the channel. Her clit was so swollen it looked almost like an eyeball, staring back at you ... There was white goo trickling out of her, pooling on the wood between her thighs, the circle spreading wider and wider. Had Free-Man come a little already, before he took his break? Or was that all Lara's own juice? 

As if it could sense Karen's gaze on it, and was embarrassed, she saw Lara's cunt spasm, the hole contracting defensively, the lips clenching as well, and then shuddering ... God, it was a ghastly, grotesque thing to witness. If Lara had got to see her own pussy quiver and gush so helplessly like that, Karen felt she would die of the shame. And she was ashamed of herself for seeing this. But Karen couldn't make her eyes turn away. 

Like he'd done with Karen's things, he didn't just pile the stuff aside, but flung it all away, off the platform. When Lara heard the clatter of her hefty boots, as they were dropping through the branches and leaves, that finally got her to look up at him again. "Why the fuck did you have to do that shit? Good boots like that cost a lot of money, if you didn't realize." 

"You won't need those things anymore. While you're with me—while you're mine—you will stay naked, to serve my pleasure."

"Enjoy this while you can, you brute. Just remember, you're only making it worse and worse for yourself, when your reckoning comes. Because it will." 

"Your spirit thrills me as much as your body, Lara Croft." He grabbed her ankles and then rubbed the soles of her feet on the sides of his cock, pumping it between the arches ... his erection had dwindled, slightly, while he was occupied with stripping her. Now he used the stimulation of her feet to reinflate himself. "This feels nice. I could climax just from this alone. I really could." Streaks of goo escaped his tip, spattering the tops of her feet, and between her toes. Lara made a disgusted face and groaned, at the sight and no doubt at the slimy feel of it, as well. "But you wouldn't," Free-Man went on, "And I don't want you to miss out on your share of the pleasure." She tried to mash her heels into his balls, but he had too firm a grip on her. "Now, now. That wasn't very nice." Still holding her ankles, he lifted her legs high, as high and as wide as he could make them stretch, and then penetrated her again. Lara tried at the last instant to wriggle away, but failed. Karen saw the shaft shove in. She was surprised how much wider it made the passage stretch around it—considering how wide the leaking, abused, enflamed hole had been gaping already. 

Lara wailed again, as the cock drilled into her, plunging deeper and deeper. "Nuurraahuuggh!" 

"Ah, that's better. I can go much deeper now than before. Do you feel how much deeper I can go, at this angle, without the constriction of your silly shorts and undies in the way?"

"Damn you! Uhhn! Uhhrrgh. Jesus! Sonofa—Bitch!!"

"I'm punishing you, Lara. This is your punishment, for trespassing on my land and challenging my rule, and trying to hurt me. And for running away before, of course. And I'm going to punish you with pleasure. That's a much a better punishment than hurting you." His hands moved from her ankles to her tits again. "You're going to learn how foolish you were to resist me. It wasn't only useless—it was absurd. You should have given yourself to me at the beginning, just as Karen wanted to."

"No! No! Nuuhrr! Damn you!" 

"Yes. Yes. Yes." 

It was like before, when they had fought in the mud, when the tide had turned on her. The way the expression on her face gradually changed, cycling through conflicting emotions—but it was a slightly different cycle than the last time—it went much further than before. Shifting from fierce angry determination, to surprise, and then to puzzlement, and then to dismay ... And then more and more to a wandering, wistful look of loss and dizziness, her eyes unfocusing, her mouth hanging open ... "Huuhh! Huurrggh! Guuhahhrr!" Until suddenly she shook her head and blinked, and then this snapped her gaze back into full and blazing awareness, locking dead-on with Free-Man's joyful eyes. But now the cast of her expression seemed to have acquired—almost—a look of discovery upon it, and even of wonder. 

Or was Karen only projecting her own feelings on to it? 

"You are feeling it now," Free-Man said, "I can tell. It's taking you over. The need. It's awakened and now it must be satisfied. I knew the moment we met, you would be mine. It was only a matter of time. And I was right. You knew it too, didn't you? That first moment—I could see it in your eyes. You knew. There was no avoiding this. It had to happen."

"You are so full of yourself," she answered, "You think you're such goddamn hot shit." 

"Come for me, Lara Croft! Come for my cock!" 

She shook her head over and over in refusal, biting her bottom lip again hard enough to make it bleed, but even so she went: "Ahhuuhhnn. Harrhh. Huugghhn." Her legs kicked, and then clamped around him, and Karen saw all her toes—still slick and shiny with goo from earlier—curl tight. Then go into those repeating spasms she had seen the last time—spreading wide and clenching, spreading again and clenching ... "Guuhhahhnn!" 

Did she? Fuck. To Karen it certainly looked and sounded like she had. Jesus, Lara had let him bring her off. But then again with a woman there's almost no way to know for absolutely certain. Maybe she just faked it, so he'd finish with her faster, or maybe trying to get him to lower his guard ... making him overconfident ... 

"Now it's my turn!" Free-Man declared, "You gonna suck it? No running away this time. You gonna take me on your face, like a good girl? Or do I put it in your ass instead? I leave it up to you ... Choose."

"My—my face then. Bastard. I'll suck it." 

"Are you sure? You don't sound happy about the idea."

"I said I'll fucking suck it." 

"Good, good. That's good." He pulled out and stood tall, just as he had when he had won before, and just as he had with Karen. "Up on your knees now. You know how I want it. That's where you belong. Do it. Take it. Now! Now!" 

Lara took the position, scowling. Free-Man laughed at her expression, grabbing her braid. 

"Here we go! Here we go! Worship me now. Worship your conqueror. Worship my cock with your mouth! Yes, like that. I like that, yes. But now use those wonderful breasts of yours, too. Worship my cock with your breasts! Rub me on them! Fuck it with them! Yes! Do it! Show me!"

"I have had to face a great many arrogant jerks in my career," Lara declared, "But I think you might be the most arrogant of all of them. I can't imagine meeting another villain half as obnoxiously full of himself as you've turned out to be." But even as she was saying this, with slobber dribbled all over her chin and her chest, she kept doing what he'd told her to—kept rubbing his cock between her glistening tits. Worshipping it with them—a genuine, disgraceful act of worship, even if inside of course she didn't really mean it that way. She knelt with her feet together but with her knees wide apart. Perhaps her cunt was sore. Karen could see more white fluid dripping from her gash, splashing on the wood beneath her. God, there was so much of it. It just kept dripping out, glop after glop after glop ... and Karen also saw Lara was rubbing her toes together, the top of one upside-down foot atop the ball of the other, kneading it in little circles. Scratching an itch there? Shouldn't have had to keep doing it so long ... She wondered if Lara even realized her feet were doing that. A tiny subconscious act of self-comfort.

Karen, raising herself to her knees in the same pose as Lara, imitated those motions with her own feet ... It did feel oddly nice. Nicer than you might think a silly little thing like that could feel. A comforting self-distraction, from everything else she was feeling. All the larger stuff, the churning emotions. 

"You think me terribly arrogant? Pride is no sin, if it's earned from accomplishment," Free-Man declared, "Didn't Jane Austen write that?"

"No," countered Lara, "I am quite certain she did not."

"Something like that, anyway. The wording is not exact, I admit. I am no longer a literary man. I did try to keep a small library here, but it didn't last long. The books were all consumed by rot, and vermin. But she did write something along those lines, I know she did."