Our Only Hope, Chapter 03 free porn video

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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

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Chapter Three

Taking Down Master Rodriguez

As we drove away from the club, Natasha said something to the driver that didn’t seem to go over very well. He and Natasha began to argue, then she said something very forcefully and the driver shrugged and reached up to the dashboard and flipped a switch. A solid partition rose out of the back of the most forward seats, sealing off the driver’s area. Then all of the windows slowly turned totally black.

“We are going to their local headquarters,” Natasha said softly. “They didn’t want to take you there, but I vouched for you.”

Boris laughed softly and Natasha gave him a very dirty look. “What she actually said,” he said with a smile, “was that if you revealed anything about the headquarters, she would kill you herself.”

“Not the first time something like that was said to me,” I answered.

Natasha looked directly into my eyes and said softly and slowly, “But they were not just words when I said them.”

For some reason, Boris’ words from earlier, “You really don’t want to know,” were echoing in my mind. I decided to shut my eyes and relax until we got to wherever it was we were going. “Wake me when we get there,” I said and quickly dropped off to sleep.

What seemed like immediately, but was actually about a half-hour later, I was awakened by a shrill whistle screaming in my ear. I jerked awake to see Boris standing in the door of the car with a British-style cop whistle in his mouth. “Why the whistle?” I said a little more nastily than I had intended.

“I didn’t have a pillow,” Boris replied. When I wrinkled my eyebrows at him in confusion, he explained, “You never touch Natasha to awaken her. Depending on what she is dreaming, she might knock you across the room... or worse.” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I usually just throw a pillow at her.”

“You, my friend,” I said as I stepped out of the car, “have a tiger by the tail.”

“We have each other,” he replied smiling. The smile left his face as he said, “As children of spies, we both had very interesting childhoods.” Then his face got very serious, “Natasha and I have a plan,” he said quickly. “It will take a lot of my friends and a lot of luck, but I think it will work... and I think we can avoid bloodshed.”

“You think?”

“Well,” he almost stammered, “these are dangerous people and we can’t totally predict what they will do, but I have discovered their weakness.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“Technology!” he almost shouted. “Master Rodriguez’s club is advertised on the dark web. And it says ‘Language is no barrier.’ All the guests are told to connect their smart phones to club wifi and *********** the translation channel.”

“How does that help us?” I said, not quite following his excitement.

“They use an internet-based real time translation service, so their wifi is constantly tied directly to that service,” Boris said, waving his hands in excitement. “I can hack that connection and get total access to all communications in the club. With any luck, the guards and staff will also be connected to that hub. We can talk to all of them at the same time or send whatever we want to their cellphones.”

“And that helps us how?” I said. I really wasn’t following his plan.

“We can run AI algorithms on their phone content and...” He shook his head rapidly while waving his hands in the air in front of himself. “Too complicated to explain,” he sputtered. “Just trust me... and Natasha,” he said, still very excitedly. “But I– and my friends– have a lot of work to do in the next hour or so.” He then motioned for me to follow him.

We were in an underground garage of some sort. I followed Boris to an elevator that took us down a couple levels to a room full of electronic equipment. Natasha was already sitting at one of the monitors. Boris took a seat next to her. He motioned to a monitor next to him and said, “You can sit there or in the chair over in the corner. But don’t touch the keyboards. They don’t trust you.”

As if to punctuate his comment, the nearest guard standing against the wall glowered at me. I chuckled as I walked over to the chair in the corner and made myself comfortable. One thing I have learned in my life is that you grab sleep when you can get it. Boris and Natasha knew what they were doing, I had to trust them for now. “It’s OK to poke me,” I said to Boris. “I might come up a little fast, but I haven’t hit anyone... yet.”

Boris just nodded his head and began typing on the keyboard. Two hours later I felt someone poking me in the ribs. When I opened my eyes, Boris was standing there with a long ruler of some sort. Evidently he wasn’t quite sure enough that it was safe to actually touch me to wake me up.

“We’re set,” he said firmly. “Time to go.”

When we got back up to the garage, Natasha was waiting for us next to an oversized black van with what looked like a matching RV air conditioner unit on the roof. I was betting it was actually a disguise for antennas of one sort or another. When I stepped in, my suspicion was confirmed. The back half of the van was packed with electronics.

The four bodyguards and I squeezed into seats near the door of the van while Natasha and Boris sat in the back at the two electronics stations. She was wearing a different, full-length black dress that was skin-tight to the waist and then became full, almost like a ball gown. The top was a matte black leather that looked very soft. The bottom portion was a not-quite shiny fabric with a pattern on it of some sort.

It took almost an hour to get to the club on the outskirts of Rio, but we were more than on time for the 2:00 am show. “I’ll stay out here,” Boris said, “while you and Natasha go inside.”

As before, the driver and one of the bodyguards stayed with the vehicle and three others accompanied us into the club. The doorman objected at first saying that we all needed tokens. One of the guards opened his coat, revealing his gun, but I stepped forward and held out a stack of bills to the doorman saying, “I will pay for our security, but they enter with us, or we leave.”

I don’t know if he understood my English, but he understood my money. This time Natasha requested a front table. That took another stack of bills, this time from the depths of her cleavage, but we were soon seated at a prime table right in front of the stage. I felt a little strange sitting with Natasha by my side and a bodyguard on either side of us. We looked like a wealthy married couple... OK, we looked like a wealthy, kinky, married couple. The third guard stood against a wall where he could see the entire club. There were three other military-looking men standing near him. Evidently we were not the only ones who brought security with them to this illicit den of iniquity.

The room was large and rectangular with a slightly raised stage located in the center of one of the long walls. The area directly behind the stage was covered with a dark blue theater-type curtain. The rest of the room was bare block walls that had been painted a dark shade of gray. Considering what the outside of this mansion looked liked– even though it was slightly run- down– I was surprised at how austere the interior of the club seemed to be. We had entered from the back, so perhaps the front of the mansion was a little more luxurious. I looked around the room checking for possible dangers and escape routes. The ceiling was surprisingly high. Looking carefully at the far wall, I could see an area about four meters off the ground– about the right height for another floor– where the wall seemed to have a rough area that looked like it had been plastered over.

I was trying to figure out what that might mean when Boris’ voice in my ear answered my questions for me. “The club is in the back part of the house,” he began. “That area is more or less isolated from the main house and was housing for low level diplomatic staff. Shortly after the embassy was abandoned, that area burned leaving just the concrete block shell. A man by the name of Dominic Rodriguez purchased the property and converted the back portion into a club. His son, also named Dominic, still owns it. Dominic senior helped organize the more seamy side of the tourist industry in Rio. Junior is still a key player in that.”

“Thank you,” I said, and a pleasant-sounding voice just above me said, “You’re welcome.”

A young woman in a very tight, very skimpy, very short, white spangly dress was standing next to me with a wooden tray that was strapped to her waist and supported by a strap that went around the back of her neck. She reminded me of the old-fashioned cigarette girls from the 1930s. Not that I had ever seen any of them, but I have seen some old pictures and movies. This girl wasn’t selling cigarettes. She was renting bluetooth earpieces for the translations... and if I needed it, a cellphone-like receiver. I rented both even though I didn’t need either. I, as well as Natasha and the bodyguards already had our own receivers and earpieces which were connected through the electronics in the van. But I wanted to check that what we heard and what the rest of the customers heard was really the same. The earpiece Boris gave me fit completely inside my ear, so I didn’t look overly silly sitting there with a additional bluetooth earpiece hooked over my ear like a plastic earmuff. I paid the young woman and she moved on to the next table.

The waitresses were much more interesting. The one that came to our table was totally naked except for a thick metal collar around her neck and matching bands of metal on both wrists. Light chains ran from the center of the collar to the wrist bands. There was a large, dark red metal tag also hanging from the center of the collar. It was oval and reminded me somewhat of a dog’s license or rabies shot tag. The number 127 had been punched all the way through the tag. The whole thing– except for the tag– was made to look old and rusted, but it was obviously modern and most likely treated or painted to look rusty. I considered that it might be plastic until the young woman stood at attention before bowing at the waist and clicking her wristcuffs together with a distinctively metallic clank. Similar clanks from other tables told me that this was the standard way a waitress approached a table.

The earpiece girl must have clued our waitress in, because she said to me in English. “How may this humble slave assist you tonight?” She switched immediately to Portugese when Natasha answered her in that language.

Natasha took care of ordering the drinks and shortly the lights dimmed. After a moment of almost darkness, the lights came up on the stage revealing a large figure clad in black leather and wearing a devil pattern Lucha Libra mask. I was surprised that Master Rodriguez was emceing his own show. Well, maybe not totally surprised. This was a special, afterhours, outside the normal limits show and he was likely the sadistic type who would enjoy presenting his playthings for his... and others... enjoyment.

He spread his arms wide and said something that was obviously a welcome in Portugese. A flat, electronic-sounding voice, provided an immediate translation in my ear. “Welcome to the Devil’s Club,” it said.

“For some,” Master Rod continued, “this club is heaven.” He laughed evilly. The earpiece did not attempt to translate his laugh. “For others, this club is hell.” He made a motion with his hands, sweeping his arms open as if to include everyone in the audience. “Most of you will experience heaven tonight... but some of you will find yourself in The Stiff One’s personal hell before the night is over.”

That worried me slightly. Was he hinting that he already knew who we were? From the chuckles from some of the other tables, this was perhaps his regular opening and posed no threat to us. A young woman at the table next to ours was trying to speak softly to the man she was with. Her obvious fear was causing her to be louder than she intended. I couldn’t understand her, but it was obvious from her tone and body language she was pleading with him.

Natasha translated for me. “She’s saying, ‘I’ve been good,’” Natasha said very softly, “and she’s begging him not to ‘offer her’ tonight. Evidently some of the Masters here volunteer their slaves to be part of the performance.”

I nodded my head to acknowledge that I heard her and went back to concentrating on Master Rod. “Our first presentation,” he said loudly, “is a simple punishment of one of our staff slaves. Each of you will have a chance to rate your servers this evening. Tomorrow night, the server with the lowest rating will be the first presentation at our afterhours show.”

He rubbed his hands together and bent slightly at the waist so that he was looking down almost directly at me. “That way,” he continued, “you won’t intentionally score your server badly just to watch her get punished at the end of the night.” He laughed, “And more importantly, if a server slave knows that they have not done a good job, they have the whole day to worry whether or not theirs was the worst score.”

He clapped his hands together loudly and all of the waitresses came up and stood facing the stage. “Who is it?” he said excitedly. Then pointing at the servers he said, “Which one of you failed to do your job properly last night?”

There was a soft drum roll from the sound system that ended with a single strike of the drum. Exactly when it ended, one of the slaves screamed and jumped forward, falling down on her hands and knees, shaking from the intense shocks that were coming from her collar and cuffs.

“Slave 139 come to the stage,” Master Rod said firmly. The rest of the servers melted back into the darkness, leaving slave 139 kneeling on the floor. When she struggled back to her feet, I could see that she was a he... more or less. She was a sissy shemale with prominent breasts and a small, totally shaven prick and balls. The breasts didn’t have that stuck-on look of implants, so evidently she had been treated with large doses of female hormones to create natural breasts. The hormones would also explain the atrophied male organs. As she cowered on the floor in front of the low stage, an oddly-configured spanking bench was hurriedly pushed into place by two large men with white cloth wound around their waists and groins like strange adult diapers. They had an odd muscular fatness to them that reminded me of illustrations from novels set in the Ottoman Empire. Such body shape is normally the result of castration after puberty.

“You will only make it worse on yourself if you don’t get in place,” Master Rod said harshly.

The sissy pushed herself to her feet and unsteadily stepped up onto the stage. The two large men pulled her over to the device. She was forced to kneel on a low, padded shelf. One of the men held her in place while the other used wide leather restraints built into the shelf to strap her legs in place. Then they bent her over a narrow, padded beam and pulled her arms forward. Again one held her in place while the second connected black nylon straps to her wristcuffs. The straps went into a rachet mechanism like you would see on a flatbed truck. Soon both arms were pulled tight.

“Normally,” Master Rod said to the crowd, “we would use a combination anal-cunt hook to hold the penitent in place, but...” He laughed and then continued, “... obviously part of that hook would have nowhere to go.”

A totally hairless, naked young woman ran onto the stage carrying a metal object. Master Rod held it up for the audience to see. “So,” he said cheerfully, “we have to use a combination anal hook and cock trap.”

He pulled on the strap which was attached to the object and the circle on one end of it pulled almost closed. Evidently the circle would be placed around the sissy’s prick and balls when the anal hook was set in place.

Master Rod, himself, walked over to the restrained slave and reached under her to slip the shiny steel trap over her prick and balls before pulling the anal hook up between her asscheeks and forcefully shoving it into place. There was no lubrication as the chrome ball slid into place.

The slave had been whimpering throughout the process, but yelped loudly when Master Rod pulled on the straps and secured them to the base of the spanking bench more or less directly beneath her head. He used some sort of rachet mechanism to tighten the strap even tighter and then stood back up and glowered down at the bound slave.

“You will have to make sure you remain in place,” the Master said ominously, “or you might end up like my Egyptian eunuchs.” He laughed again. “Well,” he said, “you would never be big enough to be a good eunuch. Perhaps it would just make you a better ass cunt.”

I looked over at Natasha and smugly raised my eyebrows. She just gave me her normal fierce look and returned her gaze to the stage. I had been right about the eunuchs and should have said something about my suspicions. It’s nice to be right once in a while, even if nobody knows it.

I also turned my gaze back to the stage. Master Rodriguez had stepped back slightly to allow one of the eunuchs to attach two cup-like electrodes to the slave’s nipples. The other handed Master Rod a long, black leather paddle. There was a wire extending from the handle of the paddle that went over to a small box sitting on the floor near the slave. The wires from the nipple electrodes also went to the box.

“This is an interesting paddle,” Master Rod said to the crowd and he swished it slowly through the air. “I am told it feels very much like a regular leather paddle, but there are sensors built into it that control that little box.” He was pointing at the box on the floor. “If I tap lightly,” he said as he lightly slapped the slave’s ass, “a very slight shock is delivered.”

The slave bounced slightly in her restraints.

“If I smack harder,” he said as he slammed the paddle forcefully into the slave’s ass, “the shock is correspondingly higher.”

This time the slave shrieked and pulled against her bonds. Her hips rose slightly up from the padded bar, but the pain from the anal hook and cock trap caused her to drop back against the bar.

“She is such a fragile thing,” he said sarcastically, “that I will be merciful and only give her ten swats.” He then began spanking. Each swat was paced so that the slave stopped thrashing and screaming just before the next one landed. She was obviously unconscious before the tenth swat.

Master rod looked down at her in disgust and said curtly, “Put her in the display.”

As the two eunuchs were releasing the unconscious slave, the back curtain was slowly raised revealing four women and two men bound spread-eagled on wheel-like frames attached to the back wall. Unlike the rest of the walls of the club, the back wall was painted a flat white. An additional four wheels stood empty, two on each side of the captives. Beyond that were two more sets of restraints that were attached directly to the wall.

I looked quickly along the base of the wall. On the right side, all the way to the end, just to the right of the last restraint was a strangely-shaped electrical socket like the one Boris had noted in the picture of Mistress Aleana. This was where that image had been taken.

Was one of the bound figures her?.. was one perhaps Master Robert? All six were naked. Both men and one of the women were masked with Lucha Libra masks. The masks had an image similar to the devilish one on Master Rod, but the mouths were formed in an exaggerated frown, almost like one would find on a Greek theater mask. I was betting that I would recognize those faces if they were not masked, but the body of the masked woman did not look like Mistress Aleana. One of the women was bound facing the wall, but she was much too small to be the Mistress. Another was turned so that she was hanging sideways. Her face was unfamiliar. Except for her, the rest of the figures bound to the wheels were upright with their toes barely touching the floor, keeping them from turning.

The two large eunuchs had no trouble carrying the diminutive slave to the wall and strapping her in place on one of the empty wheels. I don’t know if it was easier to do it that way or just their warped sense of humor, but the eunuchs strapped the slave’s feet to the wheel and then turned it so that she hung upside down before restraining her hands and then turning her back right side up.

I felt Natasha tense up next to me and heard a soft, hissing intake of breath. “That’s poopsie,” she said softly. I could hear the hurt and anger in her voice.

“Not now. Not yet.” I tried to say firmly. I had very little confidence in my ability to keep her from acting, but a loud voice called out in my– and her– earpiece saying, “Control yourself, Pusik, we will rescue poopsie, but we have to stick to the plan. You can do it, my little kitten, but we have to follow the plan.”

Boris’ words had an amazing calming effect on Natasha. At least they enabled her to get her emotions under control. She was now staring at Master Rodriguez with an intensity of hatred that I have rarely seen. I was now afraid that The Stiff One– even if he did not know it– was a dead man walking. And I was even more afraid that Natasha would act before Boris was ready.

Master Rod again stepped to the front of the stage. “That was intense, wasn’t it?” he said with a laugh.” After the audience laughter died down, he continued, “We start every special show with that just to keep all the slaves on their toes. But would you believe...” He now stood with his fists balled up on his hips. “... that this spanking bench holds no threat to some slaves? In fact there is one slave among us tonight who has begged her Master to let her experience the full treatment of this delightful piece of equipment.” He paused and then said loudly, “Isn’t that true, slave monica?”

The spotlight turned to one of the tables near the wall. A rather dark, almost swarthy, man was sitting with an olive-skinned young woman standing next to him. She was wearing an off-white dress that draped loosely around her neck but clung tightly to her more than ample rear end. With any movement, her breasts were totally visible from the sides and even from the front. A wide, shiny chrome collar around her neck proclaimed her to be a slave.

Her Master nodded his head and pointed to the stage and the young woman rushed forward like a kid chasing after an ice cream truck. She stopped when she got to the front and stood more or less at attention in front of Master Rod.

“I don’t often give people a choice in this,” he said, looking down at her, “but if you really want to experience the full treatment from me in this spanking bench, strip down and come up on stage.”

The woman hesitated a moment, looking back and forth between Master Rod and the padded bar, but then she made her final decision. Reaching behind her back she loosened a zipper at the waist of the dress. Once that was done, there was really nothing holding the dress in place. She pulled her arms clear of the top of the dress and it slid from her body.

Master Rod laughed slightly and pointed down at her. “Turn around and let everyone see how excited you are,” he ordered firmly.

The naked painslut turned around and stood with her feet widespread. Thick fluid was dripping from her slightly gaped cunt. As if she couldn’t help herself, she reached up and twisted her hard and engorged nipples, gasping slightly at her own touch.

“Get across the spanking bar,” he said sharply. She stepped up on stage and knelt on the spanking device. She watched trembling as the eunuchs strapped her legs in place on the low pad, and without prodding, she extended her arms for them to stretch with the straps. Because she was not wearing wristcuffs like the waitress had been, the eunuchs had to first wrap leather restraints around her wrists. She moaned when the eunuchs pulled her arms tight in front of her and moaned again when the electrodes were attached to her nipples. She moaned once more when the cunt-anal hook was slipped into her and pulled tightly forward so that it could be attached to the floor. The large bulb on the cunt hook slipped easily into her slippery slit. The slightly smaller bulb on the anal portion of the hook seemed to not want to enter at first, but it popped into place when one of the eunuchs spread her plump asscheeks to let it settle directly against her waiting rosebud.

One of the eunuchs knelt next to the apparatus and used the rachet-like device to pull the hook tight in the slave’s cunt and ass. As he stood back up to leave, he reached down and patted her ass, causing a long, drawn out moan. Both eunuchs were laughing as they left the stage.

Master Rod was also laughing as he stood next to the slave. “It is obvious,” he said still laughing, “that slave monica likes to be stretched out tight.” Swinging the paddle through the air, he added, “But let’s see if she really likes pain.”

He then stepped back slightly and swung the paddle into slave monica’s ass. The blow was relatively light, but it was almost immediately followed by a smack that was louder than any of the swats he had administered to the unfortunate waitress.

The slave thrashed in her bonds and her moan became higher-pitched, but she did not scream. Master Rodriguez began steadily pounding her ass, moving each blow slightly so that both asscheeks, from below where they met her legs to where they merged into her back, were soon bright red and starting to turn purple.

Someone was counting the strokes because I was hearing the translation in my earpiece, but it was not Master Rod. He was silently swinging the huge leather paddle repeatedly into the slave’s ass. Even with his face masked, you could sense a visible determination to break this slave by exceeding her pain threshold. Then I heard a voice laughing. It was the masked woman bound against the wall. I had heard that laugh before. It was slave ines. That meant that, hopefully, one of the masked men was Master Randolph.

The laughter caused Master Rod to almost lose control. He began slashing wildly, delivering swat after swat to the slave’s bruised– and now bleeding– ass. Her moan became higher and higher and was almost musical. Then she screamed... a long, loud, and extremely shrill scream that was obviously a scream of passion not pain– or maybe passion and pain– or maybe pain that only a true painslut could feel as passion. She then fell limp, or as limp as the tight restraints would allow her body to be.

Master Rodriguez stood alongside her panting from his exertion. He signaled the eunuchs and they came hurrying out onto the stage to begin releasing her. Her Master had rushed up onto the stage to check on her, so they let him release her wrists and undo the nipple electrodes.

“I could never have driven her that high,” he said. “I won’t risk damaging her... but she needs so much... she needs so much...”

Master Rod responded, “I could wake her up and see what her true limits are...” He shrugged, “Of course, she might die first. Some of them are like that. They want it more and more and more and more until it kills them.”

The slave was more or less responsive and was able to stand with help from her Master and the eunuchs. As they walked into the darkness, Master Rod swung the paddle and threw it aside. There was an obvious bulge in the front of his leather pants. Beating the painslut had clearly turned him on very greatly.

He patted his groin, acknowledging what everyone already knew. Then he laughed deeply and said, “Lucky for me, this bench can be used for more than spanking. A slave– or a Mistress– or even a Master– can be strapped into this and I can do whatever I want to them. All we have to do is leave off the hook.”

He shouted something that the earpiece did not translate and the two eunuchs ran back onto the stage. “Get the little one,” he said sharply, pointing back at one of the women bound against the wall.

The eunuchs walked over to the woman who was bound facing the wall and turned the wheel until she was upside down hanging from her ankles. Both smiled as the young woman screamed in fright. They released her wrists and then, with one of them holding on to her, turned the wheel so that her feet were once again close to the floor. It was a rather effective technique to keep someone under control while you released them.

The woman was young, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties. She was olive-skinned and extremely petite. Her breasts were well-formed, but small. She had short, dark brown, almost black hair that surrounded an oval-shaped face, and surprisingly, she had a thick patch of hair in her crotch and also in her armpits. I immediately thought, “That’s a slave that would really appeal to a European Mistress.” That’s when the alarm bells started going off in my head. I was sitting next to a European Mistress. That was poopsie!

“Boris,” I said softly, “if you can hear me, the shit is about to hit the fan.”

I looked over at Natasha. Her arms were rigid and her hands had a death grip on the edge of the table. The muscles of her shoulder and neck were standing out as if she were lifting a great weight. I looked at the bodyguard next to her and he was slowly sliding his hand under his coat.

“Now, Boris, now,” I said a little louder than I intended.

“We will once again combine pleasure and pain,” Master Rod said loudly as the slave was brought forward. “Only it will be my pleasure and this worthless slave’s pain.”

Suddenly Natasha was standing and all of the drinks on our table had crashed to the floor. “NO!” she screamed in English as she flipped the table the rest of the way over. “You will not hurt her. She is mine.”

I didn’t see Natasha pull the knife from her clothing. I didn’t see her throw it. I wasn’t even sure what I was seeing fly through the air until it hit Master Rodriguez squarely in the center of his chest... handle end first.

My loud, “Shit!” was drowned out by his laughter as the knife bounced off the front of his shirt and clattered to the floor. “You must be Natasha,” he said jubilantly. Then pointing to me he added, “And you must be Boris.”

I wasn’t about to contradict him at this point. He continued in English. His voice was tinged with sarcastic laughter as he said, “Even if your inept attempt at throwing a knife had succeeded, I’m wearing a multi-layer bulletproof vest. No bullet... or blade... could ever penetrate this vest.” He slapped his fist against his chest.

Natasha smiled at him and said calmly, “No, but a special microneedle driven by a charge in the handle of a knife could. And it could inject a poison into your chest.”

Master Rod didn’t answer her. Instead the hand against his chest began to quiver and he seemed to stagger slightly. “Or in this case, a paralytic,” she said with a smile as he dropped to the floor.

Suddenly it sounded like every cellphone in the place– including mine– sounded an alarm. A voice much stronger than the normal translation almost yelled in my ear, “Master Rodriguez has poked a very angry Jaguar with a very short stick. Leave now and you will not be hurt. Your families will be safe. Check your cellphone. We know who is precious to you. If you stay you will die and your families will never be seen again.”

I looked quickly at my phone to see an image of Paula, a young woman with whom I had an intense relationship a half-dozen years ago. I thought I had put that behind me, but evidently Boris’ AI algorithms had scanned my phone and ***********ed her as someone very close to me. Maybe she was. She was gone, but my love for her had not faded. There was no doubt in my mind that everyone in the room was now staring at the picture of someone they loved dearly.

The room was extremely quiet. Then Natasha pulled at her dress, tearing it off as she jumped up onto the stage next to the collapsed body of Master Rodriguez. With the bottom of the dress gone, she was wearing what looked like a one piece leather swimsuit and knee high, shiny black leather boots. A knife was strapped prominently to the outside of each of the boots at the top. An empty sheath was strapped near the ankle of the left boot. From the look on her face and the pistol she held in each hand there was no doubt that she was a very powerful– and very pissed off– Mistress.

She already had everyone’s attention before she held both pistols out wide, slightly above her head and fired them into the ceiling, shouting, “Eu sou o jaguar!” very loudly and very angrily.

The earpiece translated that for me as “I am the jaguar.”

The loud voice then repeated the warning, “Leave now and you will not be hurt. Your families will be safe. If you stay you will die and your families will never be seen again.”

Everyone in the club– including Master Rodriguez’s security staff– began moving toward the doors except for one group of eight men in dark clothing at a back table who moved toward us and fanned out as if to surround us. I had my Glock firmly in my hand, but still under my coat. I was almost ready to start shooting when, to my surprise, seven of them stopped a couple yards in front of the stage and formed a half circle around us. They turned to face outward as the eighth one continued up to me. “I don’t know who you are,” he said brusquely, “and you don’t want to know who I am, but someone called in a favor and told us to protect his daughter, so we are here to make sure that you get out of here safely.”

“With him and everyone we came to rescue?” I replied pointing at Master Rodriguez and the captives against the back wall.

“If that’s what the lady wants,” he answered, “that’s what the lady gets.” He then helped release everyone– except for the unconscious waitress– from the wheels and escorted us all outside. I got elected to carry the unconscious Master Rod. We were joined at the door by another eight men who were more heavily armed.

“All quiet,” one of them said. “She must have scared the shit out of them.”

“She had my attention,” the one in charge replied.

“It’s going to be a little crowded in the van,” Natasha said urgently, “but we need to leave NOW!”

With the help of the unknown protection detail, we were able to load everyone into the van. I, and the four bodyguards, ended up standing against the outside walls. The others sat in the seats or on the floor. Master Rod was laid out against the back of the electronics console. Natasha had used some long zip ties to secure his arms and legs. I think one of the bodyguards had also injected him with something, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t going anywhere.

Two large SUVs roared up to join us. One pulled in front of the van, the other behind and the men scrambled in. The leader of our unexpected escorts, as he jumped into the lead SUV, yelled out, “Let’s roll!”

One of the bodyguards slid the door closed and those of us who were standing strained to remain upright as we quickly accelerated out of the parking area. Natasha was now sitting cross-legged on the floor and cradling poopsie in her arms. Poopsie kept whimpering and trying to burrow deeper into her Mistress’ lap. Natasha, in response, kept saying, “I have you, poopsie. You are safe now. You are safe now, my pet.”

Once poopsie had calmed down, Natasha looked up at me and said, “They are taking us to a safehouse.” She paused to stroke poopsie’s head. “It is one that has been compromised for a long time,” she continued, “so it makes no difference if the Americans follow us.”

“How did you arrange that?!” I almost sputtered.

She smiled at me and said, “My father does many favors for people and people do favors for him.” She cuddled poopsie closer and then said, “And what father would not protect his daughter?”

One of the bodyguards gave me an almost smile and said in heavily Russian-accented English, “She’s always been that way. I’m glad I only have sons.”

Boris stuck his head around the electronics counsel and said, “We should be there in about fifteen minutes. I’ve arranged for food and clothing for anyone who needs it.”

He then squeezed himself around the end of the console and stood next to me.

“Have I ever sent you any of my ‘I am the Jaguar’ memes?” he asked with a smile. “They are very popular here in Brazil. Something to do with local legends.”

“I take it the Jaguar is a legendary really badass female,” I answered.

“It is now,” he said looking down at Natasha and poopsie. “It definitely is now.”

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END OF STORY

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