Main Story Seventeen
Clark slammed his fist down into the dirt, desperately seeking to find that feeling gone from him. Adrenaline would normally suffice to clear his mind, but he was having trouble doing much of anything quite rational. Perhaps, in a more settled state of mind, he would have realized that his Earth-pounding was probably going to be felt for a couple of miles around.
That’s it! he thought. I’m finished. Clark Kent’s life is over. What would his friends think of him, the reporter who had been so excited to meet the President that he had grown an undisguised erection on live television? A man who had been fired for going off-script that the President’s staff had given him? There was no way back. He’d have to fake his way through it all, claim that he was going out on his own terms so that he could spend more time at home with his wife.
She whom he could hardly care less for at this point. Lois couldn’t give him his life back, and as he thought about it, he discovered that he did not care much to get his life back. There was only one thing he wanted, and his mind was pretty clear on that.
So he went to her.
——
“Did you lose your keys again?”
“No,” Lois replied over the phone. “I lost my car. My husband took me home.”
“No need, Ms. Kent,” Mercy calmed. “I can have a driver come pick you up later this afternoon. Mr. Luthor’s schedule is clear for the rest of the day if you’d be willing to meet with him. I know he’s excited to meet you again.”
“I think I’ll just walk today,” the phone returned. “It’s so nice out that I believe that it would be criminal to not enjoy it.”
“I will let him know, Ms. Kent.”
“Lane,” Lois corrected. “Ms. Lane. We’re all but separated at this point.”
“Very good, Ms. Lane.” Mercy smiled, holding the phone closer and lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m sure Mr. Luthor will be very happy to hear that.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be by later this afternoon. Tell Lex I’ve got a surprise for him.”
“I will, Ms. Lane.”
Mercy put down the phone, leaning back in her chair. Lex would be most pleased by this latest turn in Lois’s relationship. She was still unsure as to why Lex wanted her over the millions of other women that had been presented to him, but it was not her place to question him. It was her place to get for him what he most wanted.
The phone rang again, a call she was expecting to have come forty minutes earlier. Her smile fading, she picked up the phone again and grabbed her chair’s armrest tightly. “You’re late,” she greeted.
“We had a problem with our vehicles recently,” the man on the other end of the phone said briskly. “The intruder disabled all of them before he left, and it’s not exactly an easy job to order a windowless panel van on short notice, nor a good one that doesn’t break down every five hours. Not even in Gotham.”
“Do you have the cargo?” Mercy replied, ignoring the man’s excuses and inspecting her fingernails disinterestedly. She would have his pay cut for his disrespectful tone. Further insubordination would result in his fingers cut.
“Bringing it upstairs now. Arrival in thirty seconds.”
“Hurry it up.” Mercy shoved the phone back into its slot and stood up.
She arranged her formal jacket neatly, making sure that she was at her most presentable. Her tardiness would not reflect well on her efforts; she would have to make up for it in her attention. No slipping into an extended story about why she hadn’t turned him in sooner. No discussing why the package was late in arrival. Just accept the responsibility and move on.
She hoped.
Mercy strode over to the door adjoining her office to the CEO’s office. Knocking twice, she opened the door and poked her head in. Sitting at behind the desk at the center of the large open room, Lex Luthor looked up at her from behind a trio of computer screens with a pair of tired eyes. Hard at work as ever, she assumed. Even on a day as glorious for him as this, he had little time to celebrate.
“Mercy?” he called.
“Your one o’clock is finally here, Mr. Luthor.”
Lex rolled his eyes. “Finally. Let’s go to it, why don’t we?” He switched off his computers and stood from his desk, stuffing both hands into his pockets as he joined her at the door.
Diligently, she remembered to hold the door open for him as he passed by. It wouldn’t do to have dropped the door closed on him.
“I must reiterate how important it is that we get our answer as soon as possible,” Lex said as they walked to the elevator. A private elevator in her office used for authorized personnel access, which meant just for the two of them. “Whoever gave me the Diamond Lights did so because he wanted to make certain that I wasn’t paying attention to his movements. He thought I would be so consumed by greed that I wouldn’t think twice about another tool. We have no idea what he is planning, but he is moving now.”
“Of course, Mr. Luthor,” Mercy replied. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Whatever their plan is,” Lex continued, “they’ll be moving along faster after they got my billion dollars. I don’t know how it slipped out, but we’ll have to deal with it. Somehow”
Mercy frowned, dipping her chin down. They hadn’t been able to recover that billion dollar check that he had written in exchange for the video. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to void the close the account in time for the check to be considered void. That had been her fau
The two of them stepped into the elevator, and Mercy pressed one of the three buttons in the elevator to descend to the eighth floor. This lift service was not supposed to be for convenience, but for restricted access.
The elevator gates shut with a clang. The thin floor beneath them rattled as the elevator made its conspicuously loud descent. It was a journey of fifty stories that would take a few seconds before they arrived.
“Do you have an update on the intruder?” Lex asked, not looking at her.
“No one got a good look at him,” Mercy said. “One of the surviving guards thought it was Robin, but I personally don’t believe that story; Robin wouldn’t have left the prisoner where he was without a fight.”
Lex grunted. “Perhaps the prisoner knew him.”
“He was moved to a different safe house just south of Gotham after the intruder got away. We’ve kept him sedated while he was being moved. He won’t know that we’re in the LEXCORP building when you see him.”
“Let’s just hope he knows what to do when he hears my voice.”
The elevator ground to a halt as it reached the eighth floor. Mercy pressed one of the other two buttons on the panel to unlock a voiceprint authentication box. “Graves: 09014,” she dictated, authorizing access to the room. The gates opened.
Three armed guards all wearing the white suits afforded to them stood in a semicircle behind a fourth man on his knees with a good over his head. He hadn’t been fed since he had been moved to Gotham, but he was very plainly conscious underneath the fabric given his rapid finger motions behind the ropes that bound them.
They were taking no chances with this man, not after what he had done to the dozen other men that had been sent after him. Mercy had no doubt that he could very well be the most dangerous man in the building.
Lex stepped forward to take the hood off of his eyes. The room was kept dim, but Shawn had not been treated to much light at all that wasn’t treated with Diamond Light spectrums under her care. He blinked twice, then his eyes found Lex, brimming with hate and anger.
Lex, however, remained calm with an air of distaste. Mercy knew that he must have been trying to put on a facade of confidence, since he had not been totally convinced of the Diamond Lights’ effectiveness when the victim was forcibly subjected to its patterns. Still, his dissecting gaze was unnerving.
“Tell me your name,” Lex ordered.
For a brief moment, Shawn’s focused hatred faltered, showing a bit of confusion underneath. Good, Mercy thought. The commands seemed to be working. For over a week, she had given him controlled six-hour settings. Shawn likes hearing voices. Shawn likes obeying voices. Shawn likes obeying. Shawn likes obedience. These commands were hardly original, but she had needed results quickly. When brute force could get those results, she ignored subtlety.
“My name is Shawn,” the captive returned, readopting his spiteful expression. He had no idea that he had responded that way because of his programming, so he had justified his obeying as an angry retort to the man that had held him prisoner.
“Who hired you?” Lex demanded. “I’m certain I could pay you for your services better than he could.”
“I don’t know the boss’s name,” Shawn answered. “He didn’t tell us. I don’t even know that it was a man that brought us in.”
“Us?” Lex repeated. “Who is ‘us?’”
“My partner, he...” Shawn groaned, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. “My partner...”
Mercy noticed Lex giving her a pointed look. She shrugged; his resistance would falter to further questioning. Probably.
“Let’s try something easier, then. Who tried to rescue you last week?”
“Last week?” Shawn asked quietly. “How long have I been in that room?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Lex reminded sternly. “Who was there?”
He looked down. “Deathstroke.”
That gave the billionaire pause. Mercy, however, nodded to herself. That made the most sense; none of the members of the Justice League would have left him there as a hostage, and none of the locals would have been skilled enough to slip in and out without being killed. She still wanted to know how Deathstroke found the location, though.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t Lex’s next question. “What did he want?”
Shawn looked back up at his interrogator. “He wanted to know who hired me. Where I took the money.” The look of hate finally returned to his face. “He was going to get me out of there so I could take him to it.”
“And where did you take the money?”
“My partner...”
“Where did your partner go, Shawn?” Lex pressed. “Tell me.”
He squeezed his eyes shut again, leaning forward while still restrained by the bonds. Mercy stepped forward, concerned. He couldn’t still be resisting, could he?
Settling, Shawn ceased his struggles and looked up at Lex with determination in his eyes. “I’m not telling you shit.”
Frowning, Lex placed a not-at-all gentle hand on Shawn’s forehead and pushed lightly against it. “You’re here to do as I say. Obey me.”
He waited only a second to reply. “Screw you.”
Sighing, Lex turned to face her. Mercy closed her eyes, anticipating the lecture that she knew would come from his mouth.
Instead, she heard a scream.
Startled, Mercy opened her eyes and found Shawn clasping two of Lex’s fingers with his teeth. Vengeful fury plain as day on his face, Shawn lunges forward from his knees to knock the CEO over, forcefully biting down on his hand. Lex toppled with an even greater scream. Only the ropes that kept him from standing prevented him from going further.
For a moment, Mercy froze. What was this?
One of the guards finally stepped in after only a few seconds had past, tackling Shawn atop his food. Whipping out a pistol, the guard shot him right in the back of his thigh.
Shawn released his tooth-grip as his hands spasmed. He groaned in pain as he was unable to break free enough to touch his wound. The guard raised his pistol once again to the prisoner’s head.
“Don’t!” Lex yelled, clutching his middle and ring finger of his right hand. “Don’t you dare shoot him!”
The guard halted, keeping his weapon trained on Shawn’s head to keep him still. His finger itched to shoot, but he held back. He knew who he needed to obey, unlike the prisoner.
“Mr. Luthor,” Mercy cried, falling to his side to try to help him. She’d face hell for this lapse in security. She should have been more careful, imported a more stable and efficient way to immobilize him than just a few ropes.
Lex shook her off bitterly. He stood up slowly but under his own power. The ginger way he caressed his hand bespoke of a serious amount of pain. One of the other guards in the room tried to present a flexible bandage to Lex, but he grabbed it from out of his loose hold and hastily wrapped it around the entirety of the injured hand.
“That was a mistake,” Lex warned. “I was going to offer you a job after this was done. Now I’m going to have to kill you.”
“Then do it!” Shawn fired back, his face pressed against the floor as he writhed.
“Not yet; not until I have what I need.” Lex looked at the guard holding Shawn from moving and nodded.
The guard nodded back, kneeling down and clubbing Shawn in the back of the head with the butt of his sidearm. After a very audible crack, the bound man went limp, falling totally still. Some blood began to trickle down from the spot where he had been hit.
“Take him away,” Mercy ordered. “Back to Gotham, and make sure he doesn’t wake up until I get there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the guard replied. He had the same voice as the man whom she had spoken to on the phone earlier. Perhaps she would have to see his pay raised for his performance today. She regretted ever having thought that he would have to lose a finger for his behavior.
Speaking of which...
As the guards dragged Shawn’s unconscious body away, Mercy attended to her boss’s injuries. Knowing the drill, Lex removed his free hand from the injured one to allow her to inspect it. Through the bandage, she so no blood. It looked like the bite hadn’t been deep enough to warrant any concern over losing fingers. Fortunately, his malnourishment had made him weak, despite also making him irrational and desperate.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Luthor,” Mercy began. “I should have held him back or-“
“It’s fine,” Lex cut off harshly. “Just see to it that this doesn’t happen again.”
“It won’t. I swear it.”
“Good,” he said curtly. “We are running out of time, Mercy. I want him to tell me what I want to know yesterday. Break him.”
“Yes, Mr. Luthor.”
“Do it, or I will find someone who will. Use any means necessary.” And with that, Lex sharply turned around and strode back into the elevator. Mercy got the sense that he didn’t want her to follow him.
“Ms. Lane said she would come by later this afternoon,” Mercy called, still standing where he had left her. Come to think of it, she was standing stiffly at attention with locked knees and arms to her sides.
That proclamation received the first smile she had seen him give today. “Excellent. Hopefully she won’t notice my hand, then.” He pressed the button to take him back to her office, and the gates shut. He rose up out of her view within a few seconds.
Breathing out, Mercy thanked whoever it was that had just saved her a reprimand and prayed for the strength to do as Lex had said. Looking down, she smoothed our her knees, aching from such prolonged stiffness, then paused, inspecting her own legs. On the few occasions that she had walked about with them uncovered, they turned heads. She could have sworn she had caught Shawn staring when she had first introduced him to the Diamond Lights.
Any means necessary. Well, she had a few ideas how to speed up the process. She turned from the elevator and walked out in the direction that the guards had taken Shawn away in. She would have to get in on this immediately. The Diamond Lights needed some fresh commands, and she knew just the ones to get Shawn to beg her to let him spill his secrets.
——
Siren heard him coming from a short distance away, but she had known he’d be coming ever since she had made eye contact with him back at the Presidential interview. Honestly, the only difference between him and Superman was a pair of glasses. How did no one else see it?
He crashed into her balcony with such force that it was a miracle that it didn’t break. Siren put on a good show of looking shocked at his arrival, turning her head swiftly and raising a hand to her chest. She had been in the process of pouring herself a glass of wine, so she spilled some on the counter. Hopefully, that would be enough.
She had returned to the Watchtower with a very animated crew of Justice Leaguers, all of them agitated over the President’s final remarks. Noticing their stress levels, Cyborg had asked all those not scheduled to be on duty for them to go back to their homes as the upper brass of the League worked through the ramifications. Siren didn’t have an official duty that day after meeting with the President, so she had flown back to the apartment and set everything up in anticipation of Superman’s arrival. He was actually later than she had expected; at first, she had worried that he would arrive well before she was ready.
Wearing his silly red and blue costume, he slid open the glass door separating him from her apartment room and stepped inside, closing it without asking for permission to enter. Perfect.
“Superman,” Siren said, panting a quick exhale. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I didn’t know you were coming either,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that you would be coming with the others to D.C.?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t be in costume when you were there?” Siren asked, returning to pouring the wine into the glass. She “conveniently” found a second empty glass from behind the counter and pulled it up onto the marble frame. “Mr. Kent, was it?”
Superman smiled, seeing the second glass and knowing that she wanted him to stay for a while. Good; he wasn’t as dense as the reporter he claimed to be. She stole a look at his crotch.
Speaking of which...
“I thought you looked cute out there,” she flirted, finishing with the wine pouring. She corked the bottle and measuring the contents of the glass with her eye. It would be just enough to suit her plans. “Playing dress-up and all. Makes a girl wonder why you ever choose to be both Superman and a lowly reporter.”
“Not anymore,” the hero said. “Clark Kent is dead. I’m only Superman now.”
“Ooh, what a commitment. Is that who you want to be?”
“I’ll be whoever you want me to be.”
She smiled, catching his eye with her own. He said it so seriously... he must have been thinking of her a lot.
All according to plan.
Grabbing both wine glasses, she slinked our from behind the counter and sashayed over to him. She handed one of the glasses to him, and he accepted it with one hand. The other hand found her cheek, grazing it with his fingertips.
“I want you to be the man in my bed tonight,” Siren said lowly, punctuating her sentence with a lick of her lips.
His eyes grew excited. “I want you, Siren. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else in my whole life.” Superman grabbed her by the hand, holding it up. “More than I’ve wanted anything in my whole life. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of it trying to show you why.”
“Well, then,” Siren interjected, raising her glass. “Here’s to us.”
Superman smiled deeper, raising his own wineglass and clinking it against hers, the liquids sloshing inside. They both took a drink, his a large gulp, hers a small sip.
To her, it was just a normal, average wine. It tasted fine, no better or worse than the rest of the human wines on this planet. The real drinks waited for her back on Apokolips, but these were just holdovers until then.
To him, that gulp surrendered his control of the night to her. Though they had both drank from the same wine, only he would be affected by the kryptonite she had powdered into it. The effects would only be temporary, probably burned out the next time he stepped into the sunlight, but she had plenty more of it after she had stolen it from the Justice League’s Watchtower. Hidden beneath her bed, it would wait there, making Superman weaker and weaker the longer he was close to it. This drink would only weaken him slightly, enough to give her a slight edge in their night’s activities. And, to make matters better, the sun hadn’t even set yet.
Best not to waste any time, Siren thought. They each dropped their wine glasses at the same time, not caring as they shattered and splashed against the carpet floor. They each threw their arms around the other as their lips crashed together. It was going to be a long day.
——
Mercy arrived at the safe house where Shawn was being held. It was dark out, but one man waited at the entrance to usher her inside. He was just your average man being paid to do his job. So of course, he took a chance to take a peek at her now uncovered legs.
The next four men she passed did the same. Walking through the emptiness of the abandoned three-building warehouse, she got to a central location that had been recently walled off to enclose a tight space that would act as Shawn’s cell. It had a small roof, like a building within a building.
One of the Diamond Lights’ handlers stood there waiting for her. He bowed deferentially, a move that allowed him to look down at her exposed skin. “Ms. Graves. The prisoner is in here. He woke up just a few minutes ago. I understand that you wanted to change his commands.”
“Yes, Dr. Donovan,” Mercy replied. “Where is the computer translator?”
“In the other room,” the man assured. “Just type in the codes you wanted in the order that you want them in. The Lights will take care of the rest.”
“Thank you.” She waved him off, then turned from the building-within-a-building and walked to the control room. She found the small laptop plugged into the wall on her left as she entered. Settling down into the chair, she composed her thoughts.
The screen display read the target’s name, the treatment session length, and the commands that it would translate into the Lights.
Time: 6 Hours, it read. Mercy highlighted the field and deleted the information. After a few keystrokes, it was replaced by a new field. Time: 10 Hours. She wasn’t yet willing to go higher than that; she was already worried that increasing his exposure like this would cause even more damage to his psyche than had already been done.
That was not the only thing she changed, however, as she turned her attention to the command field. Commands: Shawn likes hearing voices. Shawn likes obeying voices. Shawn likes obeying. Shawn likes obedience. These were simple commands. Broad, one-size-fits-all style, but they didn’t sacrifice too much on the part of the user.
Mercy was willing to make a few more sacrifices in the name of her boss, much like Shawn was willing to make a few more sacrifices in the name of his boss, whatever that name was. She left these commands where they were, but she typed in some new ones beneath the established codes. Shawn likes being submissive. Shawn likes being dominated. Shawn needs to be dominated.
Mercy paused for a moment. Any means necessary. Those echoes wouldn’t stop.
Shawn has a legs fetish, she continued. Shawn likes Mercy’s legs. Shawn finds Mercy sexy. Shawn needs to have sex with her. Shawn likes being submissive to her. Shawn likes being dominated by her.
After typing these new commands, she pressed the “process” button. The screen lagged as it progressed to the next page. When it arrived, it asked for an authorization key. She typed it in. Graves: 09014. A passcode she used for a lot of occasions; a difficult one to break because it had no significance to her whatsoever. It was just a code she had randomly inputted once and she had used it ever since. She wasn’t foolish enough to use a friend’s birthday or her home zip code for a password.
It then prompted her to begin the next Diamond Lights session with a pop-up window asking for a simple “begin” or “cancel” choice. Considering the commands she had used and the change in the length of time, she hoped that she could have Shawn obeying her every whim by the end of the week. Five days to break him.
A simple task. She prayed that she could accomplish it.
She began the first session.
——
Siren stared blankly at the ceiling, feeling his breath heating up her neck as he was nuzzled into it. He was fast asleep, spent from their second session in as many weeks. She had hoped to have made it a more regular occurrence.
Sadly, that would have to wait. Not until she could be absolutely certain that he had been truly corrupted. Not his confession of desire, not his proclamation of giving up his humanity, not even his many hours of hard fucking could were enough to assure her that he was completely under her spell. No, she would have to be careful lest she disappoint her master. Besides, if she proved successful in this task, perhaps Darkseid would allow her to keep him as a pet.
In order to be successful, she had to completely drive the son of Krypton to her side. This time, she had used more kryptonite than the previous encounter, speeding along the session. Additionally, it had made him grow tired faster than before, hopefully giving her the appearance of having grown stronger than him in their time apart. Whereas the last time had gone for nearly seven hours, this one had lasted barely two.
So she had more time to play with his thoughts. First, she pulled herself out of bed, delicately removing herself from his sleeping body without disturbing him. Then, naked, she slipped quietly to the floor, pulling out the chunk of kryptonite beneath it. She had taken more than just this crystal from the Watchtower, but not too much to avoid notice. The rest had been sent back to Apokolips with her last message of her progress.
Siren took the kryptonite out of the room and placed it inside of its special disguising box underneath the toilet in the bathroom. Just to be certain that he would not discover it, she pulled over a few fake plants to cover it up. It would blend in among the plastic.
Satisfied, she returned to the bedroom to discover him still fast asleep, his cock still hard beneath the blankets. The impressively-sized rod being hard... well, it made her proud to have elicited such a strong reaction to her mere presence. He would be at her feet soon.
Siren crawled back into bed, gracefully easing herself back into the mattress without waking him from his deep slumber. She took his head gently with both of her hands and guided it down to her breast, holding it there within easy reach. His mouth was exhaling softly onto her breast.
Certifying that he wouldn’t be waking up any time soon, Siren leaned down to place her lips near Superman’s ear, speaking softly with her specially enhanced whisper.
“It has been too long since you last saw Siren,” she said, caressing his ear with a finger as she spoke. His breathing grew more heavy as she continued. “Too long since you saw her gorgeous face, since you got a look at her sexy body.
“You have been spending too much time away. You don’t need to worry so much about the people of Earth; they don’t need you anymore. Only Siren needs you, and she needs you to be there when she wants a fun night in bed. You need her more than she needs you, and you need to see her more and more.
“Every minute you are not with her, you must chide yourself for not seeing her in all her glory. You must remember her, remember the curve of her breasts.” She pushed out her chest into his mouth. “Remember the taste of her breasts. You must remember that you need her, and you cannot live without her.”
Superman began to breath even heavier. At first, Siren feared that he was awakening, but instead she realized that he was cumming again in his sleep as she felt the semen make contact with her toes.
“You must remember her as she can give you what no other woman can dream of giving you. She is the one- the only one- to tame you, as she has done twice now.” His orgasm ended, leaving her foot and shin severely dampened. His breathing returned to its quiet and slow pattern of before. “You must remember how she can make you cum like no one else can.”
And she continued like that for another five hours. She reminded him of his hypnotic fetish, his breast needs, his desire to be fucked into unconsciousness. She reminded him to give in to all of his desires when around her or thinking of her. When she finished, she gently removed his head from her chest and snuggled up with him, adopting a position so that the first thing Superman would see when he woke up would be her face.
She wasn’t confident enough yet to wake him herself to see if he would be fully under her control. She would need at least one more night with him to put him fully under her spell, and after that, she could enjoy as much fucking as she wanted. With that thought fresh in her mind, Siren closed her eyes and waited for sleep to take her with her hero lover.