The Path of Insinua
Part One (a): The Dark Paragon
The moon was three nights past full, and with only a few sporadic clouds floating lazily in the sky, the entire cityscape was visible, even at nearly two in the morning. A gentle breeze moved between and over the buildings, tempering the late summer heat into something almost pleasant. Down at the street level, stray, discarded pieces of paper danced in the wind, but up on the rooftops, everything was clear.
On the roof of a six-story apartment building, a pair of rubber-soled boots gently alighted. A pair of carefully constructed glider wings folded back into the jet-black costume as the wearer steadied himself and moved, with equal parts speed and caution, toward the edge of the roof. He looked around with calm, practiced caution to ensure he was alone, the high-tech goggles covering his eyes enhancing the moonlight around him even more. Satisfied, he looked over the parapet and down toward a lower roof across the street.
He was Tenebraen, the Dark Paragon. The Hero of Veneba City. Well, he thought, a hero of Veneba City, anyway. There were many now, some he knew and had even worked with, others he had heard of, and still others working to make a name for themselves. But Tenebraen had been the first. It hadn’t been all that long ago, he thought. Perhaps twenty years? He had started doing what he did because crime had gotten so bad that almost nobody could do anything. But he could, and so he did.
He was just an ordinary man, all things considered. There were really only three things that set him apart. He was wealthy, he cared, and he wanted to make things better. He knew plenty of people who were one of those, or perhaps even two. But when his own mother had killed his father in a fit of drunken jealousy, an eighteen-year-old Tenebraen had decided that the decadence of wealth was not a purpose in life. Using that wealth to make the city a better place, though, was.
For a few years, he fought alone. But as he started making a difference, others ed him. Not many, and not officially. But Tenebraen would see news of the others, and even occasionally meet them. In fact, meeting one of them turned out to be the turning point of his life, because she, a woman calling herself Veil, would eventually become the love of his life. They were married now, and while they still patrolled Veneba City, there were many now to share that burden, ever since the Event, when the meta-humans began to manifest.
“Do you see anything yet, Tenebraen?” His wife’s soft, concerned voice came through the earpiece built into his mask. Tenebraen silently onished himself for his lapse in concentration. With metas running around on both sides of the law, no report was routine, and he should not have allowed himself to fall into memory.
“Nothing yet,” Tenebraen said. His voice was barely a whisper, but the technology he had designed in his suit would amplify the sound so that Veil, sitting behind the powerful bank of computers in the home they shared, could hear everything, both his words and everything going on around him. They rarely went out on patrol together; it was too dangerous. Now, when one went out, the other stayed in, monitoring everything in case trouble hit.
“The silent alarm is still going,” Veil said to him. “But the cameras have all been cut. Police are en route, but a third-rate museum in that part of town is a pretty low priority for them. Do you see anything on the roof?”
“It’s like you suspected. There’s a small helicopter up there, and no helipad. It must be the perp’s escape route. Any ID on the perp, by the way?”
“Nothing. The cameras are out, and somehow the recordings have been corrupted. And from what little we know, this doesn’t seem to fit anyone’s MO.”
“Alright,” Tenebraen said. “I’m going to take a closer look. If anything- wait!”
“What is it?” Veil asked, concern in her voice. “Are you okay?”
Tenebraen crouched lower. “The roof access door to the museum just opened. I’ll get back to you.”
“You be careful, Love,” she said in reply.
Tenebraen did not answer. The roof he was standing on was six stories high, which gave a perfect vantage point for the museum roof across the street, which was only four. He watched in still silence as the museum’s roof access door opened and five figures stepped out. In the lead were two men, both dressed as security guards, and both carrying sacks that appeared to be full. At the back came two more men, similarly dressed and carrying boxes. In between these two sets of men, though, was the one Tenebraen suspected was the real culprit.
She was a staggeringly beautiful woman with flowing red hair and a figure to kill for. She was wearing a skin-tight black dress that hugged her amazing curves, low cut at the top to show off her ample cleavage and high cut at the bottom to show off her shapely legs. With a graceful gesture, she motioned toward the helicopter, and without a word, the four men moved to begin loading the undoubtedly ill-gotten goods.
“I’ve got eyes on the perp. Female. Red-head. About five-nine, five-ten, appears to be mid-twenties, early thirties at the oldest.”
“I’ll check the databases,” Veil said, “but that doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I don’t recognize her,” Tenebraen said. “But she’s either got her goons dressed up like museum security, or, more likely, we’re dealing with a mind controller.”
Tenebraen’s earpiece was silent for a long moment. “Shit,” Veil finally said. “I don’t feel good about you tackling a mind controller alone.”
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “I trust our training. That anti-brainwash module Fortress put together was top-notch. How many metas have tried to take your mind or mine over the years?”
“Four that I can name off the top of my head,” Veil said. “But we know nothing about this one. Just be careful.”
“I will,” he promised his wife. “And just in case, the failsafe. If it sounds like I’m falling under, zap me unconscious and get everybody you can to me.”
“You know it, Love. Good luck.”
Once again, Tenebraen did not answer. He watched in silence as the four men loaded the helicopter. Down the street, he saw the flashing lights of the police as they finally arrived on the scene, and as they got set around the front door of the museum, the woman seemed to say something to her henchmen and point back toward the door. Each of them nodded, drew their pistols, and disappeared back into the museum, closing the door behind them. The woman glanced back at the helicopter, then crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her foot. Evidently, she was waiting for things to kick off on the street before she started the chopper and made her escape.
A quick assessment told Tenebraen that the woman was obviously unarmed. That instantly made him more nervous. The lack of any visible weaponry ed the theory that she was a meta. Silently, mentally, he repeated the mantras from Fortress’s training, steeling himself for what he assumed would be a telepathic assault. He himself was not a meta, but he knew enough about them to know that they were dangerous, but not unbeatable. This woman, as Veil had said, was an unknown to them, but if he didn’t stop her now, he might never have the chance again.
Without another moment of hesitation, Tenebraen sprang off the roof, activating the glider wings to carry him across the way. The woman was looking back toward the door as he landed in a crouch a dozen feet away from her, and the startled gasp she let out as she turned and noticed him was a very good sign. Nothing was worse than those villains who were preternaturally calm.
“You!” The woman said, her voice barely more than an exhalation of breath.
Tenebraen stood to full height, the glider wings folding back into his long, flowing cape. The cape, he had found, was a bit silly at times, but did add to his overall intimidation, and he was hoping to scare this woman into compliance and make an easy night of it.
“Yes,” he said. “Tenebraen, the Dark Paragon.” He took a long step forward. “And you are committing a crime, something I cannot abide. Give yourself up peacefully and you won’t be harmed.”
The woman seemed to consider him for a long moment, undoubtedly weighing her options. After a short hesitation, she seemed to take a breath and steady herself. “So is this what you do with your evenings? Fly around, ruining a girl’s good time?”
Tenebraen took another threatening step forward. “Is that your decision, then?” He asked her.
She put up her hands to chest level, palms out, in a plead for nonviolence. “No, no, it’s not that!” She said hurriedly. “It’s just, you must have something you would rather be doing with your time. I mean, you must like watching some streaming videos and relaxing, right? Everyone does.”
Tenebraen felt his fingers twitch in anticipation. The woman was very clearly playing for time. Maybe she had more of her brainwashed minions on their way, or maybe she was preparing some sort of mental attack. Either way, the Dark Paragon felt confident. The woman seemed nervous. She was looking down at Tenebraen’s hands, knowing that any moment they would be grabbing her, cuffing her, and bringing her to justice.
“What I do in my free time is none of your concern,” he told her. “Your time free, however, is about to come to an end.”
Usually, when Tenebraen cracked wise like that, it elicited one of two reactions. Either the villain would cower, knowing that their time was running out, or they would mock him, considering his barb ludicrous. This woman’s reaction, though, was surprising. She smiled at him. It was a bright, genuine smile, one that started with a subtle rising of her cheekbones and spread into a full grin.
“Look,” she said. “I know you have to do what you have to do, but please, understand, I didn’t have a choice! What it all comes down to is snakeskin lubrication aardvark venereal enzymes.”
Tenebraen cocked his head to the side slightly. Was this woman insane, or was she so frightened that she was speaking nonsense? Of course, it was possible that she was being used by some third party. Most master criminals were not particularly keen on risking their own necks in their various plans and heists. It seemed unlikely in this case, but something told him he should believe her.
Not wanting to lose his advantage, Tenebraen took another step forward. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”
“I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that,” she said, and Tenebraen thought he could believe her. “The only thing I need to be sure of, though, is opulent benedictory exclamatory yielding.”
The superhero blinked his eyes three times in quick succession, trying to make sense of what the woman was saying. “What—”
“To answer your question,” she interrupted him immediately. “I call myself Insinua.” Her smile broadened, and Tenebraen found himself looking the woman up and down, much more thoroughly and carefully than he had before. He had recognized that she was beautiful even from a distance, but now, up close, he realized that she was more than that. She was a goddess. He had seen his share of beautiful women in his day, from exotic femme fatales to genetic marvel meta-humans and even to his own lovely wife Veil, but as he stood there, alone on the roof with this woman, he knew that she was the sexiest woman on the face of the planet. As he stared, the woman’s grin turned into a smirk. “But you can just call me Mistress.”
It occurred to Tenebraen, almost academically, that her last statement should bother him, but he could not quite place the reason why. After all, she said that he should call her that, and he very much wanted to believe her. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, so when he spoke, he chose not to use either name. “And what about my other question,” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s just a big misunderstanding,” she assured him, and he believed her. “You see, the things that were loaded onto this helicopter are mine. The museum stole them first, so I should have them back. They make me happy, you see.”
Something about Insinua being happy felt good to Tenebraen, and he found himself smiling. “Still,” he said, “if these things are yours, you need to go through the proper, legal channels to get them back. You can’t just break into a museum in the middle of the night and take them.”
“Well, I do see your point,” Insinua said. “But things work a little differently for me. I’m a Mistress, after all, and Mistresses own. You believe that, don’t you?”
Tenebraen found himself nodding. That only made sense.
“Mistresses need to be obeyed,” she added, and Tenebraen nodded again. He believed her.
The stunning red-haired woman smiled, and took her own step forward. “Now, compare that to, say, a slave. Especially a sex slave. A sex slave does not own, but rather is owned. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Tenebraen nodded again.
“Sex slaves are not obeyed,” Insinua said. “Sex slaves obey.”
Tenebraen felt his mouth go dry as he nodded one more time.
The woman reached up and brushed her gorgeous red hair back behind her ear. “Now, let’s figure this out, shall we? I’m a Mistress. I own things, things like jewels, and antiques, and sex slaves. Because I am a Mistress, I need to be obeyed, isn’t that right?”
Tenebraen furrowed his brow. Something didn’t seem right, but he could not fault her logic. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he finally said.
She smiled at him and took another step forward. They were almost in reach of one another now. “And you are a sex slave.”
That didn’t seem right to him, and he seemed to have two warring thoughts echoing through his head. One screamed I am no one’s slave! The other one, though, kept whispering believe her over and over. Tenebraen closed his eyes and repeated the mantras from Fortress’s training, just in case his mind was being attacked, but he did not feel any telepathic assault. When he opened his eyes, he said, with an uncharacteristic lack of confidence, “I’m not a sex slave.”
Insinua looked at him with the same expression that a teacher might give a student who had just given a disastrously wrong answer. “Oh, I think you are. In fact, I think you are my sex slave.” Believe her. “The evidence is clear, and undeniable.” Believe her. “In fact, in less than ten minutes, you’ll see that I’m right.” Believe her. “After all, I’m always right.” Believe her.
The superhero was finding it difficult to stand up straight. Something was definitely not right, but if he was being controlled, Veil would have zapped him by now, and he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t loading stolen goods into Insinua’s helicopter or fighting the police or even licking Mistress’s sweet pussy, even if he did want to. And she was so certain of her position that maybe she knew something he didn’t.
“Let’s examine the facts, shall we?” The red-haired goddess said. “Sex slaves are horny and aroused.” Believe her. “And you are horny and aroused.” Believe her. Tenebraen could feel his cock harden inside his suit, straining at the sight before him. “Specifically, sex slaves are horny and aroused for their Mistress.” Believe her. “And you were not horny or aroused until I started talking, now were you?” Tenebraen weakly shook his head. “That must mean that I am your Mistress, because I am the one who made you horny and aroused.” Believe her. “And if I am your Mistress, that must make you my sex slave.” Believe her.
Things were beginning to become clear for Tenebraen. He was not sure how he had gotten so confused, but things made much more sense with his Mistress explaining everything to him.
“Now,” Insinua continued, “there are certain behaviors that sex slaves must always exhibit, especially with regard to their Mistress.” Believe her. “The most obvious of these, of course, is that a sex slave obeys its Mistress, no matter what the command.” Believe her. “Even if the sex slave would not ordinarily do something, if its Mistress orders, the sex slave obeys without thought or reservation.” Believe her.
The woman looked at Tenebraen hard, her emerald eyes almost twinkling with satisfaction. Her perfect, red-lipped mouth was curled into an almost manic grin. “I am your Mistress.” Believe her. “You are my sex slave.” Believe her. “You will obey.” Believe her.
Tenebraen nodded to his Mistress. He believed her. It all made so much sense.
“This is a command from your Mistress,” Insinua said. “Lower your pants, and place your hand on your genitals.”
The Dark Paragon did as he was commanded to do. Insinua, with a small laugh, took the last step forward and gently laid her hand on his, pulling the black glove off so that it was Tenebraen’s bare hand grasping his throbbing cock. Then she stepped back again with a slight laugh. “Masturbate for me, slave.” Without a thought, the superhero began to stroke for his Mistress. She smiled at him. “Sex slaves should drop to their knees when they masturbate for their Mistress.” Believe her.
Tenebraen dropped instantly to his knees on the roof of the museum. On the street below, a few gunshots rang out, and the voice of a policeman sounded through an amplifier at the forces inside the museum, those they assumed to be the thieves. But the Dark Paragon paid no attention to these sounds. It is possible that he did not truly hear them. He was a sex slave, pleasuring himself before his Mistress. Until she said otherwise, nothing else mattered.
“With each stroke,” she said, “your devotion to me grows.” Believe her. “Your pleasure will build and build until it is too much for your mind to take.” Believe her. “When you reach that point, your mind will stick, and time will seem to freeze for you, until I give you permission to orgasm.” Believe her. “It will be the most intense, the most impossibly powerful orgasm of your entire life, and when it happens, you will be mine completely.” Believe her. “All of your previous beliefs, all of your previous convictions, all of your previous loyalties, they will all be replaced by your complete and utter devotion to my every whim.” Believe her.
She reached down and softly, lovingly, stroked the side of his face, still covered in his black mask. When she spoke, she did so slowly, punctuating each word as if it were the most important of her new slave’s life. “You. Are. Mine.”
Tenebraen believed her. He believed her completely. Her words wrote his reality. There was no doubt. There was no skepticism. There was no disloyalty or disobedience. There was only the total, abject pleasure of surrender, only the depthless and endless satisfaction of utter submission. He would stroke. He would obey, and the instant she gave him permission to cum, everything in his life and in his mind would be hers.
Insinua watched her new pet stroke himself into slavery, watched him love every second of it. The self-satisfaction she felt in that moment was profound. Feeling that he deserved a little bonus, she reached up and pulled her immaculate breasts free of the flimsy dress that had only barely covered them. Her nipples were hard as stone, and she could feel her own pussy dripping with excitement. He was hers. All of her planning, all of her waiting, it was all about to come to fruition. As she fondled her own gorgeous tits, she looked down at the former hero.
“I know you’re not thinking of anything but pleasing me right now,” she said. “But if you were, you might be wondering how I did all this. I imagine you think I’m a telepath of some sort, but I’m not. You probably could have fought back from that. I am a meta, of course, but my manifestation has nothing to do with manipulating other people. No, my power lies in manipulating computers. Weird, I know. But ever since I was a teenager, I was able to get computers to do what I want them to, even if it was not what they were programmed for.
“What does this have to do with you, you might ask, if you weren’t so busy,” she giggled. “Well, at first, I thought I would just use my power for money. I could just make online banking programs give me whatever I want, after all. But that would be boring, and dangerous. And besides, not to be too vain,” she giggled again, “but with a body like mine, I could have a hell of a lot more fun than simple theft. Then, one day, I realized two things.
“First, almost eighty percent of Americans use online streaming services. And second, I could, very easily, have the computer systems that run those streaming services insert a wide variety of subliminal commands into them. Now, I know what you’re thinking.” She looked at her happily masturbating jerk-slave. “Well, you’re thinking ‘yes, Goddess, yes, Goddess, yes, Goddess!’ But I know what you would be thinking if you were able to think right now. Shouldn’t your anti-brainwashing training have protected you?”
She laughed. “Let’s do the math. Whatever training you received, you went through it, what, for a few hours? Maybe a couple of days? Meanwhile, you curled up on your couch every damn night, mind-fucking yourself right out of your own training. My messages were everywhere. Audio, video, in the shows, in the ads, in the menus, you name it. Countless hours of you brainwashing yourself, all in preparation for the day I activated you. You, the guards downstairs, and, statistically, about eighty percent of this city, all waiting for their Mistress to claim them.
“That’s why I asked you about streaming videos when we first met. Because I installed a tell. Everybody who has been properly conditioned to respond to my triggers will give a signal, a slight twitch of the middle finger of their right hand, when asked about watching streaming video. I don’t know how you rationalized it to yourself, and I don’t care. In that one little finger twitch, you told me everything I needed to know.
“I knew you would respond to the ‘snakeskin’ trigger, which would convince you to believe whatever I told you. I knew you would respond to the ‘yielding’ trigger, which makes you hopelessly attracted to ‘Insinua.’ The moment you learned I was she, you were lost. Then it was just a matter of giving you the ‘facts,’ which you would believe, and manipulating your extreme arousal for me.”
Tenebraen was nearing the edge fast. His cock ached in a maddening amalgam of pleasure and pain. He needed release. He needed to cum. He needed to belong to his Mistress, completely and fully, and to finally be rid of those parts of his mind that did not serve her. As he looked up at his new Goddess, his eyes pleading for pleasure and mercy, he felt his mind and his body lock, just as she said it would, just as he believed it would.
He had no idea how long he knelt there. He would never know how long she let him hang in that moment of his surrender, waiting for the permission that only she could give. Time froze for the former hero, now slave, and nothing in the world moved for him. From Insinua’s perspective, the man just stopped and waited, his mouth hanging open pathetically. She would enjoy possessing this man. He was a fine specimen of manhood, with a chiseled physique and an impressive cock. He would be her first real prize. Well, she thought, one of her first two.
She reached for the kneeling sex slave and slowly pulled his mask off. He was a handsome man, perhaps in his early or mid-forties, but seeing his face was not her goal. Instead, she removed the earpiece from his ear and slipped it into her own. Then she pulled the tiny microphone from its place in the mask, and using her power, sent a command through the system to the computers in Tenebraen and Veil’s home, causing it to activate the microphone currently near Veil’s mouth. When she spoke, she knew it was to both heroes.
“Cum for your Mistress, slave.”
Tenebraen gave a primal roar like that of a wild animal, and he came like a shotgun blast, spraying far in front of him. The strain on his body was almost too much, and as he spent himself, he nearly fell forward, and would have, had Insinua not caught him. Through the earpiece, she heard Veil shriek in her own mind-shattering orgasm, and she smiled as husband and wife, hero and heroine, simultaneously fell fully into their new lives as Insinua’s sex slaves.
The stunning villain gave her new toys a few moments to recover before she pulled Tenebraen’s head back by the hair, forcing eye . “Now, slave, I think it’s time you take me home to meet the wife.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Does anyone else live with you, slave?”
The Dark Paragon was still struggling to recover from his life-altering orgasm, but his Mistress had asked him a question, and nothing was more important than serving her. “Only our daughter, Mistress.”
“Daughter?” Insinua was surprised. She had never heard rumors that Tenebraen and Veil had a child. “Who is she?”
“She’s an eighteen-year-old meta-human, codename Fugue. She’s a telepath.”
Insinua raised her eyebrows at this revelation, before settling back into her usual grin. “Does she watch streaming videos?”
Through the earpiece, she heard the exhausted voice of Veil. “Yes, Mistress. All the time.”
Insinua’s eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “Well, slaves. This is going to be one hell of a family reunion.”
And they believed her.