CHAPTER 56: A trip to the Maneater
Added 2023-12-20 01:47:16 +0000 UTCSUE
“Why am I here again?” Eleanor Lang asked as the Fantasticar MK VI zipped over the New England Countryside.
“Because you keep asking why I’m not teaching you more,” Sue answered as she examined on the screen of the vehicle's dashboard the data that Simmons had sent over.
“I meant like, why don’t you ever take me with you when you go exploring a wormhole, not like, why can’t you take me to do maintenance on some old project? You take Crystalline, and I’m way more powerful than she is!”
“It’s not an old project, it’s an ongoing one,” Susan answered, as she examined the spiked readings. “And as I’ve explained before, even you can’t fit through a wormhole.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes, underneath her helmet. “You know what I mean though.”
“Eleanor, I allowed you to join G.I.R.L and learn more about Pym Particles. You didn’t want to, because you don’t like Nadia. So, I let you be an intern at the Baxter Building instead because I respected your father and I know you have potential.” Sue shifted in her seat to face Eleanor’s section of the vehicle. “If you would prefer to be a spoiled brat, you can stay back in Manhattan and listen to Spider-Girl save the day, while you rinse out the fungal beds.”
Eleanor sulked deeper into her seat. “You don’t have to treat me like a kid.”
“I’m not. I’m treating you like an adult.” Susan said, pulling up a hologram of the Pleasant Hill grid. “The fate of the whole world might depend on what we're about to do.”
GERRY
Not that I don’t enjoy the biting cold and howling arctic winds, but The Maneater was a sight for sore eyes. The reek of urban decay and the almost abandoned docks. And the neon glow of sleaze oozing from its windows and beckoning me back with warm arms.
Esper was there to welcome me with open arms. Well, more or less. She was never happy when I showed up, because it usually meant I was about to make a series of in her mind, unreasonable demands. Never mind that I’d paid for this place with money that I worked hard to steal.
I almost wished she’d drop the act so that I’d have an excuse to rough her up. That awful excuse for a smile she put on just pissed me off more. Whenever I saw her awful gray teeth, it put me out of the mood and that was reason enough to be done with her shit.
“Welcome back. We haven’t seen you since you brought that little chipmunk for us…what was her name, Crystal? Susie…” She smiled. “I was disappointed to find that she left us so suddenly.”
Her eyes trailed over my companions. “But perhaps you have brought me something to take away the sting, eh?”
I was pretty sure that Esper, who had been in the United States for at least two decades now, played up her accent, probably to seem stupider than she was. I turned to the four women who’d accompanied me inside. Peggy looked pityingly at the girls on the stage but was just as disgusted by Esper as the rest of them. Elizabeth was following her lead for how she should act. She seemed relieved to be at a strip club after the mortification she’d already endured. Lois was focusing on swiping through the photos on her camera to avoid having to look at where she was. Bobbi (who was no longer wearing her very special hat) look fucking pissed off.
“That’s right.” I grabbed Bobbi by the scalp and dragged her over for Esper to inspect like a newly purchased bit of livestock. “I heard you need a new Black Canary, and I thought Bobbi here might fit the bill.”
Esper put her glasses on properly and began pinching and prodding. “Nice tits…very athletic…do you have any experience or what?” She asked, glaring up into Bobbi’s hateful eyes.
“No,” Bobbi said.
“But you’re a fast learner, aren’t you?” I asked her.
She glanced at me.
“You’re dumb as shit, but you’re a fast learner, aren’t you?”
She looked away. “Yes, sir.”
I tightened my grip. “Say it again and this time don’t leave out the important bit.”
“Yes, I’m dumb as shit.”
“Good girl.” I turned to Esper. “What do you think? You think you and Crystal can have her ready in an hour?”
Esper narrowed her eyes and then nodded. “Easy job.”
I smiled. Then I turned to Elizabeth. “Do you still have that glory hole in the back?”
M’GANN
She was almost home when she heard it.
The hoary rasp of parched rocking chair wood.
It was louder somehow, than the skitter of leaves across the asphalt. Louder than the sound of Mr. Park’s lawnmower.
She paused and turned, one hand on the white picket gate beyond which lay her house.
It was the same woman who’d been staring at her earlier. Except now she was sitting on her front porch and pretending like she hadn’t moved all day.
She looked younger now than M’gann remembered her being at the school. Sitting in a rocking chair was a very old lady thing to do, but Mrs. Maximoff didn’t look a day over thirty, sitting there with her hands in her lap, wrapped in a red quilt.
And her methodical benignity was beckoning M’gann over. She looked both ways, then she skipped across the street.
“Mrs. Maximoff…?” The name was recited like a question because M’gann couldn’t remember her exact name. She could remember exactly if they’d ever held a conversation, just that her mother had told her to be kind to their eccentric neighbor because she was mourning the loss of her husband.
That seemed wrong, now that M’gann thought about it. A wife without a husband in Pleasant Hill…just didn’t sound right. There was the implication of pain there, the kind of pain that just didn’t exist in their little community.
“Oh…hello, Jean. You’re looking younger than I last remember.” Mrs. Maximoff said, her rocking slowing almost imperceptibly.
“My name’s not Jean, ma’am…it’s Megan.”
“Is it now?” The rocking stopped suddenly, and the shade created by the stoop of the porch darkened. “Are you sure about that?”
Mrs. Maximoff’s eyes glimmered with a little red spark of curiosity and…something worse. Something more unsettling than evil, something that swam in the cosmos of the universe and bored through the building blocks of the mind.
Megan felt like the world’s tiniest germ being examined through a microscope. Then sanity returned in a mad rush, and she looked away. Her question, why this woman had been staring at her earlier, had been answered.
As she sprinted back across the street, back inside, she wished that it hadn’t.
ELEANOR
“What is the point of this thing?” Eleanor asked as she followed Sue through the immense, wire-tangled halls surrounding The Experiment. They were not alone. All around them, S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel ran around, yelling over walkie-talkies and carrying piecemeal equipment.
“It’s a way to reform people who wouldn’t otherwise be capable of being reformed. And it’s a way to contain those who couldn’t otherwise be contained.” Sue said, her eyes flickering across the pages of details she’d just been handed by one of the personnel.
“Like who? Who’s in there?” Eleanor asked, eagerly. All the good supervillains had been defeated by the time she was old enough to “emancipate” herself from her mother and strike out in her father’s footsteps.
Sue sighed. “Like Carl Creel, the Absorption man. He’s no longer made out of any recognizable element. We’re not even sure we could kill him if we tried. And all attempts to neutralize or contain him have been abysmal failures. Thanks to…Reed’s discovery…we’re able to give him a peaceful and self-contained existence.”
“But…if he can’t die…isn’t he going to notice when people start getting old but he doesn’t?”
“The cube doesn’t just create holograms. It’s connected to the minds of everyone inside of there. When it updates, let's say with the death of someone, it updates all their minds as well. As far as Creel is concerned, things right now are the way they always have been and the way they always will be.”
“That sounds less humane,” Eleanor admitted.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s humane. It’s the only option for people like him.” Sue sighed. “It’s supposed to be foolproof. The cube keeps everyone inside in a perpetual state of relaxation and enjoyment.”
“So, then, what’s the problem?”
Sue’s grip tightened around the clipboard. “One of the prisoners is waking up…and they are all connected which means…if one of them wakes up…”
“You have an army of reality-bending supervillains rearing to get revenge.”
Sue nodded. There was a shudder, through the hall and the various military personnel all around them paused what they were doing to stare up at the ceiling in dread.
“Was that one of them waking up?” Eleanor whispered.
“No…that was the Cosmic Cube.”
GERRY
I left Peggy in charge of making sure Bobbi learned her new routine, while Esper escorted me, Elizabeth, and Lois into the back of the club. There was a room behind the men’s bathroom, connected by a small hole. Owing to the Maneater’s success, it was classier than the average glory hole. Instead of duct tape around the edges to prevent dick splinters, the hole had been encased in rubber.
There was a little metal tray at the base of the wall, just beneath the hole, where a couple of crumpled-up bills lay.
“You see this, little one?” Esper asked, as she cruelly shoved Elizabeth down onto her knees. “This is where you put what you earn. American dollars, they are waterproof now. But if I have to dust cum off my fucking money, you will be doing this job again, with no teeth. Do you understand?”
Elizabeth glanced over Esper’s shoulder at me and nodded.
“Good girl.” Esper caressed Elizabeth’s face, and I decided then and there that I was going to find a replacement for her as madame of the club as soon as I was able.
Esper shoved Elizabeth’s face up against the hole. “Open your mouth bitch. Spread your legs. That’s it. Put your hands on either side of it. You need to be in a balanced position or you will fall over. Good girl. Now…” She tapped Elizabeth’s cheek condescendingly. “Don’t forget to swallow.”
As she turned to me, she looked Lois up and down. “Will they be swapping in and out?”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plans.”
She rolled her eyes as she turned away and headed off to supervise Bobbi’s transformation into an obedient stripper.
Then I turned to Lois. “Get on your knees, bitch…”
Lois’ legs shook as she sank beside Elizabeth obediently like a dog.
“I don’t have time to wait around and watch you suck dick, Lizzie. But you’re going to do it until I get back, aren’t you?”
Elizabeth shuddered and gazed up at me with her mouth pressed to the wall, eyes wide and terrified. Then she nodded. (ELIZABETH: +1 SP)(+90 SP)
“Lois, while Lizzie is sucking cock, you’re going to be eating her out, alright? Finger yourself too while you’re down there…I want you both hot and heavy when I get back, understand?”
Lois nodded and began lifting Elizabeth’s thighs so she could crawl underneath her.
“Oh, Lois…do you have any family?”
Lois’ eyes widened. “I, umm…”
“It’s a simple question. Yes or no?”
“I have a sister…” She looked like she wanted to die.
I smiled. “Good to know.”
I left the two of them to begin their respective charges.
I found Bobbi struggling to get the fishnets for the Black Canary costume on, as it had been designed for someone about half a foot shorter. I waited for a second, watching her inflated breasts, jiggle about in the tightly compressed blouse.
But to be honest, even with the improvements that I’d made to Bobbi’s physique, she didn’t hold a candle to the real thing.
“Having trouble, are we?” I asked, smugly.
She shot me a dirty look and then went back to focusing on stretching the material as much as she could.
Peggy smiled. “She’s doing alright.” She grew serious. “Are you sure this is necessary, sir?”
“Oh yes. Bobbi here has got to learn the value of enthusiastic obedience.” I said, putting a hand on Peggy’s neck and slowly pressing her down to my level so that I could nip and bite at her nipples.
She let out a groan and in the corner of my eye, I could see Bobbi growing jealous. I let go long enough to fix her with a look. “She’s got to be malleable if she’s going to be a good spy, which means being able to slip into and out of any role that’s given to her.”
Bobbi tugged violently on her pantyhose, and they tore.
“Over for the love of-” She began.
“Now, now…” I said, stepping over to her. “No need to be so angry. After all, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself, don’t you?”
She glared, then her lower lip trembled, and she nodded.
“You’re not very smart, are you?” I asked.
Her eyes lowered and she shook her head.
“And now you’ve destroyed the property of my club,” I said, clucking my tongue. “You need to be punished, don’t you?”
She looked up at me and then away and nodded again.
I stuck a hand into my pocket and pulled out the jangling metal of her recently removed nipple clamps. “Yeah, and I know exactly how to do it…”
KENDRA
“This is Vicki Vale, with Channel 9 news, reporting live from outside the headquarters for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, where a standoff between S.H.I.E.L.D. Operatives and Jessica Cruz of the Justice League have entered its fourth hour. Miss Cruz refuses to leave until the S.H.I.E.L.D. releases the location of Miss Martian, who she claims has been abducted by S.H.I.E.L.D. officials. What? I’m being told that two more members of the league are approaching.”
Kendra’s ears picked up the broadcast long before her feet touched the ground and the patter of footsteps signaled the approach of the reporter.
“Hawkgirl! Wonder Woman! Do you have any proof that Miss Martian is in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody? Have you just come to talk?”
“No comment,” Kendra said, pushing past the tiny woman and removing her mace from its loop at her belt.
Diana stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and then gestured to the roof of the building. Kendra’s keen gaze followed her fingers and landed on the slender forms descending slowly in front of the plaza.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we can now see what appear to be members of the Avengers, arrived to arbitrate this issue.”
Kendra’s grip dug into the handle of the mace. There were three of them. Two of them were in exoskeletons. The kind of exoskeletons that would come apart with one swing of her mace. Only the third would put up any kind of actual fight, and she was outnumbered.
“Hello, ladies.” The one in the blue suit said.
“State your business and be on your way,” Diana said.
“Geeze, wake up on the wrong side of the island, or what?” Said the smaller one in red armor.
Diana ignored her.
“Cut the bullshit and get to the point,” Kendra said.
“The point is that you’re trespassing on government property.” Said the third. She was wearing a white leotard with black stripes across it. Unlike the others, her face was not obscured. Her hair was done up into a bun and her eyes were scintillating with silvery luminosity.
She was the only one among them who had not yet ceased floating.
“C’mon, Monica. We’ve worked together. You know as well as I do that there are more laws more important than the ones they come up with.” Jessica said.
“Spare the high-minded ideals. You go in there, you might as well be declaring war on the US Government.” Said the one in the blue suit.
“If that is what it takes, to ensure that peace is reinstated.”
“You’re the ones stirring up trouble in the first place.” Said the other armored one.
Kendra snarled. “Standing up for your friends is stirring up trouble now then? Oh, how the West has fallen. I lament for your generation, child.”
“What as opposed to two thousand years ago when most people were slaves?” The younger of the two armored women bit back.
“They still are,” Diana said distantly.
Jessica folded her arms. “I can’t believe you would take their side, Monica, after everything they put you through…”
“Monica” glared back. Jessica was being sentimental. Too sentimental. When faced with the enemy, it was an insult to them to pity them.
“She knows where her allegiances lie,” Diana said, stepping forward. “Their team is funded entirely by this one.” She grabbed the arm of the blue-suited woman and tugged her close. “And her company profits almost exclusively from the greed and wrath of the assassins and warmongerers in that building.”
The mask peeled back, revealing a thin-faced redheaded woman. “I’m going to have to ask you to let go of my suit. It’s property of Stark Tech.”
A shadow fell over them all and most of them lifted their heads to stare at the massive, bat-themed jet landing nearby and sending crowds of reporters and rubberneckers scurrying. Diana kept her gaze locked with the woman in the suit.
There was a simultaneously tense yet awkward moment as Kate got out of the Batplane and hurried over to where they all were.
As she reached them, she put a hand on Diana’s shoulder. “Can we talk for a second?”
Diana sighed. Then she released the redheaded woman and turned to follow Kate a few feet away. Their conversation was hushed enough to avoid being picked up by anyone else, but Kendra could hear every detail as she and Jessica held their formation.
Then Diana returned with her arms folded. “You have one hour to produce M’gann. Then we go through S.H.I.E.L.D. and anyone who gets in the way.”
BOBBI
The thigh-high boots of her new outfit scraped the floorboards as he dragged her by her tits down the hall.
Five girls were waiting for them, laughing over a likely sexual anecdote. Manheim must have arranged for them to wait for him. Beyond their obviously enhanced assets, they weren’t voluptuous in the least. They were all elbows and knees, scrawny half-starved women poured into revealing outfits and re-born in silicon. Underneath though, Bobbi could see their hunger, and their pain, jagged and sharp as a barnacle. The moment they saw her their pretty features were re-carved with the most capricious of expressions. Their gazes intensified and their grins sharpened. Their body language shifted subtly, their legs uncrossing, their bodies craning forward to get a better look and give a better view.
Bobbi was reminded of what her superiors showed her back in Cambodia. The more marred a person’s life was by oppression, the more sadistic they are when granted power. It was the principle that had ruled her career. She had seen things there that ensured that she was willing and ready to give up her life to stop the most innocuous of uprisings. She had helped suppress freedoms all across the world because she knew what the other side of the coin looked like.
She’d wanted to be promoted so badly, not only because she’d felt she deserved it, but because she wanted to ensure that the horrors she’d witnessed first-hand would never happen again. She’d been so ready to take control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and do what needed to be done. Now she had completely surrendered control of her life to this slimy rapist and his harem of brainwashed Barbie dolls.
She wanted to fight back. It wasn’t pain she was afraid of, after all. She’d experienced quite enough of that in her career. But she had no idea how. And why? Her whole life had been a bad-taste joke. Being jerked around like a puppet on a string. And now because of whatever magic Manheim had worked on her, she’d lost her academic gifts as well as her tactical capability. Every decision seemed fraught with terror and pain. It was so much easier to submit herself to the terror and pain that he promised than leave it up to chance.
She wanted to scream, to pound the floorboards of this shitty green room. Maybe set this whole club on fire. But there was the pleasure. With every step that obeyed his tugs on her recently purchased leash, there was another curl of pleasure in her core. He had denied her, degraded her. Filled her with a demented instinct that she was certain was external in origin. But she’d seen firsthand how happy his fellow slaves could be. And she’d yearned for him to grant her release.
With her powers stripped away and her career in shambles, there was a clarity to surrender that came with a lifetime of rewards. It was unfair for anyone to expect her to end the madness that was poisoning the world, not when her very mind was no longer her own. And who was she saving the world for exactly? All her loved ones had been buried decades ago. Her new loves, however fleeting they might have been, had betrayed her. Clint had chosen the Avengers and their ludicrous claims of moral objectivity over her. Both her team-mates had sold her out the first chance that they got.
She’d betrayed the only people outside that circle, in the pursuit of a position she no longer valued. It was clear to her now that creatures like Manheim and Supergirl ruled this world. They got what they wanted no matter who got hurt on the way and the schemes of governments like the one that employed her, were frail, fleeting structures swallowed by the morass of primal appetite.
Manheim yanked hard on the chain and brought her stumbling onto her knees with a yelp. Four of the women giggled at that and the one who didn’t was still smiling.
“Having a nice night ladies?”
One of them sighed. “It was pretty boring before you arrived, sir…”
Manheim smiled. “How long have most of you been working this gig?”
They shared looks and shrugged.
“Five years.”
“Six.”
“Carrie’s the new girl and she’s been here at least two years.”
“Two and a half.” Said the one with red hair defensively.
Manheim smiled. “In all that time, have you ever complained or acted like you were above this?”
Their smiles faltered. “Of course not sir.” Said the self-appointed leader, the one with short blonde hair and heavy eyeliner. “We’re all very lucky to have this job and to be compensated so well for it.” Her big brown eyes beckoned with the unspoken subtext - “And we’ll do anything to keep it.”
Manheim turned to Bobbi, and, keeping a couple of fingers wrapped around the center of the chain that hung between her breasts, he grabbed the back of her hair with the other, wrapping the strands around his fingers. “See, Miss Morse. While you’re living it up in your mansion, this is what the working woman is up to.”
“She’s got a mansion?” One of the girls asked, hiding her smile with one hand and pointing at Bobbi’s stretched sweater puppies with the other.
“She does. I was just there. Do you know what else she had? A whole bookshelf full of books on chemistry, physics, politics...” He turned back to the whores. “Any of you think she looks smart enough to know anything about that?”
They all shook their heads, their fiendish expressions igniting at the possibility of abetting in the humiliation of someone more wealthy than them.
“I don’t think so either. What about you, Bobbi? Do you think you’re smart enough to warrant having those kinds of books?”
She knew what he wanted. And she knew that he was going to get it, no matter what she did. “No, sir.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because I’m an idiot.” (BOBBI: +1 SP)(+87 SP)
More giggling.
“Well, the first step to fixing your problem is to admit that you have it.” He said, stroking her scalp condescendingly. “You know what else I saw at your house…books on feminism.” He turned back to his captive audience. “Do any of you read books about feminism?”
They shifted and one of the more ditsy-looking ones screwed up her face in concentration. “We don’t have much time for reading…”
Bobbi narrowed her eyes. They probably had time to sit on the couch and watch reality TV that degraded their gender though…
“You hear that, Bobbi? It seems like the people that your ideology claims to be representing need more material assistance and less academic hand-wringing.” He turned back to the women. “Do any of you think that women are equal to men?”
They shared looks. Most of them shook their heads, but one remained thoughtful. How thoughtful could she be? Bobbi wondered. Her head was probably a vacant space reserved exclusively for the holding of cock.
“How about you, Bobbi? After everything you’ve seen, do you think that women are equal to men?”
Bobbi stared up at him. She was still reeling from the after-effects of the orgasm he’d allowed her to have back at home while wearing that…stupid hat. She hadn’t felt equal to him then. She hadn’t felt equal to him for a long time now. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be equal to him, not when he seemed to tear through the moral fabric of the world like a dark and vengeful god.
She stared down at her tits, hanging at the mercy of his fingers, and remembered his earlier quiz. She remembered humping the seat of her car for his amusement. She remembered watching him collect her cum like she was his specimen. She remembered Elizabeth’s screams of climax. She’d felt equal to her in that moment, with the corner of her framed Ph.D. sawing up and down her snatch.
“No, sir.” (BOBBI: +1 SP)(+88 SP)
Manheim smiled. “That doesn’t mean you’re equal to these women though, does it? They work for a living. They provide something of value to the world...their bodies. Meanwhile, you sit at home in your fancy house on your fat ass and act entitled to things you haven't earned. Isn’t that right?”
She pressed her thighs together and nodded.
“Why don’t you show them how superior they are to you? Go ahead and kiss their feet, Bobbi.”
They all giggled, and their giggles got louder as she leaned forward, as far as the chain of the clamps would allow her, and, with a tremor of pleasure, did as commanded. (BOBBI: +1 SP)(+89 SP)
The woman with the short blonde hair shifted in her seat so that she was at the front of the group. She was wearing studded sandals and had clearly taken good care of her feet, based on her recent and vividly painted toenails. While Bobbi was kissing the curve of her left instep she elevated the foot so that her toes were shoved into the path of Bobbi’s lips and wiggled them as Bobbi continued kissing, trying to ignore the smell of soap invading her nostrils.
The next girl, a short young woman with bright blue hair, wasn’t nearly as clean as the first. She’d already taken off her shoes and put her feet together in front of Bobbi’s face so that it was impossible to block out the smell too. She lolled Bobbi’s face between the arches of her feet. Then she shoved her back to the floor and laughed at the squeal of pain Bobbi let out as one of the clamps came free from the force of her fall.
Manheim re-applied the clamp and then handed the chain to the gaggle’s leader, who smiled sadistically at Bobbi as she dragged her back toward her new tormentors. The next girl, a dark-skinned smokeshow with a thick afro, wasn’t interested in having her toes attended to. She made Bobbi kiss her ankle, then her heel, and then up along the calf before she shoved Bobbi toward her companion with a simple “Pathetic.”
The fourth girl, a tall-latina with thick eyebrows and caramel eyes put her feet on Bobbi’s face and laughed as she struggled to kiss them. Then she lowered one foot, just enough for Bobbi to give her a peck on the big toe and swapped places with her companion. The last girl was the youngest of them, the “Carrie” who’d been mentioned earlier. She had big green eyes and delicate pale skin peppered with freckles.
She gave Bobbi a toothy, almost kind smile when they first caught each other’s gaze. Then Bobbi looked away in shame as she'd done with the others.
Slowly, she lowered one foot off her perch for Bobbi to kiss. But as soon Bobbi moved for it, she swung it out of reach and giggled maliciously. Her voice was light and airy. She sounded like she was enjoying herself. Slowly, she again extended her foot. And again, she teased Bobbi by preventing her from fulfilling Manheim’s command.
Finally, she lowered both feet and basked in the subsequent attention, first stroking, then petting the top of Bobbi’s head in contented condescension.
There was a ringing as Manheim’s phone came alive.
“Who is this?” He asked as Bobbi kissed the petite girl’s pale, slender feet. Bobbi lifted her eyes and chanced a look at her last tormentor. The girl smiled back and tightened her grip on Bobbi’s hair, digging her manicured nails into Bobbi’s scalp. Realizing she’d displeased her, Bobbi lowered her eyes and felt the pain replaced with gentle strokes and purrs of pleasure, accompanied by the occasional giggles of her nearby comrades.
“What?! Fine…I’ll be there soon.” There was a click of a phone being hung up.
“Bobbi…” She lifted her head again and twisted to look at him, despite the pain it put on her breasts.
He looked pissed. “I’ve got something I need to do. While I am gone, you will obey Esper and participate in tonight’s performance. However, until practice resumes…you will eat every one of these girls out, understand?”
Bobbi nodded, slowly. (BOBBI: +1 SP)(+90 SP) Even as she did, she felt the tug on the chain of the chief harpy returning her attention to Carrie’s feet.