The Gathering Storm

This is the seventh episode of the Tiger's Eye series.

Sasha stood on the street corner, looking out over the skyline of Tel Aviv. She looked at the skyscrapers, and beyond them the afternoon sunlight reflecting off the waters of the Mediterranean. She stood there in her skintight black outfit, and she glanced down at her wrist. Sasha glanced at the time: less than five minutes now until her intended kidnap victim would arrive at this street corner.

It was a beautiful warm sunny day, but Sasha found herself shivering. It's creepy, really, when you think of it. How could a scanner know in advance, precisely to the very second, exactly when a man answering to a certain physical description would arrive at this street corner? No matter how many sex slaves I've kidnaped, I never get used to it. Somehow a woman in the Tiger's Eye, floating suspended in a sensory deprivation tank, was able to scan thousands of potential handgag victims, and zero in on one man, who would be arriving at this street corner in exactly... 4 minutes and 37 seconds now... 36... 35... 34... 33...

Those scanners, their clairvoyance, their precognition... gives me the creeps! At 2 minutes 12 seconds and counting, a man came out the door of a shop up the street. Looks like he fits the profile. Black hair, receding hairline, pointed jaw, late 20s, slender build. Short, height around 165 centimeters...

Sasha looked away from him, fixed her eyes on the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him walking down the block... toward her... looked like he'd get to the corner sooner than expected... but then he paused and was standing there, reading posters on a bulletin board: the club scene, techno trance music, Tuesday night, cover charge... After a minute the man turned and resumed walking toward her. Sasha glanced one last time at her watch: 5... 4... 3... 2... Here we go!

"Hey there, handsome! How you doin'?" The man turned his head and looked in startlement at Sasha. Startled at this hot sexy young woman in black, standing on a street corner and boldly speaking to him... He was startled, and then quite obviously turned on, at the sight of this hot shapely young twenty-something Israeli girl, Sasha, her long black ponytail, her dark piercing eyes, her pale white skin... Sasha, a ravishing beauty in black spandex, a young Russian Jewish Israeli girl coming on to a total stranger here on this street corner...

The man looked at Sasha, stupefied, and in an instant she jumped on him, clamped her large smooth soft strong hand TIGHT over his mouth. "Mmmmmmmmh! MMMMMMMMHHH!! Mmmmmhh, mmmmmm hhhmmmmm mmmmmmm, mmmmmmhh! Mmmmmmh, HHMMMM'MMMMMMMH!" She had him from behind, her big powerful feminine left hand squeezed like a tight steel spring over his mouth and nose, her right arm locked across his chest and upper arms. "Mmmmmmmmh, hhhm mmmmmmhhh... MMMM, MMMMMMMHH! MMMMMM, MMMMMHHHH!!"

The man was jerking and thrashing in Sasha's tight embrace, trying to scream from behind her tight smothering hand. But he couldn't break free, no matter how wildly he struggled against her. "Mmmmmmhh, MMMM MM GGHHHHWWW!! Mmmm hmmmm mmmmmmmmmhh!" His head tossed back and forth, he squirmed in Sasha's arms, he was panicking, she could feel his heart pounding, pounding, pounding in his chest beneath her arm. "Mmmmmhhh, hhmmmm mmmm ggghhhhwwwww!! Mmmmh... mmmh, mmmh, mmhhh..." He was trying in vain to reach up and tug on her hand over his mouth and nose, but she had his arms pinned down so he couldn't, and Sasha was much taller and stronger than this weak man, so he just couldn't get away, no matter how hard he twisted and fought and barked and groaned in her tight invincible smothering grasp. He just couldn't get away from her, he just COULDN'T!

"Mmmmmhh... mmmm, hhmmmm ghhmmm...... mmmmmhhh.... wwmmmmm, hhhhhmmmmmh......." Besides, Sasha was Sayeret Matkal, so this man didn't stand a chance. Back before Sasha became a mistress in the Tiger's Eye, she had been a seasoned commando in Sayeret Matkal, the elite top secret Israeli special ops unit. So Sasha knew how to hold and subdue and smother a man with her bare hands, and this man couldn't possibly break free from her.

"Mmmmmhh........ mmmh........." The man was almost smothered now. He was making a few weak noises from behind Sasha's large soft warm smoothbacked athletic shapely young woman hand, clamped oh so tight over his mouth and nose. "mmmmhhhh......" Jerk, squirm, twitch... His eyelids fluttered shut. Sasha tossed her black ponytail in satisfaction, glanced up at the skyline of Tel Aviv, kept him wrapped in her tight squeezing smothering embrace until she was sure he was out.

Then Sasha finally took her smooth strong oversized hand away from the man's face, and she dragged him around the corner. She dragged his unconscious body down the sidewalk to a black van parked by the curb. The side door of the van slid open. Inside were two other women in black.

"Well," said Sasha, "here's one more sex slave for the Tiger's Eye!" She lifted the man into the van, and the door slid shut behind them.

A couple of minutes later the door of the van slid open again, and Sasha stepped out, now dressed no longer in skintight black, but rather in a stylish print blouse and coral skirt, with a purse slung over her shoulder. She reached back into the van and lifted out a small suitcase. "I'll leave it to you girls to take that guy back to the safe house."

"Will do. Have a good time on shore leave!"

"I will," said Sasha. "Forty-eight hours, relaxing at a boutique hotel. And I'm quite familiar with the night life here in Tel Aviv, too. See ya!"

The van pulled away from the curb. Sasha walked back up the sidewalk and around the corner. She walked almost a block before she hailed a taxi.

"Take me to the Hotel Indigo."

Meanwhile in the Tiger's Eye, Amy was wrestling with Dave in her living room. "Mmmmmhhh, mmmmmm hmmmmm, mmmmmmmhh! Mmmmm HHHMMMMMHH!!" Amy had Dave wrapped up tight in her arms and legs, struggling and rolling around on the floor, with her huge smooth squareish powerful young woman hand clamped hard over his mouth and nose and the entire lower two-thirds of his face. "Mmmmmmhhh!! MMMMMMMMMMHH!!" Dave was reaching up, tugging and pulling with both hands on Amy's large warm steely-strong hand locked over his face. But Amy was too strong for him, and Dave couldn't budge her large facesmothering hand, no matter how hard he strained and pulled. Dave couldn't breathe, Amy was smothering him: of course, here in the Tiger's Eye that was no problem, breathing was optional.

"MMMMMHHH! Mmmmmh mmmmm hhmmmm mmmmmh!" Amy had Dave wrapped up and immobilized, shut up with her hand fastened tight over his mouth, and he couldn't get away. Amy was strong and athletic, she'd been a college basketball star, and then she enlisted in the United States Marines where she'd been involved in some very hush-hush missions in Afghanistan, special ops, leading a team in Force Recon. Against a deadly sexy young woman like Amy, an ordinary man like Dave didn't stand a chance...

Knock, knock! Knock, knock, knock! Amy said, "Margie, could you get the door? I'm busy with Dave right now."

Amy held Dave tight on the living room floor, her hand squeezed hard over his mouth, but they stopped wrestling for a minute as Amy's housekeeper Margie answered the door.

When Dave saw who was at the door, his heart shot into adrenalin overdrive. Oh no... it's Anne! Anne stood there in the doorway, the entire lower half of her face heavily bandaged over with white cloth medical tape. There was a dull anguished look in Anne's eyes, as she went "Mmmmmmmmmhh!" from behind the tape.

"Oh, why Anne, it's so good to have you back home again!" Amy's voice was bright and chipper, but suddenly her hand squeezed even tighter, TIGHTER, painfully TIGHT over Dave's mouth. "Look, Anne's back from the hospital," said Amy. "You've missed Anne while she was in the hospital... haven't you, Dave?" Dave squirmed in Amy's tight wrestling hold, his insides churning in terror and mounting panic.

"Margie," said Amy, "could you please remove the tape from Anne's face?" Dave felt light-headed in Amy's extra-tight handgag. He could see Margie had gone pale as a sheet. Margie's hands were trembling as she slowly, with some difficulty, peeled the tapegag away from the young blonde English woman's face. And then Anne stood there, her face untaped--

Dave's heart was pounding, pounding fit to explode. He didn't want to look at Anne's face, but he forced himself. Dave made himself look at Anne's face, poor innocent Anne's face...

Anne had no mouth.

Anne stood there, mouthless, unable to speak. Anne no longer had any mouth on her face. She would never be able to speak again. Anne had no mouth, nothing but smooth blank featureless skin between her nose and her chin. Anne had no mouth. There was nothing there any more on Anne's face, because Anne's mouth had been taken away. And now Anne, poor Anne, was permanently mouthless...

A casual cruel suggestion from Juliette, the head of the Tiger's Eye: My, such a pretty girl! Has Amy ever considered that this girl might look better with her mouth surgically sealed shut? Well, you tell Amy I said this girl might look better with her mouth sealed shut...

And now Dave lay there in Amy's unbreakable tight handgagging grip, there on the living room floor, as he forced himself to look at poor mouthless Anne, back from her surgery at the hospital.

Anne raised her hands and gestured in the air, she gestured at Amy and Dave. "MMMMMMMMHHHH! Mmmmmmmmhh, mmmmmmmmh hhhmmmmmmh! HMMMMMMHHH! Mmmmmh, HHHMMMMMMMHH!!" The mouthless girl gesticulated, and made meaningless frantic mouthless noises, her eyes brimming with tears. "Mmmmmmmh, mmmmmm hmmmm MMMMMMMMMHH!!!" Anne had no mouth, and she was trying to scream.

Amy started wrestling with Dave again, this time twisting and squeezing him PAINFULLY tight in her arms and legs, wrenching and crushing him, harsh, rough, brutal. Dave could tell Amy was furious, and she was taking it out on him, squeezing his mouth even tighter beneath her brutal large smooth athletic military womanly hand. Amy was as hard and tough as they came, a popular rising mistress in the Tiger's Eye; and yet even Amy didn't dare disobey a "suggestion" from Juliette.

Dave knew Amy was furious at herself, furious at Juliette, over Anne's mouthlessness. Amy started ripping and tearing Dave's shirt into shreds, ripping his shirt off him with her bare hand, as she handgagged him TIGHT and ground him down hard into the carpeting, rugburn as a prelude to extremely ROUGH SEX.

In Tel Aviv, Sasha was sitting at one of the small tables out in front of the Hotel Indigo. She watched the traffic going by, as she reached down underneath the seat of the chair on which she was sitting... Fishing around... There! Sasha kept her eye on the traffic as her hand loosened a plastic card which was fastened underneath the chair seat; and then she brought the card up, concealed in the palm of her large hand, and she furtively dropped it into her purse. Without even looking, Sasha knew what it was: a keycard to one of the rooms in this hotel.

Sasha sat at the table for another several minutes, and then she got up. She picked up her suitcase, and walked in the front door of the Hotel Indigo.

She walked up to the desk in the lobby. "Hi, I've got a room reserved, one person for two nights."

"Your name?"

"Sasha Kaminskaya."

"Yes, Kaminskaya, here it is. One person, two nights, standard room with queen bed, nonsmoking." The girl at the desk brought up Sasha's reservation on her computer screen. "Would you like to put this on your credit card?"

"Yes, please." Sasha completed the registration, and the girl handed her a little cardboard folder with two keycards to her room. Sasha glanced down: 401. Sasha had room 401.

Sasha carried her suitcase across the hotel lobby. She took the elevator up to the fourth floor. She stepped out of the elevator... and then, instead of turning toward her own room, room 401, she turned the other way and walked in the opposite direction down the hall.

Sasha purposely walked the wrong way down the hall. She noticed that the hotel security camera in this hallway was vandalized, nonfunctional. I'm sure that's no accident; thank you, Titus. The Tiger's Eye was everywhere these days, watching, monitoring, like Edward Snowden's worst nightmare. Hacking into hotel security cameras was not at all unlikely, especially if a mistress from the Tiger's Eye had a room reservation here during her shore leave. I can't be too careful.

Sasha stopped at the far end of the hall, in front of room 406. She fished in her purse for that hotel keycard she'd retrieved from underneath the chair out in front of the hotel. She slipped the card into the door and pulled it back out again. The little green light blinked. Sasha opened the door, and stepped through into room 406.

In the hotel room, a man was sitting behind a desk. A man with short dark hair, wearing a uniform... the uniform of the Israeli special forces unit, Sayeret Matkal.

Sasha approached the desk, stood at attention, and gave the man a crisp salute. "Sir, Captain Sasha Kaminskaya, reporting."

"At ease, captain... Sasha, it's good to see you again!"

"And it's good to see you, Titus. I've missed you! By the way, congratulations on your promotion. Lieutenant Colonel Titus Barak... Here's my full report on the Tiger's Eye." Sasha reached into her purse, and retrieved a USB thumb drive which she laid on the desk.

"Hmmmmmm... I should tell you, Sasha, the Prime Minister himself has been following your mission with interest. How's your work going? What's your overall assessment of the Tiger's Eye?"

"Things are going fine. I'm well established as a handgagging mistress in the Tiger's Eye. They've got immense resources, Titus. A few thousand mistresses, and they've got a financial sector the size of Germany's. Wealth and investments, they're exerting a lot of influence around the world behind the scenes. And their technology... subtle differences in physical laws in the Tiger's Eye, they've leveraged it into capabilities you can't imagine. Teleportation, clairvoyance, endless free energy, virtual immortality.

"Titus, this woman Juliette, the Tiger's Eye is her project, her vision... she's been running and building that place for fifty years now, and she still looks to be in her twenties. Strong, cold, ruthless, very formidable. Think of a young female Vladimir Lenin. She was a Sixties radical, and she's built an entire society created in her own kinky handgag image."

"How much of a threat are they?"

"The Tiger's Eye is progressing rapidly. Their wealth, their power, their tech. Stopping them today would be difficult. Another five or ten years, and there will be no power on earth able to stop the Tiger's Eye. Either we stop the Tiger's Eye now, or else some day soon they will hold the entire world in the palm of their hand."

"You're exaggerating!"

"No. We stop them, or the hidden Handgag will rule the world."

"Then we've got to take over the Tiger's Eye before they get too powerful. You know what our government thinks, Sasha? If, God forbid, things go nuclear here in the Middle East, the Tiger's Eye could become Israel's new Masada: a final place of retreat, a hidden fortress that will never fall."

"If we can wrest control of the Tiger's Eye from Juliette first. If someone else doesn't beat us to it."

"What about that American mistress? The Marine?"

"Captain Amy Wilson? She's the very best of the best, a real warrior. But my assessment is, she's on her own. She's no longer connected to the US military."

"Hmmmm... yes, intelligence indicates the United States has no clue. The Russians have theories, but you destroyed their hard evidence before they knew about it. We were just lucky, Sasha, that we had an officer in Sayeret Matkal who happened to have just exactly the same rare handgag fetish that the Tiger's Eye is always looking for..."

Sasha slinked around behind the desk. Her large smooth pale vanilla hands began kneading and massaging the man's shoulders. "Titus, we were lucky you were already familiar with my... uh, kinky fetish..." Sasha's huge smooth beautiful white left hand draped itself over his mouth, and then she tightened up her hand in a sudden squeeze-grip.

"Mmmmmmhhh... mmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmhhh..." The eyes of Lieutenant Colonel Titus Barak, of the elite Israeli special forces unit Sayeret Matkal, went dreamy, and he moaned in ecstasy at Sasha's strong firm mouth-hold. "Mmmmmmmhhh.... mmmmmmmmmhh!" He squirmed and made muffled noises as Sasha's other hand unbuttoned his shirt and reached down inside.

"Oh Titus, Titus my love... yes, there's no other way we could ever have gotten in... the Tiger's Eye is founded and built on the urges of female hand-over-mouth..." Sasha was bent over, kissing his neck, holding her lovely silky smooth hand tight over his mouth. "Oh... Titus, I see you've already turned down the bed covers..."

Sasha stood Titus up out of his chair. She held and hugged and squeezed him, holding his mouth tight shut in her hand, kissing him, undressing him, keeping him handgagged as she maneuvered him across the hotel room toward the bed.

Meanwhile it was early in the morning in a back alley in San Francisco, where Amy was wrestling with a man she held tightly handgagged. "MMMMMMMMHHH!! Mmmmm hmmmm mmmmmmh, mmmmmmm HHHMMMMMMMH!!!" The man struggled wildly, and he was quite an armful! "MMMMMMMMMMHH!!" Early morning, and he was already drunk. And ornery! "MMMMMMHHH! Mmmmhh, mmmmmm HHHHHMMMM!! Mmmh, MMMMMMMMMM!" This man might be a homeless bum, dead drunk, but there was something about the way he fought back... a veteran... Amy could tell, this man had combat experience.

"Mmmmmmhh, mmmm wmmmm mmmmm, GGGHHHHH'MMHH!!" Amy held him from behind, her left hand clamped tight over his mouth, nose pressed shut beneath her thumb, her right arm wrapped around his waist and keeping his arms pinned fast to his sides. "Uhhhhhhhh!" Amy's breath was knocked out of her, as the man rammed her back against the side of a dumpster. Her camo jacket took the brunt of the blow, but that stung! "Mmmmmhhh... mmmmmhh, mmm hmmmm mmmmmhhh!! MMMMMMHHH!"

"All right, Mister Asshole Wino..." Amy forced the man down onto his knees in the alley, sat down on his calves from behind. No more dumpster hockey! "Now I'm really gonna smother you!"

"Mmmhhh... mmmmmhhh..." The man twisted and bucked in Amy's arms, drunk, now fading, but still full of fight. "Mmmmmhhh....." Amy bent his head back hard against her shoulder, her big warm strong hand pulling back and down savagely tight on his mouth and face. "Mmmmmh, gghhh mmmmmhhh......"

Amy held the man tightly handgagged as he twitched and passed into unconsciousness. How did the scanner ever select a loser like this?! A homeless drunken bum in a back alley... Still, the scanners were usually not mistaken. Usually! Though when they were...

Also, this sex slave was for Heather, and Amy knew Heather liked rough trade.

Amy stood up, removed her powerful gagging hand from the man's face, got him under his arms and dragged him down the alley, 180 pounds of dead weight. A black van pulled up and stopped at the entrance to the alleyway, and the side door slid open. Amy lifted the man into the van. The door slid shut.

A few minutes later the door of the van opened again, and Amy stepped out, dressed now in sunglasses, a nondescript white blouse, and tight blue jeans. "Well, back to the Tiger's Eye with him. Watch out, he's rough!"

"No problem," said Audrey from inside the van. "He stirs, and I'll hold my hands tight over his face! Only... pee-euuuuwww, he smells!"

"Yeah, well, he's Heather's type. But be careful, he's dangerous!"

"'Kay. Have a good shore leave, Amy!"

"I will. Take good care of my lucky jacket. See you in a few!"

And with that, Amy turned and walked off down the street, walking the streets of San Francisco. She breathed in the fresh air, looked up at the bright morning sun in the sky. Shore leave: Amy could see the wisdom behind it, reward the more successful mistresses by letting them off their leash once in a while. Avoid a repeat of that godawful incident with Sharrah and Walter. Still, what was chiefly on Amy's mind was that this shore leave meant a chance to start getting her revenge on that bitch Juliette!

Amy walked until she came to some cute clothing shops. She walked into one, looked at some outfits on a rack. Then Amy took one outfit into a dressing room with her.

When she emerged from the dressing room a minute later, Amy's face was subtly altered. A more pointed nose, a broader jaw. It wasn't much, but this plus the sunglasses was enough to throw off any facial recognition software.

Back onto the street, and Amy caught a ride over to Berkeley via Bay Area Rapid Transit. She walked to campus. University of California-Berkeley. The anthropology department. Amy poked around in the department. She was looking at a signboard listing of professors' offices when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a man standing beside her.

Amy turned and looked at the elderly man, tweed jacket, suede elbow patches: must be a professor, looked sort of like kindly old Professor Tolkien. "Ummmmm, pardon me," said Amy, "but I was just passing by the anthropology department, and I was curious. My aunt did her Ph.D. in anthropology here back in the 60s. And I was just wondering..."

"Oh... well, there wouldn't be many that would remember the anthro department back in those days, but just possibly I might've known her." The man gave a shy smile. "I joined this department back in '63."

"Oh! Say... I haven't introduced myself. My name is Erin," said Amy.

"Winters. Joel Winters. Good to meet you, Erin." Amy offered her huge female college athlete hand, and it dwarfed and completely engulfed the professor's hand in a firm tight handshake.

"Yes, my aunt started grad school here I think in '63. She defended her dissertation in 1968. Did you know... Juliette Evans?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, Juliette Evans, I served on Juliette's dissertation committee!"

"Oh, you knew my aunt then!"

"Yes, I knew Juliette. Very promising scholar. Cutting edge, ahead of her time, I remember her research on the culture of small sexually utopian communities. How their sexuality served to bind them together, what proved sustainable in them and what didn't, you know."

"Oh, is that what my aunt Juliette wrote on? I never knew that."

"Yes, there was a Gang of Three, three young women, grad students in this department. They were all interested in that field of research, the organizing of small utopian communities founded on the basis of different sexualities. Juliette and two other women, what were their names? Oh, and I remember Juliette had a boyfriend, his name was Walter, and I remember she was always putting her hand over his mouth to shut him up all the time! It was sort of a little custom in that clique, all three of those women were always hand-shushing someone..."

Amy talked with the old professor for quite a while. She pumped him for information about her "aunt" Juliette, and the old man was pleased to be such a center of attention as he dredged up old memories of times gone by. At last Amy excused herself and bid him a good day.

Next, Amy searched through the library stacks, until she found where the bound copies of dissertations were housed. She located the black buckram volume which read on its spine:

EVANS, JULIETTE M. -- PH.D. -- 1968

Amy took Juliette's dissertation to a study carrel, where she flipped through it: The Marquis de Sade versus Plato's Republic: A Survey of Early Sexually Utopian Communities in California. So even back then, Juliette was thinking, studying, planning out the Tiger's Eye...

Amy took her cell phone, and photographed the entire dissertation page by page. Afterwards she found and photographed the dissertations of Sharrah MacLeod and Beth Scheineger.

Evening found Amy looking for a release after a long day spent tracking down information about Juliette. Amy hit a bar in San Francisco, a big crowded noisy place. Good, evidently something of a meat market. A young slight dark-haired man ventured to strike up a conversation with Amy. Her interest in him grew when she learned that he'd never been to this bar before, and he was here alone, no friends along with him.

Amy let him think he was getting somewhere with her. She let him paw, kiss, nuzzle her. He was breathing heavily: good, he wouldn't be thinking straight. "Hey," said Amy, "why don't we go back to my place?" The man's eyes lit up. He thought this was his lucky night.

As Amy let them in the side door of the safe house, the man was almost hanging off of her, half drunk. He shoved her back up against the refrigerator, mashed his lips up against hers, thrust his tongue into her mouth. "Hey there! Lemme muzzle that mouth a minute, 'kay?" Amy pushed him away, clamped her large smooth soft strong powerful female hand tight over his mouth.

"Mmmmmhhh... Mmmmmm wwmmmm hhmmmmmmh!!" The man was obviously enjoying how Amy suddenly had his mouth handclamped tight shut.

"No, I'm not letting go of your mouth! You need a muzzle! Do you like that? Do you like having me hold your mouth shut?"

"Mmmmmmm, hhhmmmmm MMMMMMMHH!" The man mutely nodded his head.

"Well, then let's go into the living room. I'm going to keep you muzzled. You need to be permanently muzzled with my hand!"

"Mmmmmmm.... Mmmmhhh, MMMHH! Mmmmmmh, HMMMMHH!" The man seemed delighted at Amy's dominant behavior as she walked him across the living room, handgagged, and sat him down on the couch. She sat beside him, and clamped her other hand in place. Now she was holding his mouth tight shut with both hands, her left hand over her right hand over his tightly hand-muzzled mouth. "Mmmmmmmhhh, mmmmmm hmmmmmm!" He reached up and started pawing, feeling, gently tugging on Amy's hands. But she wouldn't let him go, and she wouldn't stop holding his mouth.

"You see? I've got really big hands, and I played basketball in college, so I'm really, really strong, and then I was in black ops in the Marines, over in Afghanistan, and I learned how to silence and smother a man with my bare hands. Do you think you can get away from me?"

"Mmmmmhh, mmmm mmmm hmmmmm. MMMMMMMHH!"

"Let's say I'm not going to let you go no matter what, and you've got to get away before I smother you and black you out." Amy suddenly squeezed her huge smoothbacked strong young woman hands HARD and TIGHT over the man's mouth, and she brought her thumbs down hard on the bridge of the man's nose, so he couldn't breathe at all.

"Mmmmmm, wwwmmmm hmmm mmmhhh... MMMMMMMHHH, MMMH MMMM GGGHHMMMMMWW! MMMMMHHH!" The man was reaching up, pulling, prying, yanking on Amy's hands, at first not so hard, and then harder, harder, harder, as if it was only slowly sinking into his head that this girl wasn't kidding, she really was going to smother him with her gigantic smooth strong tightmuzzling hands. "MMMMMMMMHH! MMMMMMMM HHHMMMMMM!!" The man was pulling and prying hard on Amy's hands, now frantic, terrified, but it was no use, she was much, much too strong for him. "MMMMMMMHHH! MMMMMMMMMMHH!!!" His whole body started bucking, thrashing, jerking wildly, but Amy just kept holding his mouth, shutting him up tight in a strong cruel unbreakable two-handed handsmother!

Kick, CRACK, SMASH! The man's legs sent the coffee table flying across the floor, shattered, broken to flinders. "What's wrong? Can't you get away from me? Am I too strong for you? Can't you talk? Can't you breathe? Can't you get away from a big strong amazon girl like me?"

"Mmmmmhhh... MMMMMMMMMHH! Mmmmmhh.... mmmmmhhh...." The man was still squirming, mmmphing, reaching up and pulling on Amy's mammoth smooth tightlocked smothering hands. Amy was grinning, because she could see he was fading. He was beginning to black out. "mmmmhhh......" Like dying embers, the man went out. He lay quiet and still, up against Amy on the couch, with her gigantic hands still hardclamped over his mouth.

After a while, as if it was a casual afterthought, Amy took her hands away from the smothered man's face. She checked to see if he was breathing. Good. Amy got up and dragged him across the living room floor like a sack of potatoes.

She dropped his unconscious body in front of the bedroom door. There was a pushbutton combination door lock, and Amy carefully punched a sequence of numbers into it, 3, 2, 2, 4, 5... She opened the door. Inside, the bedroom was empty, except for several orange road cones set around the room, and against one wall, a rack of electronics.

Amy dragged the man into the room and dropped him in the middle of the floor. She made sure his arms and legs were inside the perimeter of the road cones. Then she thumbed one of the components in the rack to life, and it lit up: a communications module.

"Roxanne? Hi, this is Amy, I'm in a safe house in San Francisco, the one near Lafayette Park. Still on shore leave. Uh, I picked up a guy in a bar tonight, brought him back here, played a little handsmothering game with him. Yeah, he's out cold. Anyhow, I figured we could always use another sex slave somewhere in the Tiger's Eye. So if you'll just wait till I'm out of the room and close the door...

"Oh, and Roxanne? If you could send housekeeping around in the morning, we're gonna need a new coffee table for the living room, he kicked the hell out of the old one. 'Kay. Thanks. See you."

Amy walked back out of the bedroom, closed the door behind her, careful to make sure the latch clicked shut. Then she looked down at her feet, momentarily illuminated by a flash of light from beneath the bedroom door. Good; that fellow was in the Tiger's Eye now.

Amy walked back into the living room, kicked off her shoes, lay down and stretched out on the couch. She started drifting off. Tomorrow? Look into some old property records, see if a certain piece of land up in the mountains east of the Bay Area was still registered in the name of Juliette Evans, or one of several known aliases or proxies. A piece of land; a small cabin; and underneath the cabin, a natural portal into the Tiger's Eye.

Thank you, Walter, thought Amy as she drifted off to sleep. Couldn'ta done it without you...

The next day in the Tiger's Eye, Sasha appeared in a sudden flash of light in the gymnasium. Roxanne's voice was intoning over the comm system: "...incoming party of one has gated through from Tel Aviv on platform two."

Back from shore leave already! Sasha looked around her in the gymnasium. To the right of her, standing inside another rectangle painted on the floor, were two women in... deep sea diving suits? No, space suits. They had some sort of equipment with them. Sasha waved, and the women waved back. To the other side, in a third rectangle, Sasha saw something no bigger than a fire hydrant, like some kind of tiny communications satellite...

Sasha headed circuitously for the door, careful to give the other rectangles a wide berth. As she walked through the door into the atrium, Sasha heard Roxanne over the comm: "Platform one is ready. Outgoing party of two gating through on platform one, bound for Europa. Portal will open in three, two, one, MARK!"

Light flashed from the gymnasium behind Sasha. She walked over to the open doorway of the office where Roxanne was still busy logging the event: "Platform one is clear. Party of two has gated through to the surface of Europa... Brittany? Ashley? Are the heaters in your suits working okay? Good! Oh, and Jupiter, how does it look close up? How much of the sky does Jupiter fill? Oh, jeeeeez!"

Roxanne glanced up. "Sasha, hi. Was shore leave good?"

"Oh yeah, I just relaxed and pampered myself." Sasha's heart did a flipflop. Jupiter?! Europa, as in Europa, a moon of Jupiter??!

"Ummmmm, this next one, you were on shore leave when we broadcast the alert, but you want to brace yourself. Opening this portal, the kick is gonna be felt all through the Tiger's Eye."

Sasha groaned. "That's happened several times now this past month. It's getting to be a nuisance!"

"Well, you'd better get used to it, this is something new. Really new! Dr. Maslenkov, he's a genius!" Roxanne moved her beautiful hands over the control panels as if she were playing in an organ recital. "Brace yourself! Platform three is ready, instrument package gating through on platform three, bound for Tau Ceti. Portal will open in three, two, one-- OOOOOOFFF!"

Sasha doubled over as if she'd been kicked in the gut by a mule. She heard Roxanne's voice: "Platform three is clear. Instrument package has gated through to the Tau Ceti star system. Data channels are open and recording, maintaining connection via quantum entanglement."

"That was quite a kick!"

"Well, it's a function of mass times distance. It's a helluva drain on the Tiger's Eye, sending that probe twelve light years to Tau Ceti. But listen, Sasha! All this is brand new! Juliette says the Tiger's Eye will soon be establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars. Imagine, at the rate we're advancing, where the Tiger's Eye will be in just another few years! Isn't it exciting?!"

Sasha walked back to her house under a cloud. Another few years? No, Titus, I wasn't exaggerating. The Tiger's Eye needs to be stopped, and soon. Or else the hidden Handgag will rule the world.