“Keep the change,” Percival De Saum told his Uber driver, handing him a crisp note before clambering out of the passenger seat.

“Are you sure you wanna stop here, buddy?” the driver, Nate, called after him. It was not an unreasonable question - Percival had hired the Uber fifteen minutes ago and simply told Nate to drive around, seemingly without a destination in mind. Then, as they approached a row of extravagant beachfront houses, the man had asked him to pull over.

Percival gave him a pleasant smile. There was no way of telling if it reached his eyes, because he was wearing sunglasses. “Quite sure, thank you,” he replied in a well-mannered English accent, and closed the car door.

Nate shrugged. Whatever, he thought as he began to drive away. This was followed by, what kinda freak keeps his shades on at 10pm? Who does he think he is, the guy from Luke Cage?

Not sparing the departing Uber another glance, Percival strolled up to the nearest house. Much like its neighbours, it reminded him of a Greek villa. The owners clearly had money to burn.

Percival was new in town, and was looking for somewhere to stay until he found a place of his own. He was not the type to check into a cheap motel, or even a fancy hotel - he only settled for the best. He believed he had found it.

Approaching the heavy iron gates at the front of the house, he noticed that they were slightly ajar - though not enough for anyone to notice unless they got close. That seemed peculiar, especially as there were no cars in the driveway. Why would a wealthy family leave their property unprotected?

Perhaps they have a more comprehensive security system, he thought. Or perhaps they’re so rich, they don’t care if anything’s stolen. That option seemed less likely - in his experience the wealthiest debutante protected their belongings as fiercely as the poorest vagrant - but it mattered little to him either way.

Walking purposefully up to the front door, he rapped smartly on the varnished brown wood. Then he took off his sunglasses, tucking them into the pocket of his long black coat.

And he waited, calmly and patiently, counting to a hundred in his head. There was no rush. If nobody answered, he would see if he could break in.

***

Inside, the atmosphere was significantly more fraught.

At the sound of the front door, Olivia’s eyes widened. She made a couple of frantic grunting noises and struggled to move, banging the legs of the chair she was tied to against the floor. Unfortunately, any significant sound they might have made was muffled by the carpet.

Her captor was having none of it. The young woman half-ran across the living room and seized Olivia by the throat, eliciting a terrified squeak. “One more noise and you’re dead,” she hissed, holding up the wickedly-sharp knife clutched in her other hand.

With no reason to believe she wouldn’t follow through on the threat, Olivia immediately went quiet, closing her eyes in despair. Tears trickled down each cheek.

Peyton Ross stepped back, anxiously scratching the back of her neck as she pondered whether to answer the door. This night was not going as she’d planned at all. She had been staking out the entire street for the past three weeks, and had made two discoveries. Firstly, the Wallace family were probably the richest of a rich bunch - a handful of their valuables were most likely expensive enough to significantly improve Peyton’s life. And secondly, they would soon be going on vacation. Idly, Peyton had wondered why people who lived in a giant house by the freaking beach needed to go on vacation, but, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she let the thought pass.

She had waited patiently for the family to leave. She had then waited a further two days to make sure they were really gone. Then, clad in traditional all-black burgling gear (complete with black beanie), she’d broken in - only to find the elder daughter, college student Olivia, had inexplicably stayed behind. After they exchanged screams of shock, Peyton had tackled Olivia to the kitchen floor and pulled a knife from a block on the nearby counter. The combination of her superior upper body strength and a sharp blade was sufficient threat to render Olivia weepily compliant, and she had allowed Peyton to secure her wrists to a wooden chair in the living room, using zip ties she had brought with her in case of emergency. (Peyton may not have been expecting anyone in the house, but she was smart enough to prepare for it anyway.)

Before making a move to tie up Olivia’s ankles as well, a sadistic thought had crossed her mind. She needed to gag her captive as well, but she didn’t really have anything to hand that could do the job. Grabbing Olivia’s light blue jeans, she’d pulled them down her legs and cast them aside. Olivia’s initial cries of protest and attempts to kick her away had stopped when Peyton brandished the knife again. The burglar had then removed Olivia’s black, lacy panties, holding them up towards her terrified face.

“Open wide,” she’d snarled.

Olivia reluctantly did as she was told, and Peyton shoved her underwear into her mouth. She had been met with a look of abject revulsion, as the captive blonde undoubtedly tasted her own nether regions on the flimsy garment. It was at that moment that Peyton had realised she had nothing with which to tape her prisoner’s mouth shut, so she’d searched the room quickly and then poked her head through to Mr. Wallace’s office. Spotting a roll of sticky tape on his desk, she’d shrugged and grabbed it. She would have preferred duct tape, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Maybe she’d come across some later.

With Olivia’s mouth secured shut, and her ankles zip-tied to the chair legs, Peyton had taken a minute to compose herself. The encounter had panicked her and thrown her off her game plan, but now that the immediate threat had been dealt with, she had seen no reason not to continue with the robbery. But after barely three minutes of raiding drawers and shelves in the living room for expensive knick-knacks - with a surprising amount of success, as the wealthy family had accumulated all sorts of valuable trinkets - there had been a knock at the door.

Peyton had felt her heart rate shoot back up, and it had stayed rapid in the half-minute since, as she frantically tried to decide what to do. Should she answer the door and dismiss whoever was there? Or should she stay quiet, hoping the visitor went away soon? Shooting a worried glance at Olivia, she debated the likelihood that the girl would disobey her orders and try to raise the alarm again. Despite being tied up and gagged, there was a slim chance she could make a loud enough noise to alert whoever was outside the front door. And if that happened, Peyton was fucked.

In her panic, Peyton made what she would (much, much) later describe as an extremely poor error of judgement. Waving the knife threateningly at Olivia one more time, she went to open the front door.

On the way, she took off her beanie and threw it to one side, allowing her brown, highlighted hair to cascade down her shoulders. Holding her right hand - clutching the knife - behind her back, she pulled the door open. A tall man with close-cropped hair, wearing a long black coat, was standing on the doorstep, gazing off to his left.

“Hi,” Peyton said breathlessly, prompting the man to turn his head to face her. “How can I he-”

***

Forty minutes passed. Olivia knew this because there was a clock on the mantlepiece. Though she wasn’t exactly unhappy that her captor had left her alone, she wondered what had happened to her. Presumably she’d got rid of whoever had been at the front door, and then resumed ransacking the rest of the house.

That suited Olivia fine. As long as Peyton wasn’t in the living room, she could work on trying to get free.

There was no way Peyton could’ve known that Olivia was still going to be in the house. Olivia didn’t have her own car - when she was at home, she usually borrowed her parents’ or her younger sister’s, and at college everything she needed was in walking distance - so of course the driveway was empty when the rest of her family left for their vacation. Olivia had declined to join them on the grounds that the vacation was to stay with her grandmother in Arizona. While she had no problem with her Meemaw, her bigoted uncle and cousin were another matter, and they were bound to be present. Olivia hadn’t felt she had the energy to put up with those racist, homophobic assholes for a whole week.

Had she known now that she’d be held captive in her own home by a girl barely older than her, she might have opted to put up with Fuckwit and Fuckwit Junior. C’est la vie.

Luckily, when Peyton had zip-tied her wrists and ankles, Olivia had had the presence of mind to tense her muscles, so that they swelled slightly. She’d read about that trick in a crime novel once, and once she relaxed the muscles, to her relief she found it had worked - there was a tiny gap between her and the rough plastic. It wasn’t biting into her flesh any more, but she was still a long way away from freedom. After ten minutes had passed without Peyton reappearing, Olivia had begun struggling and straining against the ties, trying to slip any one of her limbs free.

Finally, she managed to get her right arm free, and the zip tie immediately slid off her left wrist and fell to the carpet. She seized the strip of plastic tape covering her lips and pulled it free, suppressing an agonised groan as she did so. At least that bitch never found the duct tape, she reminded herself. That would’ve been so much worse. She spat her panties out disgustedly, wiping her mouth and her tongue. That had been unnecessarily cruel on her captor’s part - more than Peyton even knew. Nearly an hour ago, Olivia had been reading an erotic short story on the internet, and starting to masturbate, when she had heard a noise downstairs and gone to investigate, leading to her encounter with the intruder. So the panties in Olivia’s mouth had been lightly garnished with her pussy juices. She didn’t think her mouth would ever feel clean again, even if she brushed her teeth for five hours.

She pulled her jeans on quickly, not bothering to don the sodden underwear again. Then she tiptoed out of the living room, trying to move as quietly as she could for fear of alerting Peyton to her escape. All she needed to do was make it out of the front door, and then she could sprint for the gates, screaming all the way. She knew her next-door neighbours would be home, and would undoubtedly hear her and come to her aid.

She sneaked into the hallway that led past the open-plan kitchen and directly to the front door. She didn’t expect to see Peyton, assuming the burglar was upstairs raiding her mother’s jewellery. So the tableau that greeted her was even more of a shock than it otherwise would have been.

A tall man with short hair stood with his back to her in front of a counter in the kitchen, naked from the waist down. He was thrusting his pelvis up and into Peyton, who was perched at the end of the counter where it joined the white wall, against which her back was leaning. This put her at a slightly diagonal angle, which seemed awkward for sexual purposes, but the man seemed to be making the best of it. Her head was turned to her right, facing away from Olivia.

As she gaped at the scene, she briefly wondered if this man was Peyton’s lover and accomplice - if he had come to help her rob the house, and they had decided to have some extra fun. But the notion faded as she noticed even more peculiarities. Though the unknown man was clearly ploughing Peyton with vigour, she was giving absolutely no reaction. She was completely immobile. Her arms were stretched out to either side and hung rigidly in the air, like the arms of a Barbie doll that had been posed. Her black top was rolled up above her large, round breasts, which the man was massaging with his right hand, one after the other. Her black leggings hung from one of her feet, indicating that neither she nor her lover had bothered to remove them completely.

Other than the lack of any noise from her as the man fucked her and squeezed her tits, Peyton’s face was the oddest thing of all. Though she had been facing away from Olivia, the motion from the lower half of her body had gradually rocked her head round so that it was facing the front again. She wore an open-mouthed expression of bewilderment - an expression that stayed frozen as the seconds ticked by, not changing at all as Olivia watched. Grunting loudly, the man reached up with his left hand and seized Peyton by the left side of her face, firmly pushing her head back to the right. He kept on clutching the side of her head, pressing her right cheek against the wall, as he continued to pound her.

What the fuck? Olivia exclaimed silently. This had turned from the most terrifying night of her life into the most surreal.

Whatever this man had done to Peyton, she clearly wasn’t in any state to stop Olivia from escaping. So all she had to do was sneak past them both and then open the front door. That sound would inevitably be heard by the man, if not the mysteriously unresponsive woman, but Olivia knew she would be able to slip through the doorway and escape before he could pull his pants up. She took a tentative step forwards.

And knocked a brass umbrella stand with her knee, causing a loud clatter. The man froze mid-thrust at the sound.

Olivia cursed inwardly. I’ve been walking past that fucking thing with no problem for fifteen years.

There was nothing else for it - as the man started to pull out of Peyton and turn his head, Olivia began to make a run for it. She took one step - he was almost facing her - another - his eyes met hers - wow, they’re bright -

***

“My, my,” Percival whispered, surveying the newcomer with interest. She was a cute young blonde - he’d place her age at roughly twenty, though he could obviously look for some ID later and find out for sure - wearing a white tank top and blue jeans. A pity she’d been frozen with such a frightened expression, though considering the situation in which he’d found her, that was perhaps understandable. And he had to admit, he rather liked that she was caught mid-run - her arms hovering around her mid-section, her right leg out front and the other behind her.

It was rapidly becoming clear to him what exactly had been transpiring in the house before his arrival. After Peyton had answered the door and his magical gaze had frozen in place, he had stepped past her into the house, shutting the door behind him - and immediately saw the knife she held behind her back. He’d thought that odd, but put it down to paranoia about being burgled. However, as he had plucked the knife from her hand and placed it on the counter, he’d spotted the black beanie lying nearby. Then he’d taken in the rest of her attire, and begun to formulate a theory in his mind - that perhaps she wasn’t afraid that he was the intruder, but because she was.

However, he had no way of knowing for sure, so he dismissed the matter as one of life’s little mysteries and decided to make the best of the situation. Lowering the young woman to her knees, he’d pulled down and discarded his pants, opening her mouth and sticking his cock inside. He had then fucked her face for a good long while, gripping her by the hair as he thrusted her head and his pelvis together and then apart, over and over again. Once he’d finished, she had reflexively swallowed the cum without even closing her mouth - a neat little bonus he had discovered through extensively testing his powers. His paralysing vision seemed to freeze most of his victims’ instinctive responses - they didn’t flinch if they were struck, and they had no gag reflex - but some others remained, like breathing and swallowing. He considered that a good thing - apart from anything else, it prevented them from dying.

With the face-fucking finished, he’d lifted Peyton onto the kitchen counter. She had proven heavier than he’d anticipated, and he jokingly concluded that she carried most of the weight in her boobs and ass. This girl may be a potential criminal, but she had a gorgeous figure. He began slowly pleasuring her immobile body, working his way back up to a full erection over the course of about half an hour. He vaguely realised that other potential residents of the house could arrive at any time and catch him in this compromising position, but when you could freeze anyone and everyone with a mere glance, such risks were hardly a concern.

Case in point - this blonde girl who had suddenly emerged from deeper within the house. She’d tried to slip by him but inadvertently made a noise, and, well, that was it for her. As his eyes roamed over her body, he noted the marks on her wrists, which looked rather like they’d been tied up. So, that lent more credence to his home invader theory. Blondie should thank him, really. Of course, she’d have plenty of time to show her appreciation - not that she’d be aware of it.

But first things first, Percival told himself, returning his attention to Peyton. He was not one to leave a job unfinished, and it wasn’t as if Olivia was going anywhere. He inserted his cock back into Peyton’s entrance, which responded to his presence - even if the rest of her did not - by pulsating with sticky warmth. As he resumed fucking her with gusto, his hands roaming over her bare breasts, buttocks and thighs, he glanced back at Olivia. The fear on her face notwithstanding, she was a true beauty.

I think I’m going to like it here, he thought gleefully.

***

Five days later

Sure enough, Percival had thoroughly enjoyed his stay at the Wallace household. He had a great appreciation for luxury, and the family had not skimped on decorating the house, or on buying the fanciest of ornaments. No wonder Peyton had been so eager to rob the place.

Not that Percival even knew Peyton’s name - the girl had carried no ID, obviously. He called her ‘Cat’, for ‘cat burglar’. Olivia, on the other hand, he’d been able to identify from the myriad monogrammed possessions in her bedroom, even before he’d come across both her IDs (the real one, that gave her age as just under twenty, and the fake one, which claimed she was nearly 22). He’d very much enjoyed both their company, even if they weren’t exactly conversationalists - they could hardly be blamed for that, he reminded himself. And all he had to do to avoid an awkward confrontation with them was make sure he looked them in the eyes once a day, so that the magical energies within him could blaze into their visual cortexes and keep them frozen.

He’d also learned from a calendar on the wall of the family’s breakfast room that Olivia’s parents, seventeen-year-old sister and pre-teen brother were set to return six days after his arrival. Though he could easily petrify them if they caught him, he preferred not to - it would make matters unnecessarily complicated, and furthermore he tried to avoid using his powers on children wherever possible. So with some reluctance, he made plans to depart.

His last afternoon found him sitting on the huge cream couch that occupied much of the living room, watching Avengers: Endgame on the family’s huge flat-screen television. ‘Cat’ was standing to the right of the TV, her naked body posed elegantly. This wasn’t unusual - when he wasn’t using her and Olivia as sex toys, he turned them into pretty ornaments in various sites around the house, though usually on either side of the TV. Though Percival enjoyed the position he’d put Peyton in - it reminded him of statues of gods and goddesses, complementing the ‘Greek villa’ vibe he had observed when he first arrived at the house - he was less enthused about her face, which, though very pretty, was still stuck in that moronic frown she’d worn when he’d frozen her, giving her an expression reminiscent of a Neanderthal.

Similarly, Olivia wore the same look of confusion and fear she’d had for the past five days. She was currently sitting next to Percival on the couch, also completely nude, positioned as if she was watching the movie. As Thanos teleported into view on the screen and went to confront the Avengers, Percival glanced at Olivia’s face and chuckled. “Someone feels the right level of apprehension for the circumstances.”

He returned his attention to the movie, letting out a loud sigh of contentment. “This is the best part of my favourite film of all time,” he told the two frozen girls. They couldn’t hear him, he knew - it was their minds that were frozen, not their bodies. They’d be unaware of anything until the effects of his powers wore off.

“There’s only one thing that could make the next half-hour even better,” he declared, slipping off his pants. He took hold of Olivia’s shoulder and leaned her forwards, pivoting her entire body until she was no longer seated, but was instead lying across the sofa. Gripping her by the hair, he lowered her head towards his crotch and slipped her open mouth over his exposed, erect cock. He then began sliding her up and down, loving the feeling of her lips rubbing along his shaft.

He didn’t last all the way through the final, climactic battle of the movie, to his faint disappointment - he’d been hoping to time his orgasm to Iron Man’s pivotal snap, simply for the sheer ridiculous joy of it. “My dear, you are simply too good at your job!” he joked to Olivia, lying her on her side and allowing stray cum she hadn’t manage to reflexively swallow to trickle down his own legs.

Percival contemplated fucking Olivia properly once Endgame had finished, but by then it would be almost 11 PM - there simply wasn’t time. He planned to leave by midnight. He felt some regret about not having time to give her or Peyton ‘a proper sendoff’, but he reminded himself that he’d had dozens of opportunities to enjoy them over the past week. He happily recalled his first time with Olivia - it had been a nice surprise, bending her over this very couch and pulling down her jeans, to find she was not wearing panties. Easy access, he’d thought delightedly, as he thrust himself inside her.

After the film had finished, Percival poured a glass of water, lifted Olivia up from the couch, carried her bodily through to the kitchen, and leaned her over the sink. He then poured the water into her open mouth, rinsing out any remaining cum inside. Once this was done, he carried her to the bathroom, stood her inside the shower, and turned it on. After about ten minutes of letting the water cascade down her face and body, he removed her and brought Peyton through, repeating the process. He’d done this a couple of times already that week, and had always intended to do so before his departure, so they were left in a good condition. He had absolute power over these ladies - he had no reason not to treat them with care and ensure they were clean and undamaged at the end of their time together.

As he sat and watched the water run down Peyton’s body, his gaze flickered to the mirror, where he was met with the bright light that emitted from his irises. It didn’t have the same paralysing effect on him as it did on everyone else, much to his relief, and neither did the glare blind him, though he tried to avoid mirrors simply because the light irritated him. Not for the first time, he thanked the gods that his ancestor’s DNA had been diluted over the millennia - if he had been a full gorgon, his stare would petrify his victims’ bodies forever, rather than affecting only their minds and only for a short time, leaving their bodies pliant and poseable - much more user-friendly. More importantly, for a full-blooded gorgon, looking in a mirror would be a death sentence.

Once both his living dolls were cleaned to his satisfaction, he dressed them in the same tops and pants they had worn when he’d first arrived, though he didn’t bother trying to find their bras or panties. He even put Peyton’s beanie back on her head. Then he had a brief shower himself.

Packing his handful of belongings - some of which he’d brought with him in his coat pockets, and some of which were souvenirs from his time in the house - in a suitcase he had confiscated from Mr. Wallace’s office, he made for the front door, only to stop in his tracks. He turned and stared back into the living room, where Olivia and Peyton now stood in their usual positions by the TV. He tapped his lower lip thoughtfully, considering.

Perhaps I’ll just take care of one more thing before I leave...

He marched back into the room, seized Peyton by the waist and armpit, and carried her upstairs.

Ten minutes later, as midnight arrived, Percival exited the Wallace household through the front door, slipping his sunglasses back over his glowing eyes.

“Wonderful accommodation,” he said to himself as he strolled off into the night. “Ten out of ten. Would recommend.”

He walked for fifteen minutes to put some distance between himself and what would soon, no doubt, become a crime scene. Then he called Uber.

***

A note awaited the Wallace family on their kitchen counter:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wallace,

You have my gratitude for allowing me to make use of your home for the past five days. Your daughter Olivia has been most pleasant company, though I’m afraid she won’t be able to provide you with many details about me - for reasons that shall become apparent. Do not be alarmed by the condition you will find her in - the mental paralysis will wear off 24 hours after my departure, so hopefully she should be back to her normal, no doubt effervescent, self not long after your return.

I never normally leave any sign of my presence, aside from the obvious, but given the circumstances I felt you should have all the facts. Upon my arrival at your residence, there was a home invasion in progress. A young woman had broken in, most likely taking advantage of your absence to steal some valuables, and tied up poor Olivia. Needless to say, I made use of my particular talent to immobilise the intruder, and have been keeping her under close guard ever since.

The criminal, whom I have nicknamed ‘Cat’, is currently inside the Ottoman chest in your younger daughter’s bedroom - apologies to her, for I needed to evict many of her stuffed toys in order to clear sufficient space. Cat’s arms and legs are secured with zip ties - the same method she used to restrain Olivia, I might add - and to provide an extra level of security I have placed two full bookcases on top of the chest. It is unlikely that her own paralysis will wear off before your return, but in the event that it does, she should not be able to escape. I did use your power drill, Mr. Wallace, to make a few air holes in the chest - I would not want Cat to suffocate, regardless of her crimes. I imagine you’ll turn her over to the authorities when possible.

I should note that I did not need to go to these lengths to secure your burglar, but when borrowing a house and incapacitating its inhabitants, I rarely repay them for the courtesy. On this sole occasion, I wished to give something back to those from whom I have taken. Having said that, I have effectively taken Cat’s place, in that I have not only stolen five days of Olivia’s consciousness, but also numerous valuable items from your house, including several pieces of Mrs. Wallace’s jewellery. I would note, however, that had I not been present, these items would have undoubtedly been stolen by Cat instead.

Thank you again for your hospitality, however unwitting. I wish you all - particularly dear Olivia - the very best.

Your servant,

PDS (The Last Son of Medusa)