Double Dog Dare! -- Episode 13
Jan Dark, 22 January 2002

The plan came to Sirius in a flash, as his head smashed hard into the wall with the impetus of her vicious scarification of his left cheek. The stinging spike of pain gave him the force of will he needed, and he channelled it to etch through the bond around his left wrist. He let himself sag in his three remaining restraints, twisting in such a way that he gave her a good view of his butt. "Let's hope Margo Channing's alleged predilection for a nice pair of buttocks is something that runs in the family" he thought.

There was a sharp intake of breath from behind him, then what was almost a steady exhalation, but his experienced ear caught the ragged edge."Badly in need of pleasure indeed!" he thought with an inward grin, then braced himself for what he was sure was coming next.

"Imperio!" rasped Janet Tewksberry.

Just let yourself float away from the chains and onto the floor ... away from the chains and onto the floor came the almost-irresistible sensation. Reflexively, Sirius almost resisted it, then remembered that he was playing the part of a beaten man, for now at any rate. He relaxed as the chains parted and the air cushioned his descent to the cellar floor, helped by his relief that this was something he could easily give in to - no risk of the betraying signature of an action performed by someone disguising their resistance to the Imperius curse.

Janet Tewksberry was all over him like a cheap suit. Her tongue swiped his lips, then she forced it past his teeth, grinding her crotch against him as though she was trying to fuse her pubic hair with his. Sirius allowed himself to tense a little as he felt her hold on the Imperius curse waver, then felt a savage sense of triumph as she reacted with a fresh burst of command: Thrust upward! Now!

Sirius obliged.

He didn't need the Imperius curse to keep going - this was a compulsion that was older than magic, older than mammals, but there was a corner of his brain that retained its passionless appraisal of the situation, waiting for the instant that Janet Tewksberry clicked onto the same ancient mental track. Any moment now. There? Not quite! There? The bliss of the Imperius curse didn't seem so intense - good enough! "Let's see if the old Rodeo-Sex gag stands up in reality" he thought grimly, and rolled the widow Tewksberry over roughly, so that he was on top. "Oh Margo, Margo! You're just as good as you ever were!" he breathed fervently.

He managed to hang on for a count of five as she bucked in turbulent confusion beneath him, then he fell back (no play acting required) as she sat up sharply to stare at him with a mixture of suspicion and sharp appraisal ... and something else he couldn't define. "What is it that binds the two of them?" he thought as his mind raced "Sibling solidarity or sibling rivalry? Let's see just what we can find out."

"Just when did you have Margo?" asked her sister in a hard voice that implied she'd get an answer one way or another. "Was it when you were at school together?"

"Good Grief, no!" said Sirius bitterly "I never had that much sense back then. I was still full of naive heroic notions about good winning through in the end, not to mention that stupidly misplaced belief that your own side won't sell you down the river and send you to Azkhaban without trial if it suits their purposes. No, it was in Azkhaban itself, after they all got sent there the second time. Aristide and his brother succumbed pretty quickly after that - still technically alive, but so far gone in catatonia that they're no good to anyone. Margo's built of sterner stuff, and she had advantages they didn't - they don't mention the human governor of Azkhaban much - the dementors make such good press, but Margo knew about him, and it didn't take her long to find out what he liked. You know how they were supposed to have talked their way out when they escaped and went after Longbottom? Hah! 'Talked!' - first time I've heard it called that."

"So far, so believable" said Janet Tewksberry evenly "but you'd better start telling me where you come into all this."

"Right through the bars - we were in neighbouring cells" shot back Sirius, then held his breath, wondering whether he'd pushed his luck too far. Janet Tewksberry raised one eyebrow. It was a fiercely interrogative gesture, but she wasn't using the Imperius curse any more. In the privacy of his own soul, Sirius exulted.

"She used me for practice. At first I just didn't give a damn, all I wanted were a few moments of oblivion, but how could anyone not end up admiring a woman like that?" Again that indefinable expression passed over Janet Tewksberry's face. "When I got the chance to escape, she was the one who persuaded me to take it. That's why I'm here for the map. I'm going to get her out of there."

"So you're on our side now?" - she said, adding a sneer, but a little too late to be entirely convincing.

"I'm on my side now" said Sirius, and when I get Margo out, we're going to be on our side - I'm done with taking orders from anyone else."

"What about me, and why do you need the map anyway?" demanded Janet Tewksberry. "She got out without it last time."

"She's still got the governor wrapped around her ... finger" Sirius said with a vicious grin that he hoped was proud and harsh in equal measure "but before we parted she told me he was cagey about the suspicion that was bound to attach to him if she escaped again. It's got to look like an outside job this time. All we could find out before I left was that there's a cave under the rock, with an outlet to the sea called Traitor's Gate.