(Author's note: This story is a bit unusual because the Fox never actually appears in costume. But don't think that means it isn't full of action. Centurion )
Fuchsia Fox: "Turistas"
By Centurion
Chapter 1 -- Quintana Roo Province, Mexico
It was hot underneath the rain forest canopy -- the sultry heat of air heavy laden with moisture and trapped under the thick jungle growth like a hothouse. Jennifer Fletcher, riding perched in the back of the jostling, open-roofed Jeep, was grateful that the movement of the vehicle, which was doing an average of maybe thirty-five miles an hour over the barely discernable, overgrown paths, at least kept the bugs away, even if they all had to duck a low-hanging branch every few seconds.
Jennifer's brunette hair felt limp and wilted from the heat as it draped loosely around her slender neck. Her supple young body was dressed only in tight khaki short shorts and a white triangle string bikini top. Her slim legs were stretched out in front of her, feet clad in light deck shoes. Even with the breeze stirred up by the movement of the Jeep, she could feel the slightly oily film of perspiration all over her exposed skin. It didn't help that she was sandwiched in between the sweaty male bodies of her husband Martin on her right and Oscar Jenkins on her left -- both dressed in cargo shorts and very little else. Every time the Jeep hit a bump, the girl's lightweight body was pushed back against the dirty spare tire which was bolted to its rear, and she could feel Martin's hand on her pert little tail, holding her steady.
"Hey, Rodrigo! How much further?" Martin said, leaning forward suddenly and making it clear that at least this time it wasn't HIS hand on her tush. Jennifer glanced to her left and caught a glimpse of Oscar's shit-eating grin.
"Un poco mas, senor," the man driving the Jeep said. "A little more."
"You've been saying that for half an hour," commented Major Barbara Wright, sitting in the shotgun seat with her alluring legs braced against the dashboard. Her blonde hair was plaited in a ponytail behind her, and like Jenn she was wearing just a triangle bikini -- in her case turquoise -- with denim shorts and a gauze shirt over it with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
"Just a little more," the driver repeated.
"And this isn't some tourist trap, right?" Martin pressed.
"Oh no, senor," Rodrigo assured him. "Nobody knows about it. Only me."
The Jeep toiled up a slight ridge and then swerved sharply to the right as it dropped over the other side so fast that Jenn's sylph-like body was tossed completely out of her seat, her hair dancing around her face. She landed practically in Oscar's lap, his muscular arms closing around her torso, his hand capturing and squeezing her right boob. Their eyes met, and Jenn couldn't help wondering what was going on in his mind. Was he remembering that time she had done the strip-tease at that club, and he had seen her breasts uncovered and bare?
"Um... thanks," she breathed, blushing sheepishly as he thumbed her upright nipple, sending a shiver of arousal through her body.
It had been an amazing vacation so far. They had started out on Cozumel, scuba diving, ziplining and parasailing. Jennifer herself would have been happy to just spend the entire two weeks relaxing, sunning herself in her bikini and sipping Margaritas while she watched bronzed, muscular hunks in speedos parade past. This was the first real vacation she'd had in a long time -- a vacation not only from her job at the Smithsonian, but from her responsibilities as a certain fuchsia-clad superheroine.
But Martin, Barbara and Oscar were all military, and after only a week even those activities bored them silly. They were eager for adventures far off the beaten track, which was the reason they were now on the mainland, so deep in the jungle that they must be getting rather close to the border with Guatemala, and about as far off the beaten track as you could get without a helicopter.
The Jeep suddenly broke out into a wide clearing full of sunlight, and almost immediately skidded to a halt. Jennifer lost her balance and would have tumbled over the seat with the driver if Oscar hadn't caught her. The driver switched off the engine, and right away they all could hear the calls of birds in the forest, sounding shrill against the hushed backdrop of running water.
Right in front of them was a massive, round hole in the ground about forty yards across, its jagged, rocky edges overgrown with vines and jungle foliage. On the far side a stream poured over the lip in multiple small waterfalls. In was a cenote, a pit hollowed out by the action of rainwater over the eons eating away at the limestone underground. The four companions jumped off the Jeep and picked their way cautiously to the edge. The hole dropped thirty or forty feet to a pool of crystal clear water, showing slightly aquamarine against the sandy bottom. It wasn't simply a well, either. From their vantage point, they could see that the running water had hollowed out caves and passageways down there under the earth.
"It's beautiful!" Jennifer gushed.
"How do we get down there?" asked Barbara, eying the vines hanging over the rim and wondering if they would support her weight.
"This way," said their driver, reaching into the back of the Jeep and taking out a thick coil of rope with knots at intervals for climbing. Slinging this over his shoulder, he led them a little ways to one side, where there was a natural cleft in the lip of rock. He slung the end of the rope around the bole of a tree and secured it.
"See that spot of darker blue?" he said as he worked. "The water there is five meters deep. You could dive from here if you wanted to. For the others..." He tossed the dangling end of the rope down into the pit. "I stay up here with the Jeep."
Barbara Wright was already shedding her gauze shirt. Then she peeled her shorts over her hips and down her long legs, exposing matching bikini swimsuit bottoms. In short order, she climbed to the rim of the hole and did a perfect swan dive, plunging into the blue water.
"Whooo!" she shouted up at them, breaking the surface. "Come on down!"
As she swam toward the shallows, Oscar lost no time following her example, shucking his hiking boots and cargo shorts and leaping, doing a monstrous cannonball into the cenote.
"What do you think, Angel?" Martin said to Jennifer.
The brunette glanced over the edge of the hole, her fingers lightly touching the narrow golden bracelets of Ishtar on her wrists. "I think I'll take the rope," she said, smiling. They both knew that it wasn't because she had any qualms about the height -- not the girl who was secretly the most powerful superheroine in Washington D.C., the one and only Fuchsia Fox!
The two of them went back to the Jeep for the two backpacks containing their snorkeling gear and their packed lunch, along with a bottle of wine. Soon they had toiled down the rope and joined their friends at the bottom of the pit. There was a semicircular ledge about twenty feet wide around this side of the pool, and they dropped the backpacks there. Then, divesting themselves of their shorts and shoes, they put on flippers and masks and went in snorkeling.
It was peaceful down here, like another world. The water was fresh and crystal clear. Their swimming stirred up a few crabs and a couple of small catfish hiding in the sandy bottom, but otherwise the four friends were totally alone. After about half an hour, they got out onto the ledge and basked in the sunlight streaming down while they ate their lunch, watching the swallows dipping in and out of the cave opening one or two at a time.
Martin, Barbara and Oscar wanted to explore the tunnels leading off from either side of the cenote. The three of them had already ventured down one into a maze of interconnecting passageways but had turned back when they had reached the limit of the light filtering in from the cenote entrance. Oscar swore, though, that he had seen another opening ahead, perhaps another cenote, and now they wanted to keep going until they found it. Jennifer was game, as long as they were sure they could find their way back.
They left their wallets, passports and smartphones with their backpacks on the ledge. Oscar strapped a waterproof camera to his wrist and took the lead, followed by Barbara, Jennifer, and Martin bringing up the rear. The water quickly got darker until Jenn could barely see Barbara's flippers and graceful legs waving lazily in front of her. She began to feel slightly claustrophobic, knowing that she was underground with tons of rock above her. The girl felt turbulence in the water around her own legs and glanced back, but it was only Martin's body pulling closer to her side.
Soon enough, the water in front of her was getting lighter. Jenn followed Barbara, emerging into the surface of another cenote. This one was much smaller. The opening far above them was overgrown with vines and hardly let in any sunlight. The reflection of the opening off the water send ripples of light dancing all over the walls of the cave. Jenn followed Barbara to the shallows, where Oscar took her hands and helped her to climb up onto a flat shelf of limestone.
"Hey, check this out," Oscar said, moving some vines aside and revealing a block of carvings in the wall of the cave.
"It looks like Mayan," Barbara said, shedding her flippers and mask.
"That's what it looks like," Jennifer agreed, having once spent a summer on an archaeological dig in the Yucatan. Gently she felt over the carvings with her fingertips, but they were too worn with age to tell much about them.
"How old do you think they are?" the blonde asked, knowing that Jennifer worked at the Smithsonian.
Jennifer shook her head. "Not really my area. If they were Greek or Assyrian, I might be able to take an educated guess."
Martin had joined them by then. The cool air of the cave on their wet bodies was making them shiver a little bit, but the carvings were too interesting to let that bother them. And as their eyes got used to the dimness, they saw something else that piqued their curiosity.
Steps had been cut into the rock, curving steeply upward around the rim of the cenote toward the surface opening. "What do you think?" said Oscar, taking pictures with the camera.
Martin shrugged. "Let's see where it goes," he said. Glancing at Jennifer, he started gingerly up the stairs. The others followed, barefoot and dressed only in swim trunks and bikinis. At the top, there was a growth of foliage covering the exit, but once that was brushed aside, the four friends again found themselves in the hot, humid rain forest, with sun filtering down through the canopy.
Tired by the climb, Jennifer found a big, moss-covered stone and sat down on it. The forest around them was still and silent. The girl felt herself beginning to daydream. Her eyes were drawn to the bodies of Martin and Oscar as they explored the area, sweat glinting off their manly, well-muscled chests and shoulders. The colorful patterns of their swimming trunks almost blended in with the foliage around them, so that it was easy to imagine that they were totally naked. That thought caused a stir in Jennifer's blood and a slight quiver down in her bikini bottom, making her shift position on the stone she was sitting on.
"It's a difficult choice, isn't it?" Barbara said playfully, as if she could read Jenn's mind. "Which one would you choose if you were stranded in the jungle with no hope of rescue?"
"Is that a trick question?" the brunette asked. "Umm, I'd choose Martin, of course."
"I'm just making playful conversation," Barbara laughed. "You and I never seem to have much chance to talk and get to know one another."
Jenn's cheeks flushed. That was deliberate on her part. She had spent so much time with Barbara in her guise as the Fuchsia Fox, she was wary about revealing much of herself to the blonde for fear she might guess her alter-ego identity. That in itself wouldn't be a major disaster, but in some ways, it would be very inconvenient.
"Besides," Barbara added, edging closer and lowering her voice, "I've seen the way you look at Oscar when you think no one is looking. You're tempted, aren't you? You want some of that." Her turquoise bikini seemed to disappear against the green background of the jungle, so that she reminded Jenn of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Or maybe the Serpent...
"He's a very attractive man," the brunette said defensively.
"He's a stallion," Barbara agreed at once. "But more than that, he's different, he's an unknown quality. You sleep with Martin day in and day out, and that's fine, I'm not knocking it. But no matter how much you love him, you can't help wondering how Oscar would be. There's always that temptation, that sinful urge to take a bite out of the forbidden apple just to see how it tastes, and I wouldn’t blame you at all if you did."
Jennifer bit her lower lip. She didn't want to admit it, but undeniably she did feel an animalistic attraction to Oscar sometimes, precisely because he was so different from her husband. Was that wrong of her?
"And if you did decide you wanted a taste," Barbara added with a conspiratorial wink, "I think I could manage to keep Martin busy..."
Jenn caught her breath. Goodness knows she and Martin have growingly had a pretty open marriage. Jennifer had performed on webcam a few times in front of many viewers in addition to her husband, and together they had been to a couple of Club X parties where sexual inhibitions had been put on the back burner, so the thought of sharing love with other people was not a shocking concept to either of them. But could she really, seriously consider such an arrangement with Oscar, while allowing Barbara to have her way with Martin?
"What's that you're sitting on?" Barbara asked suddenly, her attention drawn between Jennifer's legs.
Jenn quickly hopped off the stone, thinking that her companion had spotted a spider or a scorpion or something. But the blonde pushed aside a clump of fern. "It's a face!"
The two women backed away a few paces to get a better overall look at it. Suddenly they noticed the enormous, squarish shape looming behind it, all but hidden in the thick foliage. It was a temple!
***
Chapter 2 –
"Hey guys!" called Barbara, as she and Jennifer pulled back some of the bushes so that could get a better look at the temple. There was a rustle of foliage as Martin and Oscar hurried over to see what they had found.
The ruin wasn't a pyramid. Five broad steps led to a sort of porch and through a darkened archway into a maze of rooms all but buried in the hillside. The roofs had collapsed ages ago, leaving the whole thing open to the sky. The black stone that it was constructed of was eroded by years of rainfall and overgrown by small trees and vines, leaving gaps here and there in many of the walls.
"How come Rodrigo didn't tell us about this?" Oscar wondered aloud as the four of them began wandering at random through the rooms.
"He may not know about it," Martin said. "He said that he had explored a lot of the passages of the cenote, but not all of them. And even if he found that staircase, he might not have been interested enough to climb it like we did."
"He probably would have charged us more if he'd known," Oscar laughed.
"Hey," said Barbara, looking up at the forest canopy, through which she could barely see patches of blue sky, "do you think we're the first people ever to find this place? It's a good bet it couldn't be seen from the air."
Jennifer didn't comment, but the idea set her pulse to beating more quickly. Imagine discovering a site which had never been found or pillaged since the time of the Spaniards, or even earlier! Her face felt flushed with excitement as she began following a long, straight corridor, her soft bare feet making virtually no sound upon the leaf-covered stone floor. The air was humid. With no breeze to cool her off, her flawless skin glistened with a sheen of perspiration, making her white bikini cling to her young, sylph-like body.
As they explored, the other three soon passed out of Jenn's view, although they remained close enough that she could hear them talking back and forth or sometimes tapping on the stone. Suddenly she heard a low-pitched whirring sound directly behind her, as if from the wings of a bird. Her head darted around, but there was nothing there. She could see Martin in that direction, shoving his way through a vine-covered doorway, so maybe he had made the noise. Jennifer shrugged and kept on following the passageway.
Eventually she reached a point where the trunk of a tree had grown up right through the stone floor, half-blocking the corridor. Jennifer sidled around it and found an area beyond that was somewhat sheltered. Part of the roof had remained in place, providing protection for a mural painted on the wall. Between the forest canopy and the roof overhang, it was almost twilight down here. Jenn squinted in the poor light, wishing she had a flashlight as she moved in closer.
Without warning, a bulky figure pounced on her from the shadows, wrapping two muscular arms around Jennifer's slender waist and holding her prisoner. As the girl struggled, she could feel a hand groping at her chest, tugging upward on the triangle of fabric that was her left bikini cup until her pert little breast was exposed. Jenn's heart pounded with fear as at the same time she instinctively drew power from her bracelets of Ishtar, giving her super-strength to fight off her attacker. Her fist drew back, ready to let him have it.
"Oh hey, sorry about that, Jenn," said Oscar Jenkins' voice. "I was coming out of this side passage and I tripped on a goddamn vine. You were the only thing to grab onto."
Jennifer relaxed against the solid assurance of Oscar's manly chest. "Uh... yeah," she said. "Next time, could you at least warn me?" So I don't accidentally smack you into the middle of next week, she thought, as her heartbeat returned slowly to normal.
"Will do," Oscar said.
His arms were still draped around her curvy waist, his right hand still absent-mindedly cupping her mostly bare left breast. Jenn blushed as she felt the thick bulge of his trouser snake rise up against her bikini-clad butt. This could be a crucial moment if she wanted it to be. All she had to do was encourage him, maybe rub her tush against his crotch. She licked her lips, more tempted than she cared to admit.
"Um... you can take your hands off me anytime," she reminded him, in defiance of the lust she was feeling.
"Oh right," Oscar said sheepishly, feigning innocence as he let her go and stepped back while she tugged her bikini top back into place. "What were you looking at anyway?", she asked.
***
A few rooms over, Barbara had found a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway which was all but blocked by a network of vines. As she looked around for another way through, she heard a whirring noise, like a hummingbird or something right by her ear. In reflex she turned quickly, but there was nothing to be seen.
Shrugging, the blonde slipped her lean, athletic body into the tangle, slinking her way through, her lungs working hard in the heavy, tropical air. The back of her turquoise bikini got snagged and almost came untied, but she backed up and freed herself. At last she emerged into a square room.
Martin Fletcher was already there, having entered through another opening. For a moment Barbara just stared at him, admiring his virile form dressed in nothing but swim trunks. She had worked with Fletcher for a long time at the Pentagon and rarely had the pleasure of seeing him like this, half naked and on display in all his glory. She was strongly reminded of the time they had both been subjected to the super-villainess Alchema's aphrodisiac potion. As her mind lingered on the wonderfully erotic memory of his cock, her eyes wandered up Martin's tanned legs and lingered on his tight ass before continuing upward to his deliciously broad shoulders, rippling with muscles and gleaming with manly sweat.
Barbara was feeling a pleasant shiver crawl over her supple skin, her nipples rising inside her bikini top as her pulse quickened. Her knees suddenly felt as if they were going to give way. Martin half turned toward her, and their eyes met. The blonde ran her tongue over her lips, a part of her mind toying with the intoxicatingly wicked idea of jumping his bones right then and there, but wondering how far away Jennifer might be.
"What do you think?" Martin said out loud.
The question was so apt that Barbara bit her lower lip to keep from saying what was really on her mind. It slowly dawned on her that he had been looking at something against the far wall, and she belatedly paid attention to the room. Unlike the other rooms she had explored, there were no visible window slits on the walls. When it had been roofed over, it must have been dark in here. That probably explained the four big lamp niches placed at regular intervals. In the center of the far wall was a stone idol, slightly larger than man-sized, depicting a fat man with perfectly circular eyes, lifting both arms toward the ceiling.
"Oh, wow," Barbara said mildly, struggling to suppress her libido long enough to make an intelligent comment. "It kind of reminds me of Homer Simpson. It's really--” She noticed something yellow and shiny around the idol's round eyes, and her own eyes popped open like saucers. "Is that gold?"
"It looks like it," Martin said, excitedly. He started to walk forward across the wide flagstone floor.
Barbara's combat-honed sixth sense told her that something was wrong, but before she could warn him, there was a deep grinding noise as the stone he had stepped on tilted. A trapdoor!
"Martin, look out!" the blonde cried, throwing her right arm out to catch his, but he had already disappeared into the darkness below. Barbara hesitated, kneeling on the edge of the pit into which Fletcher had fallen as the trapdoor began to swing closed again.
There was that whirring noise again, much louder, much closer this time! Barbara spun around in a cat-like crouch.
Then she saw it, right on top of her! Barbara gasped out loud, raising both arms in futile defense as the thing attacked.
***
To be continued …
