Suzette was a world-famous circus acrobat. Audiences marvelled at her seemingly impossible feats of skill and strength. In her trademark white leotard and short stiletto boots, showing off her equally trademark voluptuous body, she achieved marvels with trapeze, tight rope and hoop.

She was known as a perfectionist, who was always working on a new act. Not for her the parties, flowers and receptions; circus artists had to work a lot harder than pampered celebrities.

Astonishingly, she had her opponents. Circuses have long been the target of "activists", who push dull, daft Governments into action to reform them. After banning the animals, they went for health and safety. They had just about succeeded in eradicating every last ounce of fun and enjoyment out of them (which was their aim from the start), when along came Suzette with her dazzling performances to enchant audiences all over again.

It was back to square one. Clearly, the save the planet/ban the bomb/free Palestine lot had to do something. So they resolved on kidnapping her. As these people never seem to do any work, they had unlimited time to find out about her: where she lived, where she rehearsed, and how many people she had around her at any given time. To their delight, they discovered she lived a fairly solitary life, dedicated to her rehearsals. These rehearsals needed no orchestra, no stage manager and no lighting - just a fixed hoop (in this case) and a very determined, dedicated, fit young woman.

Enter Tarquin: a keen devotee of the "cause" (whichever one was fashionable at the time), he eagerly volunteered to perform the deed of kidnapping for the greater good. He wore an outfit, specially designed by arts students to "look the part" – it was a sort of rubber covering of the body from head to toe. He carried a fake custom-made gun that fired a purple dye, masquerading as a laser.

He watched Suzette, awaiting the "right" moment to pounce, and tutted to himself. He couldn’t see the beauty of the woman, or the skill and stamina of her acrobatics. He was altogether too worthy a person for such trivia (as he saw it). Dear, dear, bread and circuses, he thought. Keep the masses happy with cheap entertainment. Yet there she was, putting her versatile body through a display of beauty and strength, upside down one moment, gyrating the next, all in and around the hoop. 

Now was the time. She was lying in the hoop, "relaxing" in a pose that called to mind some admittedly tacky advert from about 50 years ago.

"Freeze!" Tarquin whispered hoarsely, pointing the gun at her. Naturally, Suzette was startled. She sat as best she could in the hoop, her right leg over it, the other behind, astonished. "Whatever can you want with me?" she faltered.

"You’re coming with me," Tarquin explained.

"I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, you’ll have to speak up," she told him. 

"I’m not going to shout and give everything away," he responded.

"Well, come a step closer then?" she suggested. 

He did - and one dainty stiletto-heeled white boot kicked the gun out of his hand. Tarquin cried out with the pain to his hand; but by the time he had finished, he had a much greater pain in his upper body, because Suzette had used the hoop to somersault and double kick him, knocking him backwards.

He jumped up and raised his fists, but she was already facing him in a fighting stance. He lashed out with a right cross, but she zipped out of its path. He swept a left hook – at nothing. 

It had never occurred to Tarquin that he would have to fight. He thought that a simple menace with a fake gun would work. Failing that, surely a discussion about how a corrupt capitalist system was exploiting her would do the trick? But no, she seemed determined to close her mind to the obvious righteousness of his cause. She was clearly a bigot – I mean, look at the way she now kicked him in the balls. 

He doubled up so quickly with the pain that her follow up kick to his body went over it. Still, to be fair to him, he recovered quickly enough (thanks to his protective rubber outfit) to spring back up and thrust a right hook at her. It’s just a shame it missed. A left did no better.

"You thought I’d be a pushover, didn’t you?" jeered Suzette, as he almost overbalanced, following through. "But you never thought it through, did you?" she continued, seizing his left arm in both hands. 

They hadn’t prepared him for this. Suzette was supposed to be a female object, manipulated and exploited by a rotten system, who would be only too eager to be liberated by him. Instead, she was contesting this liberation.

"I’ve fought off an acrobat, a juggler and a ringmaster in my time," she continued, manipulating him to her will so that he staggered round in a rough circle, "and you shouldn’t be a problem."

Nor did he seem to be, as she made him stoop while she locked his arm at right angles to his body. But this was only his foretaste of her abilities, for she now scooped him up off his feet via a head lock, with her left arm under his right armpit and around his neck. She actually ran with him for a few moments, to increase his tension and fear, before slamming him onto his back.

At the moment when, in theory, she should have been joining the cause and setting out to win over the other members of the circus, she punched him in the face. True, he was lying down and unable to offer anything other than a token resistance. Even so, the firm sweep of her left fist around his face startled him in its ferocity. Bending down to hit him, her ample breasts swaying with the movements, she looked as desirable as ever she had looked professionally in the hoop.

But that was only the introduction, an appetiser. The main course arrived in the form of a punch in the eye. Squatting over him, she let him have her right fist plumb in his left eye from point-blank range. It was so effective that he had no room for dessert. He grunted and appeared to Suzette to pass out momentarily.

"You’re not used to this, are you?" she asked disdainfully, kneeling with her right leg on his throat and menacing him with her left fist.

"No," he croaked.

"I am though," she continued, rather unnecessarily. "I’ve had many a scrap!"

"You don’t say!" he wheezed.

"So who are you and where are you from?" she demanded.

"Answer!" she insisted, slapping him backhanded across the face.

"My name’s Tarquin and I’m from ‘Resist the System’," he seemed to squeak, while Suzette went over to retrieve his gun.

"You’re the lot who made us cancel an event a few weeks ago," she told him, examining his gun, guessing it was a toy, but not letting on.

"Did we?" he asked, unwisely showing his pleasure.

"Yes, you held us up for so long, sitting in the road in front of the traffic, that we gave up trying to get to Netherton. We lost a lot of money. But now you’re here, you can at least pay me back my share of what I lost."

"But I’ve got no money on me!" Tarquin whined.

"No problem. You’ll come with me in a few moments and I’ll give you my sort code and account number."

"I’m only a student!" he wailed.

"Bit old for a student, aren’t you?"

"I’m a mature student."

"In that case, you should be indoors doing your homework, shouldn’t you? Also, with a name like Tarquin, you must have rich parents. I think 400 should cover it … no, make it 500, for all the inconvenience you’ve caused," she concluded, standing up and pointing the gun at him. (For some reason, he chose not to tell her it was fake.) 

"Get up!" Suzette ordered, and he complied.

"Take those ridiculous clothes off!" she snarled, threatening him with the gun.

Apart from his embarrassment at taking his clothes off in front of a woman (she guessed rightly that it was not something he had ever done before) it was quite a relief, because it had become horribly hot inside the tunic. But she interrupted his thoughts by making him turn round and face the wall. Then she shot him straight between the legs. Purple dye came within an ace of his cock, then splashed on the ground at the foot of the wall. 

If he had seen her acts, he would have known she was a superb shot. Instead, he was astonished at her skill, and quaked at what the dye might do to his cock if it hit it. She made him turn back to face her, then shot again, dye soaring just over his left shoulder.

"Very clever," she sniffed derisively. "You’ve put dye in a water pistol. Even so, those chemicals won’t do bare skin a lot of good, will they? If it’s meant to stain buildings, and for the stain to last, imagine what it does to your skin! Think of it landing on your virgin cock! Now do you understand why I made you strip?"

Tarquin stood with his hands behind his head against the wall, shaking at the thought of what she had just threatened him with. Was the dye acidic? He didn’t know.

"So, 500 it is, then."

"I can’t pay that!" he shouted.

"Come with me, then," she hissed, grabbing him by the shoulder and marching him out of the compound, with the gun pointing at his back. She took him into a strange warehouse sort of place, that was used to rehearse an elaborate water trick, and they stood roughly up to their knees in water.

"The dye won’t do your face much good either, will it?" she asked nastily, training the gun between his eyes. 

But Tarquin had taken note of the way she had grabbed his arm earlier. He had seen (or rather felt) how effective it was, and her outstretched arm was tempting. He pounced and it worked, surprising her. He hauled her round, as she had done to him earlier, and she dropped the gun. He was elated. He laughed as the gun splashed through the water – then shrieked when Suzette’s elbow hammered into his chin. 

As for her, she was furious, both with Tarquin and with herself for dropping her guard. She karate chopped him brutally in the throat with her left hand, while ominously clenching her other fist.

Then she let him have it. A curving uppercut punished his chin; then, crouching a little, her left fist tore into his chin from underneath. He could well believe she had fought off the acrobat, juggler and ringmaster. In fact, if she had said she’d taken on all 3 at once he would have believed it, as his head rocked back from her punch.

A bulldozer of a right hook struck him just beside his eye and put him on his backside in the water. He just knew he was going to end up in it; and sure enough, Suzette’s left fist homed in on his face in a great arc to send him splashing and gurgling beneath it. Even then she hadn’t finished, and her right fist ploughed through it into his battered face.

She pulled him up just so that his head was out of the water, and snapped her legs shut around his neck in a scissor.

"Make it a thousand," she said, making a "10" gesture with her fingers. "I could break your neck if I wanted to," she threatened him, demonstrating a slight twist, just to show him.

"Okay!" he gasped, fearing for his life.

"Excellent!" Suzette crowed. She let him drop into the water, before standing with her foot over him for a moment and celebrating her wins, both martial and financial.

Tarquin shivered underwater, wondering how such a cause could end up costing him so much money.