Hercules spattered blood on the throne room floor. The flesh-eating mares of Diomedes had put up a real struggle and their razor teeth kept taking nips out of Herc's skin, but those teeth broke against the dense, taut muscle beneath. It had taken all his cunning and skill to herd those mares back to Tiryns, and only Hercules could lead them up to Olympus, where they were set free. The mares had eaten many of Herc's companions, and he was clearly exhausted from managing the entire herd.

But Eurystheus reveled in Herc's continual dousing in gore and filth, even if he did drip it on the marble. The small humiliation was the best he could come by, however, since Hercules was able to defeat him at every task.

Recently Herc had stood before him covered in guano. He had killed a couple thousand birds in Arcadia. Wolves were stalking the forests so all the birds in the area congregated on Lake Stymphalus, raising a ruckus and a mess and driving out the fishing industry. These birds were sacred to Ares so Hercules enjoyed shooting them. He knew Ares would be hesitant to challenge him after what Herc had done to Apollo and Artemis. Herc had local boys lined up with all the arrows he could find and shot them at the rate of about one per second, each arrow taking down three or four birds. They flocked up and attacked the boys and Hercules so he was left on his own, batting them away from his eyes and feeling them break their beaks against his tough, bronzed skin. He took a few more down with his club and frightened them with his sonic voice; finally they were all dead. He lit out before they started to stink. He couldn't do everything.

Then there was the Cretan bull, which had slaughtered a large portion of the populace. Iolaus had been along and told Eurystheus how Hercules charged to meet the bull, grasping the tossing horns in his hands. The bull threw its entire weight into the bout and actually drove Herc back against a cliff. The cliff of course rocked with the struggle and avalanches of dirt and rocks crashed down around them. Herc's lats winged out so far the Nemean lion's skin looked like a hair braid as it hung down his back. Shoulders like bronze helmets gathered in the bull's power and arms that crippled a god stilled the fury of that beast's neck. For a long while there was no movement or sound, just an eerie whistling from Herc's mouth and snorts from the bull as it its hooves tried for traction but gained none. Herc forced the bull back a step, his own legs (almost as thick as the bull's body) digging into the earth. Then a strange moaning bellow came from the bull as its lower lip trembled and the head began to tilt. The skin on Herc's arms stretched over his iron biceps and triceps until jagged red thunderbolts appeared; and he twisted a little farther. Now the bull started to moan and bray and pull away from the human's grasp but Herc began to smile as his man's strength overwhelmed this killing beast's fury and panic.

The bull rolled its eyes but every buck away from Herc simply brought its head closer to horizontal. Herc began to press downward on the low horn and up on the other to try to bend the enormous neck back. The bull's teeth gnashed as its head rose despite all its strength and the adrenaline surging through it. Blood rushed out from the cut tongue and the braying became hoarser, more desperate. Herc's golden face beamed as it looked the bull in the eye-and roared. Urine and feces expelled from the helpless monster and Hercules, remembering with regret the beast must be taken alive, kicked the animal's foreleg out. The animal flopped to the ground but not before a horn ripped out of the skull in Herc's fist. Blood gushed from the side of the animals's head, and a bloody foam from its mouth. The defeated beast fell into the mud of its own juices wrenched out of it by Herc's brawn, and Herc's cock, thick as the Delphic python, spurted its prophecy of doom all over the black, sagging carcass.

As usual, Herc hadn't waited to clean up before reporting to Eurystheus, the huge weakened bull across his shoulders. Now, with only two labors left before Hercules had fulfilled his ten labors, Eurystheus fulfilled a promise of his own.

His daughter Admete wanted the belt of Ares that Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, wore as a girdle. No man had ever entered that queendom with hostile intent and survived; indeed, even the traders were often fucked to death by the women in their quest to bear more female warriors. Their contempt for men would be just the thing to pit this god-man against. Hercules would either die, or make his daughter happy. This one was win-win.

Hercules pondered his situation. After his last trip by sea, there wasn't a captain that would take him on board for love or money. He asked at every vessel moored at Piraeus and Phalerum, then up and down the smaller villages of the coast. He couldn't even rent a fishing boat. And these Amazons lived in Asia minor, on the Thermodon in Pontus. Walking would definitely take too long. It was Iolaus who came up with the scheme.

It took some doing but they finally found a seamstress who could keep quiet. In order to fully mask Hercules' musculature beneath women's clothes, they needed to construct an enormous false belly and bill him as The World's Fattest Woman, whom they were taking to join the Amazons after a successful circus career. The ship's deck creaked appreciably as Hercules walked aboard, and his face flamed as the sailors catcalled and whistled. Someone, somewhere, would pay for this humiliation. He immediately secured a place below deck and refused to come out.

The ship was stopping by Byzantium first to pick up a load of corn. The cargo fairly blocked off Herc's berth and late one night the captain wedged his bulky frame back and stood over the brooding Hercules.

"Time to pay for your passage, miss." The captain chuckled and rubbed his rank penis.

Hercules dropped the affected womanly speech and growled: "It's paid for already."

The captain launched himself onto Herc and tried to plunge his cock into the allegedly fat- woman's twot. But Herc had removed the stomach padding and the captain met the iron ingots of Herc's abs and an unexpected attachment. But the captain's surprise was short-lived; in an instant he was whipped around and Hercules was thrusting his giant cock up the captain's defenseless ass, ripping the muscles and shooting brain-exploding pain into the captain's head. He was unable to struggle for Herc's arms restrained him as if he were paralyzed. Hercules fucked on and on until the captain passed out. He woke the captain with a sharp pinch, and continued, while the captain begged and pleaded for him to stop.

Of course, the punishment for a grown man getting fucked by another was the complete loss of Athenian citizenship (but only for the bottom). The captain, besides the humiliation and agony in his ass, was faced with the loss of his livelihood. So to cover his shame, he went up and informed his most trusted sailors the woman was a witch who had now taken the form of a monstrous man and intended to steal the cargo by craft that very night. Armed with daggers and swords the sailors went below to grab Hercules and throw him into the sea.

Hercules pummeled lightly but efficiently the sailors, burying them under enormous sacks of grain. The sailors assumed it was witchcraft and fled to the deck, where they trembled, fearing to jump into the sea but fearing more the creature below. Hercules threw off the female robes and strode naked up to the deck. Seeing that it was Hercules only made them more afraid, as the rumors were that he killed the crew of his boat as well as that of the other boat in Augean adventure. Iolaus pleaded for Herc, assuring everyone he would behave from now on if left alone. Herc resented being treated like a child and had half a mind to break off the main mast and start showing who's who. Instead, he simply sat there and waited for this journey to be over.

But there wasn't a woman-loving sailor on the crew who hadn't been stirred by the sight of Herc's manhood, the physique, the rugged face, the always-turgid cock and the immense strength that promised unlimited joys. Under cover of darkness, one by one the sailors abandoned their watch or their bunks and crept to Hercules, begging him to let them touch him, anywhere, everywhere. At first Hercules let them. He loved having big, rugged men, strong and seasoned in their own right, fawn and melt as they pounded his pecs or tongued the grooves of his quads. Tough sailors could squeeze his giant fig-like balls with all their might and it was sheer pleasure to him.

Soon he had two, then three hairy sailors crawling over his body so he stood up, stretched out his great arms and balancing on one leg on the open sea, stuck the other out before him and let the men hang, tug and swing from his limbs as from a tree. All the men pulling together couldn't budge him, so he looped a thick mooring cable around his wrist and let the eight sailors pull the other end as he flexed and curled his biceps. More sailors joined in the doomed tug-of-war for there was nothing these salts could do to stop that muscle once he contracted it. Herc liked the pump he was getting, and set the men cleaning the sea salt off his body with their tongues.

Jagged teeth bit at his erect nipples and scraped at his cock as precum dripped onto the deck. The humiliated captain watched in disbelief, then shivering relief as he realized his citizenship was no longer in jeopardy: nobody would report him if everybody did it. It would be political suicide. He stood and watched, his ass still aching from his rape, and despite himself he got hard and jacked off while his entire crew attempted to satisfy Hercules.

Finally the men were driven to distraction by Herc's pumping muscles and a cock they could do chin-ups on. One by one they bent over to receiving him and Herc fucked each one long and hard. His orgasms always coincided with each sailor's but he moved right on, his cock never losing its raging hardness. He pumped quarts of sticky come into each man's ass and still had more for the next one. When the rosy-fingered dawn crept over the wine-dark sea, the crew lay slumbering, smiling, exhausted and oozing come out of their assholes. Only the captain, Hercules and his few men were able to sail the boat until they docked in Pontus.

It was a short trip up the Thermodon to the country of the Amazons. Fierce mounted warrior women escorted the men to Hippolyte, where Hercules made his request. Hippolyte looked him over and could smell the sex coming off him in waves. She agreed to give Hercules the girdle if he could outlast her in bed.

"In bed, on the palace roof, in the stables," Hercules promised in his deepest voice. "Let's do this. Rather than doing it until one or the other gives out, I'll match you climax for climax. Whoever has the most orgasms wins."

Hippolyte knew the 20-minute rule all too well. They immediately retired to her chamber, where the spiritual bones of countless hapless men littered the floor, as it were. Hercules wasted no time in picking her up and impaling her on his erect cock. As she sat there, unsupported, he gently, delicately undressed her. Pleasure mingled with the realization that she might lose to this man.

Indeed, for every orgasm she had he had one. As the night wore on, his intentions grew more serious. He began to have two for her one, and finally his cock teased, pressed and dragged out of her more climaxes than she could bear. She shook and screamed as the pleasure tormented her body. Her guards entered and struggled in vain to pull the man's limbs away from their queen. Not only was he too strong, everyone become covered in the sex juices which coated the fuckers. When the guards drew their weapons he stopped, and suddenly looked sheepish.

"Guess I won."

He discharged the queen and let them take her, convulsing and laughing hysterically, to a doctor. Then he collapsed on her bed, exhausted, and didn't hear them lock the doors as they left.

Hercules woke with the dawn, refreshed and full of vitality. He was confused when he found the bronze doors to the chamber barred. He thought for a minute. "Perhaps I could find another way out and sneak up on them."

But he was never much good at sneaking. Floors groaning beneath his weight always gave him away. So raising one leg, he kicked. The solid bronze rang like a huge gong and the foot-thick beam on the other side creaked and cracked as the doors opened despite its solidity. The doors swung back on their hinges and crushed the jambs; metal screamed and tore loose and the big doors banged back against the stone wall and fell clattering to the floor. Hercules stepped out of the chamber and the stone beneath his feet sank-and fell.

The two huge objects fell about thirty feet into a dungeon-pit. The heavy stone hit first, flat and solid, until Hercules hit it; that impact shattered it and Herc fell to the ground with a crash that shook the foundations of the palace. He didn't have much time to get his bearings, though. Immediately the walls began closing in with a heavy scraping of well-oiled iron on slippery stone. His legs could easily have leapt up the thirty feet but the hole where the false stone had been was filled now with a grate of steel spikes so thick he couldn't see where to grab hold. He jumped, fist first, and piled into the sharp iron. With sullen grunts the iron spike points bent away and back under his powerful thrust but that only made the iron thicker; something large rested above it. The walls were closing fast and nearly a span of his huge arms apart.

He fell on one and shoved back. The floor was slick with oily water and offered no traction. He slowed its progress but with a fresh burst of power it overcame his resistance and moved relentlessly toward him. He reared back and punched the iron but it was so thick it only dented with a muted ring. He hit again and again but the iron must be many feet thick, cast solid; it would take him too long to do it and there were no seams or joints for his fingers to tear into. Now he could lodge his feet against the one wall and press with the other but the slick floor still kept his reaching toes from finding their grip. The walls progressed and were now only four feet apart. Turning, he braced one foot on each wall and put his hands out to stop this nonsense.

The walls slowed, but kept moving. Something must be wrong, Hercules thought. His elbows bent under the pressure of the thick walls. A high squalling sounded from behind the iron as his vast muscles tried to brake the crushing force. His triceps now pressed into his lats. His body bulged, biceps filling his arms and his forelegs pressed against the iron. With a cold anger he took a deep breath and pushed outward from his core with all his strength. The squalling became a whine and he felt the walls crawl to stop, his arms bent in half and muscle ready to explode under the pressure. He held it there, resisting the implosion, for a minute, then two; the squealing had stopped but now he heard, distantly, whips cracking and men bellowing. Still the crushing force boxed him in and he labored to breathe in the cramped space. The whips brought animal cries like he'd never heard before, some army of trumpeting creatures. He could hear and feel their huge feet pounding the ground as the whips drove them to continue and Hercules knew they must be immense, and a lot of them.

As the trumpeting reached a feverous pitch the pressure began to build again. Hercules's head shook but he wouldn't give in, not to animals, however many there were. He was a man. The squealing began again as the great pistons driving the walls tried to compress the giant. He looked down and could see the iron starting to dent around his hands and legs and he knew that they wouldn't stop until he was flattened. Or until he stopped them.

Reaching deep inside he summoned every fiber of muscle, every steel tendon. Letting out a series of thick grunts he pressed his hands into the iron wall. The metal sank around his fingers about a quarter inch and then an earsplitting squeaking came from behind the walls as he pressed them back. Slowly he began straightening his arms as the squeaking built into a squeal of straining iron gears grating between the two titanic forces of giant animals and Herc's humped back and solid arms. Hercules kept his momentum and bowed his head as his shoulders swelled against the pressure. His hands were an inch deep into the iron and it still fought him. Shaking his head he unleashed his savage fury. Huge winches and thick iron gears felt it and lost ground. Every pop, every snap, every shudder of the vast machine as it buckled between the terrified animal power and Herc's terrifying muscle power brought new surges of strength.

His thigh pressed into the ground and it cracked and creviced. He stamped the ground as he fought and stonework smashed beneath his feet. With a blood-curdling cry he locked his arms out at his sides and felt the iron lose its struggle against him. The excessive strain his muscles applied to the machine surpassed the ability of solid iron to resist. With a skin-crawling shriek the huge main pistons driving the walls inward bent up, gears bent double on twisting axles and chains pulled out of their moorings. Hercules bellowed his superiority and grabbed one of the walls and charged with it, the crackled stone floor providing perfect traction. Roaring, he shoved and drove it back into the engine housing as steel buckled and twisted and blew out of its anchors. The iron wall stopped as the piled up wreckage met the fortress wall.

Rearing back, he rammed the wall with hands outstretched, and feet-thick wall bent beneath them slightly, around the huge broken piston. The five-foot thick stone wall cracked rumbled, and Herc walked back for a good run. With a cry everyone heard he ran and landed his right side dead-center and the blast drove the tonnage through the exploding wall, cracked stone flying like deadly hail. People screamed and ran as the sparking machinery ground out through the wall and scattered across the yard. The bent and dented iron wall lodged in the hole and started to peal. Then it started to sag through the hole. Louder and louder the wall rang, sagging and dimpling out until it too blasted through the remaining stones and flew out, beaten and warped. Hercules emerged in the din, breathing deeply and nearly filling the hole in the wall with pumped, heaving brawn. The upper stories of the palace sagged with their loss of support, timbers cracked and panicked cries filled the air from within.

Climbing atop the ruined ironwork, Hercules saw a dozen of the strangest, largest animals he had ever seen. Huge grey beasts with snakes on their faces and enormous flat feet lay bleeding, exhausted and dying in the dust. Each one had to weigh tons. He walked around the palace to the other side and saw the same thing, gargantuan dying beasts harnessed to chains that ran up to tiny holes in the thick wall and powered the engine behind it. The engine he had destroyed with his thrusting arms.

Hippolyte was carried to him on her litter, wobbly but erect. "Brave Hercules, you have ruined our Punisher. But I have another punishment in store for the disrespect you showed me."

Hercules locked her eyes and licked his lips. Her own lips quivered and nostrils flared, and she looked hesitantly at her advisors, who steamed with hatred at Hercules. Hatred, or envy? Hercules answered: "Do your worst. You don't think these muscles can defy your imagination? But there is one provision: if I win, your girdle is mine. And I and my men will leave freely."

The advisors gnashed their teeth but Hippolyte acceded. "To the lake."

Hercules was led, unchained, to a large lake created by the Amazons by damming the Thermodon in a steep ravine. In the lake were two large triremes, oars at the ready, facing away from each other. Heavy chains ran from the bows of the ships to opposing shores, where another dozen elephants stood for each ship. More ropes and chains feed off for male slaves to join in, should that be necessary.

"You've got to be kidding." Hercules had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life.

Hippolyte bristled at his laughter. "Normally we would have two elephants tear a man apart, slowly. But you're no ordinary man, and you've already defeated two dozen elephants whose strength was magnified by winches and gears. This way you will have no traction, nothing to brace yourself against. This time you WILL be the weak link in the chain.

Hercules shook his head and boarded the small boat that rowed to the center of the lake. Slaves attached chains with links six inches thick to his wrists. They were joined by two other, struggling boats who brought the ships' anchors out to meet them. Herc got into the water and treaded. These anchors were attached by similar chains to Herc's feet; the only way the slaves could release the quarter-ton boulders was to capsize the two boats, then the all boarded the original boat and rowed quickly, a little frightened, to shore.

The rocks sank quickly and dragged Hercules under the water, at first. The heavy chains on his hands made surfacing difficult, especially since he hadn't had much time to rest. He gathered the chains up in his hands and pulled himself taut, and out of the water. Hippolyte made him wait like that a long time.

The queen drew her sword, slashed through the air and the rowers dipped their oars. A hundred men on either side drew the creaking crafts forward and Herc gripped links and felt the tension stretch across his chest. The ships stopped and creaked some more. Drum beats off the ships increased in volume and speed, and the slaves began to churn the water. The waves from the oars washed back toward Herc and made breathing difficult.

The rocks hanging off his feet weren't enormous by his standards but they grew heavier with time, stretching his ligaments and forcing him to divert his attention to his legs, which hung uselessly, unable to supply power to his arms and back. The rowers were spending themselves as fast as they could; the warships bucked and rocked but Hercules' grip was stronger than the iron that bound them together. Whips cracked and the elephants began to pull. A louder croaking came from the triremes as the strain on them increased, for Hercules was not only holding them back but struggling to draw his hands together. His chest mounded above the waves and his shoulders trembled with strength, and veins emerged all over his bloating muscles. Elephants trumpeted and pounded the earth, and Herc felt his arms begin to stretch out; his tendons popped and bones hurt. Cracking sounds came as ship timbers around the bowed hulls began to flatten, the ribs of the ships forced inward. Herc's handsome face was riven with anguish as his joints lit on fire.

Herc's forearms bunched into clubs the size of some men's thighs. Slowly the chains twisted above the churning water and with the twisting Herc lost his grip on the links. He dipped below the water until the tautness pulled him up by his wrists. His fingers sought another link to grip and mashed his fingers into the iron. He knew he could force these links apart with his fingers, but that wasn't the spirit of the punishment and it would only lead to another one. It was best to defeat them on their own terms, human muscle versus machine, animal and slave. Drawing his shoulders together he heaved. The elephants felt it and trumpeted as they lost their footing, for the moment. Further whip cracks drove them on and clouds of dust floated over the water from their earth-shaking stamps.

Glancing at the shore, the tortured Hercules saw one of the queen's advisors run a man through with her sword. Fighting broke out and another advisor took Iolaus and held a dagger to his throat. Enraged at this betrayal, Hercules bellowed in pain and anger... and started to swim.

Adrenaline and testosterone exploded in his biceps and they mounted over his arms like storm clouds. A noise of creaking and popping echoed across the lake as he drew his hands over his head and forward through the water. The ships bobbed back and turned, and the elephants stumbled. Male slaves ran to the auxiliary ropes and chains while the elephants' trainers got them on their feet. Herc's thigh biceps contracted and even with a thousand pounds hanging from his feet his legs rose and began to kick. He longer felt the pain in his limbs or in the hundreds of muscle attachments in his back. His hands raised and stroked, and he moved through the water. Cries of alarm rang from the warships as their sterns turned toward Hercules and thick planking cracked and splintered along the lengths of the twisted boats. Slaves ashore couldn't gain a footing and the fallen elephants were dragged on their flailing backs and sides into the water as Herc kicked and swore and stroked his way across the lake.

Confusion broke out when the Amazons saw what was happening. The queen's advisors were the first to drop their arms and flee, and Herc's men chased after them, with Iolaus in the lead. Hippolyte remained on her throne litter, yelling for order. Herc swam through the water faster and the torque on the boats, between Herc's sideways swim and the lengthwise weight and pull of elephants and slaves, caused the hulls to crack and cave. Water gushed in among the slaves who dropped their useless oars and begged for rescue. Still Hercules swam on, picking speed as if the chains and boulders were nothing to him, his wake washing into the foundering ships. Reaching the shore he walked forward, dragging the entire torture device behind him across the lake. Elephants struggled to swim ashore as the chains on their feet dragged them farther into the water and the shore-bound slaves let their ropes and chains go.

Herc's feet kicked the boulders onto the shore and without taking his eyes off the queen he reached down and twisted the iron manacles off his feet, then off each wrist. Each hand grabbed the chain and flexed, and those double-peaked biceps launched the quarter-ton boulders into the air. Twirling the rocks above his head until they gained enough force, he let one fly at Hippolyte. She hadn't time to tear her eyes from the spectacle before the giant rock crushed her and continued rolling on through the air, into the thick of the Amazon warriors. The other one he swung faster and harder, and gripping with his other hand he whipped it around until it was just a blur. Letting it fly with his deadly precision it flew into the sky and was gone, in the direction of the queen's palace. A distant sound like an explosion, minutes later, confirmed his accuracy and the power of the bomb.

Tearing the belt of Ares off the queen's broken corpse he called for his men to return. He had one last thing to do.

Elephants floundered in the lake, unable to swim due to their chains. The boats listed as slaves too tried to free themselves from the shattered wood. There was only one way he would help them. He walked to the dam at the end of the lake, a rather sophisticated arrangement of bricks and wooden palisades. He stood behind the foundation that sunk into the bank, and spent his rage pounding the rocks into fragments and the wood into dust. A dam built to hold back raging flood waters shook and crumbled under this attack of manly fists. The rocks along the shore cracked and lost their grip on the dam and with a deep roar the water collapsed the weakened structure and swept down into the valley. The water level dropped rapidly and Herc walked away to join his men.

"It was Hera, disguised as an advisor," Iolaus declared, panting. "She told the Amazons you were planning to abduct Hippolyte and they attacked us."

"That bitch," Hercules growled, his fists clenching and pressing the thick iron bars of his forearms out of the skin. "Someday we'll settle that score once and for all." And Hercules strode off towards the seacoast and a boatload of sailors eager for his return, to take the damn girdle to Mycenae.