Once she found herself staring into Hiram’s eyes while Ezili knelt before her, and she felt an almost psychic connection with him. He was hungry for her, for Ezili, for both of them, but even more for the thing on her back. He felt a bit bewildered and abandoned. He knew this pleasure, not just the pleasure of Ezili’s body but of this contact, the ecstasy of the kiss. The kiss. Ezili’s mouth, skilled as it was, paled next to the real kiss.
Absently she pushed Ezili away and gave herself over fully to the creature, obeying its silent commands, reveling in what it could do for her all by itself.
Eventually she found herself languid on the bed, drifting in half-consciousness, still aglow with pleasure. She was aware of the way the covers felt against her skin, of the wetness between her thighs and the water still slowly caressing her body, of the murmur of Hiram and Ezili’s talking. It should have been uncomfortable with her Master on her back (Ti Malice, her mind told her, and she accepted the name), but it felt perfectly natural there, as though it were something that always should have been there and had been missing until now. She sighed with contentment. How had she gone all her life without the comfort of the weight there, the sweet pressure at her neck? She had been incomplete before, pathetically unfinished. Now she was whole, more than whole; perhaps even more than human.
Yes, much more than human. She had been waiting for this all her life without knowing it, to be ridden by this creature of beauty that could bring her spirit to new heights of awareness. This was living a plane above human. All the new thoughts it gave her … but most of all, the pleasure. She had been made for pleasure, she thought happily; how fortunate that she had been able to find that out.
“Ezili,” her voice said. Somewhere out of the range of her vision she felt Ezili snap to attention.
“I have been waiting,” Ezili said, sounding acquiescent and yet petulant all at once.
“It is not done yet.”
Ezili sighed. A moment later she felt the touch of Ezili’s hand.
“No, not that. Is your traveling cloak here? We wish to … travel.” Jane heard herself laugh softly.
“What about me?” Hiram said.
“You can help me dress.” Jane’s hand lifted in his direction. “Come, help me up.”
The traveling cloak was a long, flowing cape with a cowl and a large collar in layered ruffles. The ruffles hid the hump the creature would have made under the more conventional covering of a sweater or a jacket. The cloak itself was a bit ostentatious, but on the streets of wild card New York, it wouldn’t cause much comment. The shrouded forms of jokers hiding some prominent feature or another had been commonplace for years.
Ezili pulled up the cowl so that it hid Jane’s face completely. Jane gathered the cloak about herself, enjoying the small pleasure of the way it touched her.
“Somewhere interesting,” she told Ezili. “Something in a man this time.”
“And I just stay here and wait for you?” Hiram said. His tone was satisfyingly servile.
“You know I will come back for you later. Be here.”
“Yes,” said Hiram. “Always.” He kept his gaze on the carpet. “I’ll phone for the car.”
Jane was delighted to see that Hiram was traveling by private limo these days, with a driver who left the soundproofed partition up at all times. It gave her the privacy she wanted, with Ezili or anyone else.
It was like being a queen, Jane thought; a queen or an empress. Now she could understand what it must have been like to be the Astronomer, the way he was. She had been calling him poison and resisting certain aspects of her own power—it was to laugh. What she had thought of as evil was just a matter of power. There wasn’t really even such a thing as evil or good—only power and the pleasure that it brought. And anything could be sacrificed for that, anything at all, and everything if necessary. Whatever. Always.
They passed a newsstand and she had a glimpse of a magazine with a picture of Jumpin’ Jack Flash on the cover. Something twanged within her. How nice it would have been to have him now. But there were plenty of good-looking men in the world, red-haired or not. And what did good-looking have to do with it anyway? There were whispers about jokers, about how sometimes the more grotesque the deformity, the more endowed and skilled they were for certain things.…
Hey, baby, I got more than just the ears of a donkey!
She gave Ezili an attention-getting pinch, once more generating a burst of pleasure just in the movement, and told her where she wanted to go. Then she sat back while Ezili told the driver, experiencing the ecstasy of just breathing in and out. In and out.
If the joker with the donkey ears recognized her, he gave no sign. He stood gawking with his squirt bottle in one hand and a filthy rag in the other as Jane beckoned through the open door to him. For a moment he looked as though he were going to climb in, but when he saw Ezili, he suddenly bolted. Surprise and anger surged through Jane, and that, too, was great pleasure to feel. From now on she would feel every emotion there was to feel, anything that pleased her Master. Whatever. Always.
Ezili shut the door and told the driver to go on. “Don’t worry,” she purred, to Jane or to Ti Malice, it didn’t matter. Sound was exquisite. “We’ll find another that isn’t all talk.”
The next joker they found was eyeless, but he had no problem climbing into the back of the limo. Jane studied him; his head was elongated, bullet-shaped, with just a blank expanse of skin running from the straight hairline to his nose. Seeing deformity was as delicious as seeing Ezili naked.
The joker sniffed suspiciously and turned his face to her. “How many of you are there?” he said in a ridiculously high voice. Jane reached down between his legs and he jumped. Ezili held him back against the seat.
“Hey, hey,” the joker shrilled. “You don’t have to pin me down, I know what you want.” He began to undo his baggy trousers.
Her Master rode her awe as if it were a wave. “Is that … standard equipment?” she was allowed to ask.
The joker gave a high laugh. “It is on this model. God bless the wild card, hey, ladies?”
Her Master bent her head for her; even the anticipation of pleasure was a whole pleasure in itself. As was having Ezili watch.
The bar was dark, except for the hot, white spotlight on the small stage where a many-breasted hermaphroditic joker and a normal man did unusual things to each other in time to music. Jane watched through her new eyes, embracing the experience of curiosity and interest. Even more interesting was the way the other patrons cruised her and Ezili. They moved past their corner table, ostensibly on their way to the bar or to the rest room, slowing to make eye contact. It was exhilirating to find she could dismiss someone with a look. They all wanted her; some of them stared at Ezili, but they all looked at her, nestled in her cloak, hiding the spirit of power on her back. They knew, she thought. They all knew that she was the real presence and Ezili wasn’t much more than her servant, if that. Servant to the thing on her back, yes, but it was on her back. No matter what happened later, it was on her back now, and even if it should leave, if she should never have it again, she had been the Queen of Pleasure for a little while and she could not imagine not feeling that way ever again.
There was a young man standing in front of the table expectantly. Her Master told Jane to appraise him—skinny, young, probably not more than seventeen or eighteen. No visible distinguishing characteristics other than his shaggy red hair. A little pretty boy. She leaned forward.
“You’re blocking our view. Why don’t you sit down?” She indicated the chair beside her.
The boy sat down, staring at her intently. Then, without a word, he slid off the chair and knelt in front of her. When she pulled up her dress, she knew it was the creature moving her arms, but she poured all her enthusiasm into it, going with him joyfully, accepting the pleasure of her fingers twisting in the boy’s hair. Red hair, she thought dreamily; I’ll pretend it’s him, Jumpin’ Jack Flash.…
There was a mild ripple in
the pleasure running through her, as though something in her had been distracted. Without volition she looked over her shoulder at Ezili.
“It’s starting to bore me,” she heard herself say in a flat voice. “Perhaps it doesn’t fight me enough, or perhaps it just doesn’t have enough ideas of its own. Take the cape, Ezili.”
Ezili’s eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.
“Move carefully, my own.”
Ezili whispered something in French and slipped under the side of the cloak, putting one arm around Jane.
Jane held tighter to the boy’s head, feeling something like hurt surprise. It was leaving her? Now? Even as she thought it, she felt it withdraw from her neck. There was a moment of sharp pain, followed by a sudden blankness, as if a switch had been thrown to off. She was aware of the creature’s moving from her back to Ezili’s, and she wanted to turn and grab it back, but she couldn’t move.
And the cloak was resettled around Ezili’s shoulders and she was now the Queen of Pleasure.
Ezili rose from her chair as if she were levitating and looked down at Jane with scornful triumph.
“Why?” Jane pleaded. “I thought—I thought—”
Ezili stroked Jane’s head roughly, as if she were a dog. “Old favorites are not forgotten. New pleasures bring great thrills, yes, but the old favorites such as this mount, it knows how to please me. And the richness of its appetites—you have far to go, little mount, before you can compare with this.” Ezili cupped her hands around her breasts and held them out proudly.
Jane turned away, starting to tremble. Ezili bent down and put her mouth close to her ear. “Goes right to the pleasure place in your brain, did you know that?” she said in her own, hateful Ezili-voice. “Yeah. Maybe you can get hold of some drug does the same. Might get you through the hours without him. You can try that, might help. And maybe you be a lot nicer to me now, white meat. If you want the kiss again.” She thrust her tongue into Jane’s ear, and Jane gave a little screech, slapping at her. Ezili laughed and moved around the table, going toward the exit.
“Wait!” Jane shouted over the music. “Where are you going?”
Ezili paused, sneering at her. “Out for some real action.”
“What about me?” she cried desperately.
Ezili laughed again; the cape swirled gracefully as she headed for the exit.
Jane sat frozen for a moment. Drown her! she thought, but her mind shied away from the necessary concentration. The pleasure that had been thrumming all through her like the vibrations from some smooth-running engine were gone, and in its place was a terrible hollowness as if, when the creature had pulled away from her, it had taken everything inside of her with it.
Then she looked down and saw the boy between her legs, grinning up at her, his mouth and chin shining wetly in the faint light.
“Get away!” she shrieked and beat at him madly, horrified at herself and him and at the way the creature had left her.
“Hey, hey!” the boy yelled, trying to fend off her flailing hands. “Handyman, help! Cunt gone crazy!”
Several arms grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Let me go!” She tried to twist away and the arms hugged her tighter, threatening to crush her rib cage. She tried to call water to dash it into her captor’s face, but her ability seemed to have deserted her; there was only hollowness where it had once been. Panic jumped in her. “Help, police, somebody!”
“Shut your fucking mouth, cunt,” said a deep male voice close to her ear, the same ear where Ezili had stuck her tongue. Jane squirmed in revulsion and the arms squeezed again painfully. She forced herself to go limp. After a moment the arms relaxed slightly, ready to tighten again if she started to struggle.
“Now what were you saying about the police? Maybe you seen a crime being committed?”
Jane looked around. They were all staring at her, all the people at the little tables spread through the room, but there was no emotion in most of the faces. On stage the hermaphrodite and the man had paused, sitting on a platform with legs entwined, squinting out at the room in annoyance. The hermaphrodite shielded his/her eyes from the spotlights with one hand, searching for the cause of the disturbance.
“Hey, do you fucking mind?” s/he yelled, his/her face turned in Jane’s direction. “I’m trying to concentrate up here. You think this she-male shit’s easy or something?”
“Go fuck yourself!” someone yelled hoarsely.
“That’s the late show, sweetheart!”
“Okay, cunt, let’s go,” said the male voice in Jane’s ear. “You ruined the show.” The arms lifted her and dragged her across the back of the room to a different exit than the one Ezili had taken. The red-haired kid ran to open the door, and Jane was shoved out into a narrow, dirty alley. She hit the ground on hands and knees, crying out in rage and pain.
“Blow, cunt. And don’t bring it around here again.”
She scrambled up, ready to protest, and then jumped back, falling against some garbage cans. The man standing in the doorway was no taller than she was, but his torso was wide and misshapen, to accommodate the three pairs of arms. Behind him the red-haired boy glowered at her and wiped his mouth showily. “She didn’t pay, Handyman,” he said.
The man glanced at the kid and then came at Jane, moving more quickly than she had thought he would have been able to. “Nobody stiffs one of my boys,” he said, “especially not some skinny fucking cunt who yells for the cops. Give it up, dickhole, and you’re free to go.” Before she could run, he was on her, running all of his hands over her body in a rough search. “Come on, where do you keep your wad?” One hand clamped between her legs. Jane opened her mouth to scream, and another hand clamped over it while four hands continued to pat her down.
“Shut up. You keep it down there, in the safety deposit box? I’ll give you one chance to get it yourself and then I go in after it.”
Jane stared at him pleadingly; he pulled the hand at her mouth away.
“Well?”
“I don’t have anything,” she whispered. “They left me here with nothing.”
The man picked her up and tossed her away. She landed heavily on her side in a spill of garbage.
“Tough stuff, cunt. But I’ll let you off with a warning. This time. Don’t bring it back here, I mean it.”
Jane raised herself slowly to a sitting position, drawing her legs up protectively. The man started to turn away and then feigned a lunge at her. She gave a small yelp and he laughed at her, the red-haired boy joining in from where he stood at the doorway, hanging on the jamb by one arm as though this were some idle, late-summer afternoon and he was being entertained by the antics of his friends. In the light it was obvious that he was younger than she’d thought. Revulsion and pity for him began to well up in her and suddenly cut off as it met the great hollowness of Ti Malice’s absence from her body and mind. She burst into tears and something in her gave. Suddenly she was covered with water.
“What the fuck is that?” the man shouted at her. “What the fuck are you?” He backed away from her. The sight of the six-armed joker flinching from her water-calling power gave her small, bitter amusement; she concentrated and this time found the power, pulling a couple of gallons of water out of the air to fling in his face. Then, while he was still sputtering and roaring with anger, she got up and ran.
She called the water out of her clothing as best she could, but the power was weak and she stayed moderately damp as she wandered aimlessly through Jokertown in the deepening twilight. Aimless? Not quite—lifeless, perhaps, lifeless and empty, but on the lookout for Hiram’s car. Perhaps Ezili had gone back to Hiram, or Hiram had gone back to Aces High. If she called Hiram, he might send someone out for her—
The memory of what had happened with Hiram was like a fist in her stomach. She could see his face, the sorrow, the anger, the despair, that alien curiosity, and then Ezili, Ezili and herself …
She bent over, choking and gagging, unmindful of
the stares from people passing by. Oh, God, how could she have, what had made her—with Ezili, Ezili—she must have been mad, crazed, possessed—
Someone bumped into her and she staggered against the side of a building, sobbing into her hands. Possessed, yes, but now it was gone, leaving her worse than alone. The hollowness inside of her seemed to swell, and she had an image of herself being sucked down a huge drain. To live without the fullness the creature brought her, to exist with no pleasure at all, was unbearable.
Trembling doubled her over again and she sobbed harder. More. She needed more, she needed to feel herself whole again, nestled in the glow of pleasure that only the creature could give her, and if she had to go to Ezili again, to Ezili and Hiram together, if she had to go to that bar and walk up onstage to the hermaphrodite and the man and the six-armed joker and the red-haired boy all at the same time, it would not have been too much to ask of herself, if the thing asked her to cut her own throat at the end of it—
“Hey. Hey. Easy, now.”
Gentle hands were on her shoulders. She twisted around, desperate hope rising and then plummeting to despair as she looked into the grotesque clown face. “Go away,” she said, pushing at the strange man feebly.
“There, now, I’m just trying to help you. Don’t let the face put you off. I know it’s silly. Just my bad luck to be in makeup when the virus showed, now I can’t get it off. Not the worst thing that could happen, I guess, just looking at you.” The man hauled her to her feet and stood her against the wall, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. The sadness in his eyes made the clown white and the big red nose even more absurd, but she didn’t feel much like laughing.
“Go away,” she moaned, “you can’t help me, no one can help me, only him. I have to find him.” Weeping, she looked down at her arms. Dry. She touched her face; it, too, was dry. She couldn’t even call her own tears anymore. Had that been the last of it, back there in the alley?