“You’re going to like what I’m doing. Jack. We’re going to a party. I left it just to come and get you.”
She moved closer to the bed, and he could see her green-flecked eyes. She was on something, and it was a hell of a lot stronger than Endorkiss. She caught his frown and held out the inhaler. “Want a whiff?”
“No!”
“Then let’s go to the party.” She yanked the blanket off Jackson’s bed. Mud from her hands smeared the non-consumable fabric. “Oh, look, you’re all ready! You always could get hard fast, Jack. I do like that. Come on, let’s go. They’re waiting.”
He yanked the blanket back from her, feeling like a fool. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” she purred. She let go of the disputed blanket, threw herself on top of him, and kissed him ferociously.
He couldn’t help himself. His arms went around her and his tongue shot into her open mouth. His cock felt ready to burst. Cazie laughed, her mouth still on his, and pushed him away. She was stronger than he remembered. Clumsily, still laughing, she rolled off the bed and started for the door.
“Not here, Jack. Come on, you don’t want to miss the party.”
“Cazie! Wait!” He heard her run lightly through the apartment and tell the front door to open. Jackson grabbed his pants and pulled them on. Barefoot and bare-chested, he ran after her, hoping they didn’t wake Theresa. Cazie had disappeared. Jackson yanked open the front door.
“Have a good evening, Dr. Aranow,” the door said to him. “Shall I cancel your wake-up call?”
“Yes,” Jackson said. “No. Cazie!”
She’d already gone into the elevator: it closed. As he watched helplessly, the door opened again. She stood there, naked and muddy and smiling, lowering the inhaler. “Come on in. Jack, the water’s fine.”
“Shall I wait, Dr. Aranow?” the elevator asked. “Or are you staying on this floor?”
Jackson stumbled into the elevator. Cazie laughed. “Sixth floor, please.”
“Cazie, you’re naked!”
“And you’re not. But we can fix that. Isn’t it lucky the party’s right in your building?” She reached out one hand, hooked it into the top of his pants, and pulled him toward her. She undid the single clasp he’d had time to fasten when the elevator stopped and the door opened.
“Sixth floor, Ms. Sanders,” the elevator said “Have a nice evening.”
“Cazie…”
“Come on, Jack! We’re late!” She ran down the hall, shedding mud. Cursing, Jackson followed.
He should go home right now.
The cheeks of her ass, smeared with mud, flashed alternately—left right left right… Her ass was firm but not so firm that it didn’t jiggle as she ran. Jackson followed.
The party was at Terry Amory’s. Jackson knew Terry, but not well. The door was open. Cazie led him through a pseudo-Asian minimalist decor to the dining room. “He’s here! Let the games begin!”
“And just in time,” Terry drawled. “We were going to start without you. Hello, Jackson. Welcome to the psychobank.”
Six naked people, three men and three women, lolled on a feeding ground the size of Jackson’s bedroom. Water had been churned into the custom-mixed organic loam; the resulting mud was thick, rich, and subtly perfumed. The wall program displayed earth tones, grays and tans and ochres, with dissolving and re-forming cave paintings. Stalactites—probably holos—hung from the ceiling. Two of the women sprawled carelessly across one of the men who, Jackson saw, was Landau Carson, tonight not wearing bees. Landau and Terry were the only people Jackson recognized.
The woman not lying on Landau, a tall, slim redhead with bright blue eyes, said to Jackson, “Well, take your pants off, darling. They don’t look very edible.”
Jackson considered leaving. But Cazie inhaled again from whatever was scrambling her brain. The little fool. Did she even know what was in the inhaler? Didn’t she know there were street drugs that did permanent damage to the brain, altering neural pathways before the Cell Cleaner had a chance to destroy them?
“Give me the inhaler, Cazie.”
To his surprise, she did, holding it meekly out to him. When he reached for it she shoved him into the feeding ground.
Fury tore through Jackson. Let her warp her brain. Let her fuck every single one of these diseases, of both genders. She was sick, less mentally healthy than Theresa, and with far less reason. Let her go to hell… He had hauled himself out of the mud to leave, when he saw the knives.
Twelve of them, stuck in an orderly blades-down row into a molded stand. The hilts were all shaped differently, ornamented with crudely carved animals that echoed the cave paintings of the wall programming. Throwing knives, but not well balanced. Deliberately.
“I’ve got the paint,” the redhead said. She sniffed from an inhaler. “Who’s first?”
“Neophytes first,” Cazie said. “First me and then Jackson.”
“Here,” Terry crooned, “let me assist you, as said Cro-Magnon to the Neanderthal. Ummmmmm, nice.” He dipped his hand in the pot and smeared paint the color of dried blood on both Cazie’s nipples. Then liberally on the fuzzy muddy mound between her thighs. Cazie smiled.
The redhead handed her a belt with a small dark button in the front. Fumbling, laughing, Cazie strapped it around her waist and pushed the button. Jackson saw the faint shimmer of a personal Y-shield spring around her.
Cazie slogged through the mud to the opposite side of the room. She stood flat against the wall, under a stalactite, arms straight at her side after one more whiff from the inhaler. Terry said, “Host’s prerogative, ladies and gentlemen,” and reached for the knife stand.
Jackson thought rapidly. If the shield was standard—and it looked like it was—a knife would not pierce it. Terry might aim for the painted areas of Cazie’s exposed body, but the exposure wasn’t real. It was just playacting, a fake thrill, the simulation of danger.
“Pleasure or pain?” Terry mused theatrically. His hand hovered over one knife after another. “Pain or pleasure? And for such a beautiful body, too… so full and ripe… pleasure or pain?” He chose a knife.
As Terry pulled it free of the stand. Jackson saw that the knife blade, too, was encased in the shimmer of a Y-energy shield. Sudden cold prickled the base of his spine.
The redhead sank into the mud on her belly, wriggled in the depression her body made, and rolled onto her back, streaked with mud. She raised herself on her elbows to get a better view of Cazie. Her conical breasts rose and fell with her breathing.
Terry threw the knife, and Cazie screamed.
Jackson scrambled forward across the mud. But Cazie wasn’t hurt; the knife was embedded in the dining-room wall and Cazie laughed down at Jackson. “Fooled you, darling!”
Before he could react, Terry threw another knife. Jackson saw it fly through the air—it was unbalanced, the knives were designed to be hard to make a hit with—and strike Cazie’s left breast, to the left of the painted nipple. The knife bounced off her shield and fell into the mud.
“No points!” the redhead said. “Bad, bad, bad aim, Terry darling.”
“One more throw,” said the man Jackson didn’t know. “Cazie’s friend, get out of the way, please. We can’t see, and some of us are too entangled to move.”
“I may never move again,” said one of the two women lying twisted around Landau Carson. “Oh, do that again, Landau.”
A third knife whistled through the air, missed Cazie, and embedded itself in the wall.
“Three strikes and you’re out, Terry,” Landau said. “I’m next.”
“As thrower?”
“Garrote the thought. As target, of course.”