"I'm sorry," Todd said.
"For what?"
"Coming in here uninvited."
"No," she said sweetly. "I wanted you to come."
"Still, I shouldn't have stayed . . . watching you. It's just that you were talking in your sleep."
"Well it's nice to have somebody listening," she said. "It's a long time since anyone was with me when I slept." She wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Were you having a bad dream?"
"I can't remember," she said, glancing away from him. He knew from his acting coach what such glances indicated: a lie. She knew exactly what she'd been dreaming about; she just didn't want to tell him. Well, that was her business. God knows everybody was allowed their share of secrets.
"What time is it?" she said.
He glanced at his watch. 'Almost four-thirty."
"You want to go for a walk before it gets too dark?" she said.
"Sure."
She threw off her sheet, and got up out of bed, glancing up at Todd as she did so, as though to assure herself of his scrutiny.
"I'm going to bathe first," she said. "Would you do me a little favor in the meantime?"
"Sure."
"Go back to the Gaming Room, where we met last night, and—"
"Don't tell me. Fetch your whip."
She smiled. "You read my mind."
"As long as you promise not to be beating me with it."
"Nothing could be further from my mind," she said.
"Okay. I'll get it. .. but no beating."
"Take your time. There's still plenty of light in the sky."
He left her feeling oddly light-footed, pleased to have an errand from her. What did that say about their relationship? he wondered as he ran. That he was naturally subservient? Ready to do her will at the snap of her fingers? Well, if so, so.
He found his way back down to the big house without difficulty. Marco heard him in the Gaming Room, heavy-footed as ever, and came to see what all the noise was about.
"You okay?"
"That's all you ever ask. Am I okay? Yes. I'm better than okay."
"Good. Only I heard from Maxine—"
"Fuck Maxine."
"So it doesn't bother you?"
"No. We had a good run together. Now it's over."
He picked up the switch from the mantelpiece.
"What the hell is that?"
"What does it look like?"
He beat the air two or three times. The switch was beautifully balanced; he could imagine learning how to use it with considerable cunning. Perhaps she would let him stroke her body with it.
Marco studied him in silence for a few moments; then he said: "You never told me why you took your bandages off. Were they too tight?"
"I didn't take them off. She took them off."
"Who's 'she'?"
"The woman who owns this house. Katya Lupescu."
"I'm sorry, you've lost me."
Todd smiled. "No more explanations," he said. "You'll meet her later. I gotta go."
He left Marco standing at the door with a befuddled expression on his face, and headed out into the light again, climbing the slope toward Katya's house, aware that he was behaving like a man who'd just been given a new lease on life.
He didn't call her name as he entered this time. He simply made his way through the rooms of fake relics.
The sound of running water came from the room adjacent to the bedroom. Apparently, Katya was still running her bath.
He paused and looked around the bedroom. There were several enormous posters on the wall, which he had not noticed until now. Framed posters: one-sheets for movies, many decades old to judge by the stylized graphics and the yellowing of the paper they were printed on. The same image dominated all seven posters: that of a woman's face. She was represented in two of them as a waif, a child-woman lost in a predatory world. But in the others she'd matured beyond the orphan, and these were the images that reminded him of the woman he'd met last night— an exquisite femme fatale glowering from the frames as she planned her next act of anarchy. There was, of course, no question who the woman was. Her name was on the posters, big and bold. The Sorrows of Frederick, starring Katya Lupi. The Devil's Bride, starring Katya Lupi. She Is Destruction, starring Katya Lupi.
What the hell was he to make of this new piece of evidence? Of course it was possible that Katya had paid to have seven posters representing fictitious films printed on aged paper and framed to look like objects of antiquity, but it wasn't very likely. Was it possible this Katya Lupi—who bore such a resemblance to the Katya he knew—was hardly the same woman at all but a granddaughter, with an uncanny resemblance to her older relative? It was a more plausible solution than any other he could think of. Certainly the flawless woman he'd seen naked minutes before, her face without so much as a wrinkle upon it, could not be the woman who'd starred in these movies. There had to be some other explanation.
He was about to call out and announce his presence when he heard a soft intake of breath echoing off the bathroom walls. He went quietly to the door, and glanced in. In a large, old-fashioned ceramic bath, half-filled with water, lay Katya, her legs spread, her hips lifted clear of the water so that he could see how her fingers slid inside her. Her eyes were closed.
Not for the first time this afternoon, Todd could feel the head of his dick tapping out the rhythm of his pulse against the inside of his pants. But he had no desire to interrupt Katya's game. He was perfectly happy to watch her: her face in ecstasy, her breasts clearing from the water as her body arched, her legs lifted up and straddling the sides of the bath. The mysteries of who she was and how she came to be here suddenly seemed absurdly irrelevant. What the hell did it matter? Look at her!
"Did you bring it?"
He'd had his eyes on her cunt; but when he looked back up at her face she was staring at him, her expression fierce with need.
"The Teroarea. Did you bring it?"
He was mortified with embarrassment, but plainly she couldn't have cared less. She had other priorities.
"Yes," he said, showing her the switch. "I brought it."
"So use it."
"What?"
She lifted her hips even higher, spreading her legs to give him a full view of her sex. It was ripened by her own touches; but also, he knew, from the anticipation of his return.
"Touch it," she said. "Lightly."
His target stood proud of its hood, presented for his delectation.
"Please," she begged.
He took four steps to the bottom of the bath, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. He felt the weight of the switch in his hand. He'd never done anything remotely like this before, but something about the way her body was contorted to offer her sex up to him lent him confidence.
"Are you ready?"
"Just do it!"
He lifted the Terror. Her clitoris looked as hard and as red as a ruby. He lay the switch on it with a short little stab that made her sob.
"Again!" she demanded immediately.
The ruby was already a little redder.
"Again!" she said.
He struck her again, twice, three times, four and five and six, while every muscle in her body went rigid so as to be his perfect target.
"More?" he said.
There were tears on her face, but she simply growled at him between gritted teeth. He took it to mean yes, and went to work again, until the sweat was running from his face, and down his back, his breath was rough with exertion. But she would not let him stop. Her gaze, her sneer, her offered body spoke the same demand, and he dutifully answered it, over and over and over and—