For the briefest instant his mind went outward, searching for connection ... for Sampsa. Then, feeling a great wash of shame, of self-loathing, he reached up and ripped the mask from his face, throwing it aside.
There was a familiar patch of wetness at his groin. Sitting up, he took a long, slow breath.
Ashamed, yes, but part of him had wanted it; had longed for it to continue.
For a long time he sat there, his chin pressed against the balls of his clenched hands, staring at the discarded Stim. It was still running. So what was she doing now? What was he doing to her?
No, he said silently, but the instinct of curiosity was strong. He wanted to know.
He climbed down and picked the headset up, examining it, then sat again on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes, feeling the soft reverberation of the unit against his palms.
What was she doing now? What was he doing to her?
He lifted it and put it on again. Suddenly, vividly, he was back there with her.
She was crouched now on the floor, head down, her arms spread, her buttocks exposed to him, and he was pressed against her, thrusting into her from behind, each movement agonisingly slow, the stiffness of his ghost penis coaxing his real one back to life.
He could smell the animal musk of her and hear the soft, wicked grunt she made with every thrust of his. That smell, those noises - somehow they triggered something in him: something dark and primeval. Unconsciously he mimicked the movements of the Stim, moving his groin slowly, sensuously, as if she were really there in the empty air before him.
"Yes," she was saying now. "Yes, my naughty boy. That" s it. Oh gods, that's it!"
His movements quickened, more urgent suddenly as she pressed back against him.
"Yes," she was saying. "Fuck me. Come on now. Fuck me hard. Yes . . . that's it. Harder now. Harder . . ."
He seemed close, very close, then suddenly he was aware of another presence in the Stim. Somewhere close by, a door had opened and someone had stepped into the room. There was a tingling presence somewhere at the back of his head.
Someone was standing right behind him - a big man in a black, full-length cloak. He stood there, glowering, his left hand holding a vicious-looking bull-whip.
"Aiyar the woman cried, moving away, her flesh suddenly, disappointingly separate from his. "The gods help us, it's your Uncle!"
"What's going on here?" the man asked, his voice heavy with threat. "Is this what you get up to when I'm away?"
No, he wanted to answer, fear making his heart hammer, this is the first time. But the man didn't want an answer. He leaned close, glowering, his face muscles twitching with anger.
"You've been bad, both of you. Very bad. And you know what happens to bad people, don't you?"
He took a step toward them and cracked the whip. Tom could feel its passagein the air close by his face then jumped as it connected with the soft flesh of the woman's haunches.
Her cry was one of fear, but also pleasure.
The man threw off his cloak. Beneath it he was naked, his penis stiff and long.
"Very bad," he said again, but this time he smiled. He stroked the whip slowly along the length of her spine, then, stepping closer, reached down and, gripping her brutally beneath the chin, lifted her face until it was level with his groin.
It went on, darker and yet darker until, towards the end, Tom threw the headset off once more, sickened and shaken, unable to believe that one human could treat another in that manner. And he ... he too had been a part of it, aiding and abetting, hurting the woman, using her, some small dark part of him enjoying it.
He was sheened in sweat, his thin clothes clinging to him damply. Twice more he had come, the stickiness at his groin reminding him of his compliance with the illusion.
So that's it, he thought, glad that Sampsa was not there to share his guilty shame. So that's how things are in this world. That's what happens in the darkness of their rooms.
And was that his fate? To share in that wickedness?
He stood, looking about him, as if uncertain that he really was back among real things, for it seemed that everything was suddenly doubled - that behind each and every thing he saw lay a darker, unseen presence.
Maybe that's what my father sees. Maybe thaf s what he's after.
And if it was?
Tom shivered violently. Then, not knowing what else to do, he went to the washroom and, throwing off his clothes, stepped beneath the shower, keeping his hand on the control pad until the flow fell icy cold.
The public bath-house dominated the small square just off the main marketplace of Weisenau Hsien. Like most district bath houses it was a big square building with a two-tier, red tile roof pitched steeply in the northern style. An eight ch'i high wall surrounded it, unbroken on three sides, while broad steps ran the length of its porticoed and impressive front. Like many of the buildings in Weisenau it looked old, its grey-white surface weathered as if by age, yet like much else here the appearance of antiquity was false. Nothing in the northern city was older than a dozen years.
As twilight fell and the sky darkened, so a stoop-backed servant stepped from the inner shadows carrying a flickering taper and, slotting it into the end of a long-handled stave, set about lighting the six oil-filled lamps that stood on tall poles in front of the building.
Earlier, the bath-house had been filled with noise; with the slap of the masseur's palms against oiled flesh, the hiss of water poured on hot coals, with voices loud and soft, echoing back from the vaulted ceilings, with the soft pad of naked feet on tiles and the dull splash and indrawn gasp as one or other moved from the heat into cooler water. Now, however, the baths were almost empty.
Almost.
At the far end of the great bath, beneath the dim, mist-shrouded illumination of a hovering glow-globe were four figures. Three of them luxuriated on the broad, shelf-like steps, their naked bodies half-submerged, the fourth sat on the edge of the bath, his feet dangling idly in the heated pool.
Just now the eldest of the four - Su Ping, the Hsien L'ing, or District Magistrate of Weisenau, a solid-looking Han in his sixties with grey hair and a neatly-trimmed beard - was talking.
" . . .what I don't want is to find us in the grasp of some avaricious Junior Minister, lining his pockets while our brother here" - he indicated the young man seated close by - "is kept waiting outside the door."
"My elder brother speaks wisely," Su Chun said from beside him, languidly wiping a hand across his sweat-beaded brow. "Yet there are ways we might ensure Su Yen receives fair treatment, neh?"
Su Ping stared at his twin - younger than him by a mere eight minutes - and narrowed his eyes. "I want no violence, brother. The risks . . ."
"Are negligible," Chun said quietly, laying his hand on his brother's arm. "You worry too much, Eldest Brother."
"And rightly so. Am I not Hsien L'ing? If word got back to my masters ..."
"No trail will lead to your door, brother, I promise you. Besides, if we choose our man correctly . . ."
Ping sat forward, suddenly alert. "You know such a one?"
Chun looked about him, his smile quietly confident. "Do you trust me, Eldest Brother?"
The faintest flicker of uncertainty passed across Ping's face. He hesitated a moment, then nodded.
"Good. Then leave this matter with me, neh? What you do not know will not harm you."
"If you say so, brother." Yet Su Ping remained uneasy. As well he might, for though they were twins, the brothers' lives had followed very different paths.
Their mother had been a sing-song girl, a common men hu, who, finding she had suddenly not one but two mouths to feed, had chosen to give up one of her children for adoption. They had been pretty babies and it had not been difficult for her contacts to find a childless couple from the Mids. They had chosen Ping and taken him up-level. Chun, identical in every way, had stayed behind, to grow up in the brothel with his mother. So the fates had decided.