«Come on in, I said,» repeated Blade, gesturing urgently. The woman nodded, heaved the door shut, and approached Blade. He picked up the oil lamp on the floor beside the bed and held it out in front of him as the woman approached the bed.
Blade now recognized her. She was one of the younger women whose eyes had followed his comings and goings with interest. In fact, she was the only one he knew by name. Her name was Mirna, and she seemed to be a leader among the younger women. It was hard to judge her age, but she was certainly no fresh-faced girl.
«Welcome, Mirna,» said Blade. «I have only water to offer you, but-«
She laughed softly, and her face twisted into a wry smile. «You need not tell me how little there can be of hospitality, here in this valley. But you can make me welcome, with only water or indeed with no drink at all. I am not thirsty.»
She sat down on the bed, pulled her bound hair around over her shoulder, and began undoing the bindings. Slowly she worked at her hair, until it flowed down freely. Like most of the women of the valley, Mirna was dark-haired, but her hair was so black that it held distinct tints of blue. She shook her head, and the hair tossed in a cloud that framed her narrow olive-skinned face with the prominent arched nose. Blade found that he wanted to stroke that hair, feeling its silkiness on his skin, and then move on to stroke Mirna's face. He also suspected that Mirna would not object. Blade was an experienced man who seldom failed to detect a willing woman, and a lusty man who seldom turned one down unless there was a very good reason to do so.
There might be a reason now. Was Mirna coming to him out of desire for him, or on the Master's orders, to surround Blade with scandal? That could give the Master a perfect excuse for breaking his agreement with Blade and having him drugged or slain.
On the other hand, the scandal the Master could spread would be nothing compared to the scandal Mirna could cause, if she felt herself rejected and humiliated for no good reason. Blade had no desire whatever to find himself considered an enemy by any of the women of the valley.
Mirna now ran her fingers through her hair, tugging and combing, wincing as the knots and snags came out. Her eyes seldom left Blade's face, except to run up and down his body. He was barefoot and wore only a pair of the baggy Hashom trousers, leaving his massive torso with its display of muscles and scars entirely bare.
At last Mirna seemed to finish with both her hair and her examination of Blade. She wore a plain gray robe, belted in at the waist with a knitted sash of black wool. The garment barely hinted at any female curves underneath. Women's garments in this valley seemed to be about as stylish as flour sacks.
Mirna's hands closed over the knot in the sash, and Blade felt a sudden tightening in his loins and a dryness in his throat as her fingers went to work on the knot. He'd been living without women far longer than he ever did by choice.
He still did not let desire rise to swallow his judgment. He continued to stand by the bed, the knife in his hand, as Mirna finished unknotting the sash. He watched as she rose to her feet, the robe drifting open to give tantalizing hints of beauty underneath. Now she shrugged the robe from her shoulders. It whispered to the floor and she faced him across the bed, gloriously naked.
There was a faint hint of perfume in the air of the room now that it could play freely over all of Mirna's body. Blade saw that the nipples of her delicately rounded breasts were darkened with some cosmetic. The dark triangle of hair between her thighs had also been rubbed with something that gave it a silvery sheen in the dimly lit room.
Slowly she raised her arms above her head, which gave her breasts new and fascinating movements, then slowly turned her back to Blade. He found his eyes drawn to the line of her spine where it emerged from under her hair, downward to the cleft between her firm buttocks.
Blade's eyes were not the only part of his body moving now. He pushed his trousers and loinguard under them down his legs, and stepped around the bed as naked as Mirna. She stepped away from the bed without turning around. He came up to her from behind, burying his face in her hair, smelling its perfume, while his hands went around her and cupped her breasts. The solid warmth of her buttocks nestled against his groin, and it was like a caress. Suddenly warmth was flaring up in Blade, and his hands tightened on Mirna's breasts as her nipples thrust out hard against his palms.
They stood there for a long moment, in a flare of desire so intense that neither wanted to move apart for fear of losing it. Somehow their minds told their bodies that they had to move, if they wanted to reach the goal they both now desperately sought. Mirna turned toward Blade, standing on tip-toe to raise her lips to his as his arms locked around her and lifted her.
There was a moment when it seemed that Mirna would insist on Blade taking her then and there, as they stood by the bed. But her desire lifted her high, and Blade's arms lifted her higher. He picked her up and held her in his arms as easily as a child while his lips caressed her breasts. Then he turned and lowered her gently to the bed. The leather straps that supported the thin mattress groaned under Blade's weight as he lay down beside her. He ignored the sounds. Like all the buildings of the Hashomi, the hospital had thick walls. He could play trumpets, set off firecrackers, or make love to Mirna as passionately as they both wished without anyone in the next room being much the wiser.
Mirna clutched at him furiously, arms and legs thrashing. Then she maneuvered him over on his back, straddled his thighs, and dropped upon his massively swollen and upthrust manhood. She bent forward, and her hands clutched Blade's dark hair as her inward warmth and wetness gripped his swollen flesh. Her hands gripped so hard that pain stabbed Blade for a moment. Then the pain was gone, and only pleasure remained, swelling slowly and then not so slowly as Mirna began to move upon him.
She moved in more different ways than Blade would have thought possible for any one woman. Sometimes she bent far backward until her hair brushed his ankles, sometimes she stopped moving altogether and sat bolt upright, motionless except for the rise and fall of her breasts. Did she do that to prolong her own desire or Blade's? It was impossible to tell, and in the end it was a question with no meaning.
Suddenly she bent far backward, and Blade could both see and feel the twisting and tightening of her pelvic muscles. Then she bent as far forward, with a small scream that turned into a long tearing gasp, and her teeth clamped down on her lower lip until Blade could see drops of blood.
Then he could see nothing, for the room became even darker and seemed to vanish in a swirling blue haze. He was conscious only of a blaze of sheer ecstasy in the middle of that blueness, as he found his own release. He thrust his own hips upward, until Mirna was tossed about on top of him like a chip of wood on top of a wave. His own breath came out in a long groan that turned into a hiss as his lungs emptied. Then his hands groped for Mirna, ran up and down the smooth, sweat-slick back, and drew her against him as both of them relaxed.
The relaxation lasted only moments. Somehow Mirna found enough strength to lift herself off Blade. She half-rolled, half-fell off the bed and for a moment held onto the edge to keep from slumping to the floor. Then she rose on shaky legs, and stood looking down at Blade.
She sighed. «Blade, if we had time, and this place was safer-«She seemed to run out of breath.
«Yes,» he prompted her. «If the time and place were better-«
She took a deep breath, and ran her hands through hair that spread damp and tangled all over her shoulders. «No. The time and place have been good enough, for now. You have been given another test, Blade-and you have passed it as you did the test against the fighting Hashomi.»