Slide nodded. "No problem."
"Above all, don't look directly at her until you are seated."
"Whatever she wants."
He sat in a shadow-throne, all but invisible, but he drank cognac straight from the bottle, like a cheap-saloon cowboy, and took alternate pulls on a Martian lotus pipe. The bottle and pipe that had been waiting for him were the only sign that Slide's presence was anticipated. The inner chamber was lacquered black, and Japanese scarlet, with a deep gloss, mirror finish, and rigid geometry, sabotaged by claustrophobic falls of purple chiffon like enfolding fabric shadows. Slide sensed a bunker mentality, or maybe a vault 'n' coffin hangover from the time that the Queen had melded with Vlad Dracula, in that Victorian peak of the famous Count's four-hundred-year Transylvanian period. The Queen's body had commenced to move shortly after Slide had seated himself and taken his first drink. Slowly but with an inherent incitement, one long slim leg eased against the other, and her pelvis rotating slightly in the process. Slide was happy to remain passive and watch the slowly escalating royal auto-voluptuousness, until he was suddenly and dazzlingly distracted. Illuminated characters of light appeared in thin air, hotly pink in the red and the black dark of the chamber.
SD21
SD21
SD21
SD21
It pulsed like a silent alarm.
SD21
SD21
SD21
Flicker, flicker, flicker, flash.
SD21
Pow!
SD21
SD21
Slide wondered if it really was an alarm, and if he was expected to do something, but, right as he contemplated moving, he found himself restrained. The throne was, as far as Slide could tell, some dark Martian hardwood, carved into a relief of milling, intertwining dragons, but this did not stop the tails of the two largest dragons suddenly becoming alive and prehensile. He didn't resist as they coiled around his wrists, effectively binding then to the two arms of the throne. In part he didn't resist because he wanted to see what would happen next, but also because he was holding the bottle of cognac in one hand, and the pipe in the other, and really didn't know what to do with either of them. This problem was swiftly solved by the appearance of the handmaiden who had instructed him in the first place. Slide had not known she was even in the room until she appeared out of the shadows, took the objects from him, and withdrew, back into the concealing gloom. With the impediments removed, two more dragons' tails looped about his chest, and more secured his ankles. He was now quite helpless, and he wondered if it might have been a better idea to resist, although he doubted it would have made any difference. Now he was unable to move, the SD21 stopped flashing.
"You demons…"
The Queen spoke, and Slide decided it was incumbent on him to reply. "We demons?"
Now the Queen actually rose, and descended from the Swan bed. Her body was fluid in its transparency, and she moved with an unsteady but still-comely grace, that belied her transformation. She looked sadly at Slide. The change had in no way idealized her. Her body was still painfully thin, and her face still narrow and tending to judgmental, although the lips remained candid and suggestible. Finally she shook her head.
"You demons…"
"Can't live with us, but can't live without us?"
Her face hardened. "There are times when I believe all of that you are nothing but grown out gel-spots left behind from the First Squirt of the liquid para-mater." Slide noticed that she had dropped the royal "we" in her transparent form. "It's hard to believe you are made from the stuff of the Ancient Ones."
Had he been able, Slide would have spread his hands. "Perhaps imperfectly."
The Queen seemed envious. "You are effectively immortal."
"That remains to be totally put to the test."
She ignored him. "But you have no idea what to do with it."
"And you resent that?"
"You wear out one human body after another in the quest for suitable oblivion." The Queen stood in front of Slide with an expression of wistful amusement. "I arranged for you to be helpless."
"So I observe."
She raised her right hand so it was not quite touching his chest. Beads of vapor drifted from her fingertips and attached themselves to his coat. "I thought safer to have you restrained."
Slide was noncommital. "A neat device this throne."
With a move that was as sudden as it was unexpectedly violent, Queen Mina jerked open the front of Slide's shirt. A hand that was chill but plastic explored his chest. The body desired her, but the entity was curious and more than a little watchful. The two separating parts of him conspired to sigh. "You'll find me a little different to your Count. We are both demons, but of a highly different ilk."
The Queen's eyes hardened, but a slight smile played at the corners of her mouth. "My Count, as you call him, is maintained, but halted at a safe distance."
Chill knuckles were on his nipple, squeezing and twisting, but now Slide did the ignoring, despite the copious surge of desire that jolted through the ex-body of Johnny Yuma. "And what of you, lady?"
Nails of ice raked down his chest. "And what of me Yancey Slide? You need have no concern about me. I am integrated. I have purpose."
Slide kept his face impassive, although the body would have liked to have strained yearningly against its bonds. "Where is it written that all should have purpose?" "You would rather run the dimensions in random flight?"
"We're both here on prehistoric Mars aren't we? Flight or purpose, we have arrived in the same place."
She removed her hands from him, took a step back, and frowned, "You're not one of those who believe that we are all chessmen in some game of the Ancients, are you, Slide?"
Slide shrugged, to the extent that he could while so restrained. "We play our own games with the lesser mortals, don't we? We amuse ourselves, right? Why should we suppose that the Big Boys don't do the same?"
She sighed and touched him again. Her face was close to his, and her breath felt glacial. She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Predestined chessmen or not, I have need of you, Slide."
Where her hands touched, his clothes froze, cracked and fell away. The body was beside itself in unpleasant ecstacy, as the clothing dropped in glass-like shards to the floor, but the entity that was the real Slide knew he was only being worked by chimeric distraction. The dragons' tails tightened their grip on his wrists, chest, and ankles. The Queen plainly wanted him helpless: for amusement, or did the requirement come from a deeper place? "I think I need a drink before we go any further."
Queen Mina pressed her cold plastic flesh against his, climbing the throne to straddle him. "You're afraid of me?"
Slide shook his head. It was the only part of him that he could still move. "No, but I would like to proceed with a combination of alcohol and caution."
Without removing herself from the chilly but intimate contact, the Queen raised a transparent arm and gestured to the handmaiden in the shadows. The Martian moved quickly to beside Slide, and placed the bottle to his lips. The delivery method was hardly ideal, but it would have to do. Slide again felt Mina's frigid breath as she asked him. "You also want the pipe?
"No. I don't feel any need to dwell in the dream canyons just now."
"Your body would like it."
"But the rest of me wouldn't."
"Why do you resist me?"
"Because you say you need me, but you don't tell me for what. Like I said, alcohol and caution."
Mina was now writhing against Slide, and his body was responding eagerly, straining against the bonds with breath coming in short, sharp, anguished gasps and heart racing. Now Slide knew for sure she was trying to unbalance him. "I need you. Isn't that enough?"