Sensation Read online

The Bullhead provided everything. There was fruit and wine on a shelf near the platform, easily reachable whether one was on one's back or one's knees. There were thick towels piled on the floor beside a ewer of hot water.

  What would they provide their special customers?

  A place like the Bullhead had its secrets. And they would be buried, deeper than a pharaoh's tomb. If someone like Venable frequented a brothel, any brothel, he would never risk his reputa­tion and losing his followers by being seen publicly in such a place.

  Even so, a man did have needs. A man who set himself up as

  someone who knew what was best for everyone couldn't fuck a common whore in a common walk-up.

  For Venable, and others like him, there had to be some special arrangement in a house like this, something luxuriously decadent specifically created and appointed.

  It was a house of accommodation, after all, and now he thought of it, Lujan had even hinted at it, the day he conceived of the idea of referring him to Wyland.

  ... A man's a man, he'd said, no matter what his position in life. You find them in the strangest, most unlikely places ...

  Like Bullhead Manor . ..

  Maybe especially Bullhead Manor, which catered to men of wealth, influence and substance. This was a palace of pleasure that could easily render invisible a man who needed isolation, se­curity, protection, discretion, loyalty, and wholehearted alle­giance to him and his needs.

  Where in the Bullhead would they quarter men like Venable, who were accustomed to the best, who wanted their sins to van­ish like words on a magic slate .. .

  Somewhere in Bullhead Manor there must exist a suite of rooms in which those men spent untold hours humping and pumping and indulging their every secret perversion.

  And maybe Venable had been one of them, and he had been here the night before he died.

  It was a theory as to why things seemed so insubstantial, and it was more than he'd had when he came here today.

  But all the sex was life-sapping. It was automatic, on call. The whores wanted too much from his reluctant body. The memory of the delectable virgin exerted too strong a pull—she still occu­pied his thoughts, his energy, another ghost haunting him, and he had nothing in him for the whores.

  And because he needed to be here now, he couldn't help her; he couldn't even find out who she was: all the bribes he'd offered yesterday got him nothing more than a half dozen surnames of the occupants of the suites on that side of the third floor of the hotel.

  No help there. No virgins floating around the lobby looking to be rescued. He had even waited, spending the time before the

  bank opened in the hotel restaurant drinking tea and scribbling on a napkin the thing that most occupied his mind.

  ... I... LIVE.

  ... WILL RETURN.

  The words were bone-chilling, even written in his own hand. They were meant to incite and arouse. To rally people, to infuse them with the longing to have what had been, to relinquish every­thing to what was, to believe the cryptic promise .. .

  ... I LIVE—he checked off the words ...

  ... so that when someone would eventually step up and offer it to them, they would be primed and ready to receive it with open arms . ..

  I WILL RETURN .. .

  He checked that off.

  Another Venable. What else could it be? Waiting in the wings somewhere was a strong, charismatic man through whom Venable's words and ideology would live. And a country waiting, hoping, praying for it to come to pass—that was the most ingenious thing.

  It was such a disturbing thought on this bright spring morning that he deliberately crossed out the words in bold black strokes.

  Check check check ... no matter where he looked, Tony Venable was there. Because nobody knew who the next Venable was. He could be the man across the room at the window table. Check.

  He could be the waiter. Check.

  He could be the elegant elderly gentleman who had just paused at the restaurant door. Check.

  He could be Wyland, for all Kyger knew. Check.

  He had better stop this—he scrawled STOP in large letters— check.

  He sipped his tea, now cold. No virgins. Close to the time the bank would open and he could access the money Wyland had arranged for him.

  Check.

  He looked at the napkin, covered with slashes, scribbles, words, checks.

  .. . checks ... Where had he seen checks?

  He turned the napkin around. The check marks looked like

  sevens turned backward. What? Sevens again? He was getting delusional.

  Enough of that. He crumpled the napkin, paid for his tea, pushed the notion of sevens from his thoughts, and went to the bank. It was all the time he could spend on it. Any of it, given what he had to gird himself to spend at the Bullhead.

  Maybe the virgin had been a dream, anyway. Sometimes he thought so.

  Help me ...

  It was too easy to think none of it was real, and everything was a figment of his imagination.

  Even Venable ...

  He now felt as if he were invisible, as if he were drifting off on his silky soft ermine-covered bed. It was the scent in the room, in the air, in his head. More bodies entered, sliding all over him, pushing, prodding, pumping.

  His quiescent body was not immune. He got lost in sensation, his penis spouting like a geyser once, twice, and again. They climbed onto him then, the experienced and well-schooled whores, one mounting him, one between his legs, one at his mouth. There was no getting away from them at the Bullhead. They were everywhere, pulling out his pleasure, drowning him in sensation.

  There was nothing to do but lie back and let it happen.

  They just couldn't let a vigorous man rest.

  She got out of the hotel by noon, and it was no small feat, with her father snoring away in his bedroom and Wroth due for high tea.

  Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would come out of her chest. Every nightmare pursued her—the worst, that her father had seen her rooting around his room looking for his money.

  If he ever—

  Well, he'd discover her perfidy soon enough.

  Besides, he had more money than he could spend in his life­time and hers put together. It was her one consolation. She wasn't stealing anything that he couldn't easily replace.

  And he shouldn't have done this to her, shouldn't have just sold her off to Wroth. She had firm justification for this rank re-

  bellion. Let him experience the sensation of losing something pre­cious like he had taken her freedom.

  She'd set her course, her determination was rock hard, and she wouldn't look back.

  Defeating the lock had actually been easier than she'd thought. It was a matter of plugging the mechanism with a little piece of cotton. And thankfully, Zabel was in a hurry with Wroth due to call for him, and him wanting Angilee to be greeted in her proper submissive place.

  So he was more careless than usual in fastening the cuff around her wrist. The tongue slid in but didn't click shut as it butted up against the tiny wad of cotton she'd pushed into the opening with the thin crochet hook she sometimes used to fasten tiny loops and buttons.

  Zabel, thankfully, didn't notice, and Angilee made sure she held the cuff closed and tight against her body until Wroth had paid his visit and he and her father left for the night.

  Even then, she stayed immobile for hours to assure herself they were gone, and only then did she unclasp the cuff and cau­tiously search the suite for anything she could use in her quest.

  She had hours, she knew, but even so, they would eventually return, and Zabel would check on her to make sure she was still locked up, still firmly in place. The guard would still be outside the door. Her dinner would still be delivered, and the attendant would expect to see her properly chained to her bed.

  Her father had paid everyone to spy on her. She compre­hended that the day he'd inaugurated the system of chains and rings.

  Yet another reason for her to
revolt.

  And this was the last step: she'd waited patiently for Zabel's return, for his requisite bed check, waited for him to dismiss the guard, to prepare himself for bed, waited, waited, waited, until she thought her nerves would explode, and then she waited some more.

  And then, when she was certain he was in a sound drunken sleep, and that a bomb wouldn't awaken him, she'd ransacked his room, stolen his money, and she was well on her way to the place where she'd sacrificed her virginity to find the Bullhead bull who had taken it and to beg him to marry her.

  Kyger was finally alone in the room, waiting for a precise mo­ment which he didn't know when it would be, but he would know when the time was right.

  It was a nerve-wracking wait. The whores had left him to his own devices at his request, but he couldn't count on another trio not being sent to him, by his reckoning, within the next half hour.

  The Bullhead staff was punctiliously prudent with their clients' money and stamina. If a client could pay the price, the client was assured of twenty-four-hour cycles of unadulterated fucking plea­sure based on his wont, his need, his price and his virility, all of which was precisely parceled out and automatically provided.

  It made any kind of reconnaissance almost impossible. It meant he had very little time at all to implement the next phase of his plan, which involved dressing in dark, loose clothing and scavenging the hallways to see what he could discover.

  Not now. No time now. There was a commotion somewhere in the house, at this late hour. And it sounded so close, too close, maybe even right outside his door. Shit. No reconnoitering, not now.

  And the voice sounded familiar; it was a woman, and, as he listened more closely, he recognized that slurred accented voice, loud, aggressive, out of place. She sounded imperious in her de­mands—and to him, a little desperate.

  She was looking for him.

  "I want this particular man. He is the only one who will sat­isfy my ... my particular ... er—needs. I paid for his ... services ... not two weeks ago. I assume he's still here. That is the .. . bull that I want,"

  Damn and blast. Her ... ? Here? Now?

  Dammit, not now ... he didn't need this complication right now.

  Help me ...

  "You must know who I mean—I bought his services for a sub­stantial amount of money not two weeks ago ..."

  "...name...?"

  "It wasn't necessary to know his name," she said haughtily. "I think of him as—the bull."

  Kyger choked.

  "Madam .. ." The guide's voice was soothing. He was paid well to be soothing.

  "I want what I want—" Ah want what Ah want... It was the edible virgin pure and plain, and Kyger was torn about what to do about her causing an uproar in the hallway of the Bullhead, demanding to see him.

  "Madam, if you only could—"

  "Well, I can't. I haven't been here for a couple of weeks, and, well, you don't ask a penis its name ..."

  Enough—Kyger grabbed his trousers and jumped into them.

  "... and that was all I was interested in—"

  She was bluffing, he thought, but she was making such a com­motion it would be impossible for him to accomplish anything tonight if he didn't stop her . .. now.

  "Madam ... if you would just..."

  "—and if you people in this—this—establishment don't even know who your own .. . bulls ... are ..."

  Kyger opened the door to his room, "What's the problem?"

  "Sir—" the guide said, his tone apologetic.

  Her head snapped up. "You—"

  "Me?" he murmured, mimicking her tone.

  She whirled on the guide. "He was right here all along and you—you—"

  "Madam ..."

  "I'll—" Kyger said simultaneously, yanking her arm. Useless to try to calm a virago.

  "But, sir, you shouldn't—" the guide began, but it was obvi­ous he preferred that Kyger did.

  "I'm not.,. busy ... at the moment," Kyger said easily. "It's obvious the lady has cherished whatever experience she had here. I'll just give her some time to collect herself, and then we'll see if there's anything we can do."

  Angilee stamped her foot. "I paid you quite generously for your services. And I fully expect..."

  "Of course you do," Kyger said gently. "And perhaps we will, if that's your preference. But let's be civilized, shall we?"

  The guide held up his hand. "But, sir—"

  Kyger shook him off. "It will be fine. Whatever the lady wants ... I can handle her, if she will just step into the room."

  He motioned to the open door,

  "That's better," Angilee said haughtily. "That's all I wanted."

  Kyger closed the door behind them. "Not hardly, my lady. Jesus. You couldn't have made more noise if you were a pregnant cat."

  "What?"

  "Keep your voice down. Get on the bed. Let's get this done, and then you can go back to your other . .. companions."

  "You don't understand—" Angilee began furiously.

  "I certainly do. You have dollars. You're willing to pay. I'm willing to fuck." He looked down at himself. The sun was rising, hot and vital. "Absolutely willing. And for some reason, you've—"

  She barged into his diatribe. "Help me."

  Shit. The one plea a knight-errant couldn't resist.

  He pulled her close to him and whispered in her ear: "You don't understand. They're watching. Somebody's always watch­ing. Voyeurs who get their jollies from surveillance. Wardens who vet everyone to make sure only the right people are given entree. The people who make sure nobody is here who means to upset the system. So, pretend you're trying to seduce me, take off your clothes, get on the bed, and then we'll talk."

  "You have to help me." Was she as desperate as she sounded, after all her bravado both in getting into the manor and then even finding him?

  Her hands shook as she unfastened the few buttons on her dress, which she'd chosen purposely for ease of movement and, maybe unconsciously, the possibility of having to disrobe.

  Everyone disrobed at the Bullhead.

  He watched her warily as she began taking off her clothes. Her movements were innocent, artless even, because he still thought of her as a virgin; everything about her was chaste, re­strained. She didn't like this undressing in front of him; she bit her lips as she dropped each piece of clothing to the floor with a little moue of distaste.

  It was the most arousing sight, the peaks and curves of her naked body against the soft sensual light as she climbed onto the platform and positioned herself on her back. The smooth round-ness of buttocks, her chocolaty bush, her ivory skin, her rasp-

  berry nipples—he wanted to feed and feast on every inch of the mystery of her. Take her down, devour her between her legs, root at her nipples all through the night and into eternity.

  He couldn't touch her. He must not touch her, or he'd be lost forever.

  He aligned his body tight against hers. Not a good idea. Too close. Too hot. Too hard.

  Shit. Shove all that out of your mind.

  Fine. Ignore the call of the flesh. He could do that. He'd done it for years. All he needed right now was to find out what she wanted him to do and do it. Quickly. Tonight.

  He knew what he hoped she wanted him to do, but that was not in the realm of possibility. Or was it?

  She was breathless, her skin hot, flushed, her heart pounding. His body was tight as a drum, his penis reverberating with the hot physical need to penetrate.

  Ask the penetrating question, for God's sake. Get this over with and get her out of here.

  Exactly. This was too dangerous, lying here side by side with an edible virgin who was trembling on the brink. A man had to be made of stone . .. and he wasn't. Not by any measurable stan­dard. And right now he felt a yard long and ten inches thick, with no furrows to plow.

  He was losing perspective. Losing his head. When had that last happened? Back to the business at hand.

  His hand. He clenched his hand tight because the temptatio
n to caress her glowing naked skin was almost too much to bear.

  God. Just find out why she's hunted you down. Ask her what she wants.

  He was going to say, talk, and just ignore his senses and his body, which felt much more urgent, needed much more than that from her.

  Instead he whispered, "Kiss me."

  She drew in her breath sharply. Shook her head imperceptibly.

  And he knew he was going to blackmail her to get that kiss. He needed that kiss. "They're watching. You made the row. Everybody heard you. You wanted ... the bull.. . here I am ... they're waiting—kiss me."

  He was right. She couldn't refute any of that. She'd come pre­pared to give up something; a kiss seemed little enough for what she was going to ask.

  She turned her body reluctantly toward his, so that her nipples were hard against his bare chest, she turned her head toward his, so that her mouth was right there, invitingly there, and she turned her determination and desperation into this seduction, because if he had accepted money for taking her virtue, then maybe, just maybe he wasn't that virtuous and he would consider... help­ing-He kissed her, and her mind went blank.

  In a fever, he crushed her lips with his, and in that five sec­onds, he knew her, wholly and completely, knew her innocence, her reluctance, her taste, the way she could yield, could submit, could—love ...

  He pulled away roughly. It was too much. All that innocence. It could drown a man. It could swamp him. Make him blow just from the touch of her tongue. Make him pearl up with a kind of longing he hadn't felt with any other woman in at least two years.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  "Talk," he growled. "I have to touch you; it would look damned strange if I didn't touch you."

  "All right," she breathed, but she didn't want him to touch her because she could almost feel the ache of his rampant penis, because she knew he wanted to, because she sensed for the first time ever how much power she could wield. Because if he wanted to sink himself into her again so urgently, then maybe, just maybe, he would—

  She caught her breath as he placed his palm flat against the curve of her hip and began a thorough exploration of her but­tocks.