shirt and began tweaking his right nipple. “You do love me, don’t you, Franz?” She kissed him, a full open-mouthed kiss, with her tongue darting teasingly across his. Katie pulled away slightly, continuing to play with his nipple.
“Of course I love you, Katie,” Franz said, already very much aroused. “But I’m not crazy.”
Katie marched off into her bedroom and returned less than a minute later with two stacks of bills. “I am going to see my father, Franz,” she said, throwing the money on the coffee table. “And you are going to help me. You can bribe anyone you want with this money.”
Franz was impressed. The money was more than adequate. “And what are you going to do for me?” he said almost jokingly,
“What am I going to do for you?” Katie said. “What am I going to do for you?” Katie took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. “Now, Captain Bauer,” she said in an accented voice, “you just take off all your clothes and lie here on your back. You’ll see what I am going to do for you.”
Katie’s apartment had a dressing room adjacent to her bedroom. She walked into the smaller room and closed the door. With a key she unlocked a large decorated box on the top of the counter and pulled out one of the full syringes she had prepared earlier in the day. Katie lifted her dress and tied a tight tourniquet around her upper thigh with a piece of small black tubing. She waited momentarily until she could clearly identify a blood vessel in the mass of bruises on her thigh, and then she deftly inserted the syringe. After pressing all the fluid into her bloodstream, Katie waited a few seconds for the fantastic rush and then removed the tourniquet.
“What am I supposed to do while I’m waiting?”
“Rilke is in my electronic reader, darling,” she said, “both in German and English. I’ll only be a few more minutes.”
Katie was flying. She started humming a dance tune while she threw the syringe away and returned the tourniquet to the box. She took off all her clothes, stopping twice to admire her body in the mirror, and put them in a pile upon the vanity stool. Then she opened a large drawer in the vanity and pulled out a blindfold.
She paraded into the bedroom. Franz’s eyes feasted admiringly upon her lithe body. “Look carefully,” Katie said, “‘cause this is all you’re going to see this afternoon.”
Katie draped her naked body casually across his and kissed him intermittently while she attached the blindfold. She made certain that the blindfold was snug and (hen jumped down from the bed. “What happens now?” Franz asked.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Katie said teasingly as she rummaged through a large drawer at the bottom of her dresser. The drawer contained a smorgasbord of sexual paraphernalia, including electronic aids of all kinds, lotions, ropes and other bondage equipment, masks, and assorted models of genitalia. Katie selected a small bottle of lotion, a vial of white powder, and some beads strung along a piece of thin cord.
Still humming and laughing to herself, Katie rejoined Franz on the bed and began to run her fingers over his chest. She kissed him provocatively with her body pressed against his and then sat up. After pouring the lotion on her hands and rubbing them together vigorously, Katie spread his legs, crawled onto his stomach with her back toward Franz’s face, and began to apply the lotion to his most sensitive parts.
“Ummm,” Franz murmured as the warm lotion began to take effect. “That’s wonderful.”
Katie dusted his genitalia with the white powder and then mounted him very slowly. Franz was in ecstasy. Katie rocked back and forth in an easy rhythm for a few minutes. When she could tell that Franz was nearing a climax, she halted her motion temporarily and reached under him to insert the beads. She rocked two or three more times and then halted again.
“Don’t stop now,” Franz shouted.
“Repeat after me,” Katie said with a chuckle, moving slowly back and forth one more time. “I promise —”
“Anything,” Franz yelled, “just don’t stop again.”
“I promise,” she continued, “mat Katie Wakefield will see her father sometime in the next few days.”
Franz repeated the promise and Katie rewarded him. When she pulled the cord just after he started his climax, Franz screamed at the top of his lungs like an animal in the forest.
Ellie did not like her two interrogators. They were both dry, humorless individuals who treated her with complete disdain. “This isn’t going to work, gentlemen,” she said in an exasperated tone at one point during the first day of questioning, “if you insist on asking the same questions over and over. I understood that I was being asked to supply some information about the octospiders. Thus far the questions, which you are now repeating, have all been about my mother and my father.”
“Mrs. Turner,” the first man said, “the government is trying to gather all possible information about this case. Your mother and father have both been fugitives for many—”
“Look,” Ellie interrupted, “I have already told you that I know nothing whatsoever about how, when, or even why either of my parents left New Eden. Nor do I have any knowledge of whether they were helped to escape, in any way, by the octospiders. Now, unless you are prepared to change the line of questioning—”
“It is not you, young lady,” the second man said, his eyes flashing, “who decides what are appropriate questions in this inquiry. Perhaps you do not understand the seriousness of your situation. You will be granted freedom from prosecution-on a very serious charge, I might add-only if you cooperate totally with us.”
“Just what is the charge against me?” Ellie asked. “I’m curious. I have never been a criminal before.”
“You can be charged with first-degree treason,” the first man said. “Deliberately aiding and abetting the enemy during a period of declared hostilities.”
“That’s absurd,” Ellie replied, frightened nevertheless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you deny that during the period of time that you were staying with the aliens you freely gave them information about New Eden that could be useful during a war?”
“Of course I did,” Ellie said, laughing nervously. “I told them as much as I could about our colony. And they reciprocated. The octospiders shared all the same information with us.”
Both men scribbled furiously on their pads. How did they get like this? Ellie wondered. How can a laughing, curious child be transformed into such a grim and Hostile adult?
“Look, gentlemen,” Ellie said when the next question was asked, “this is not going well for me. I would like to declare a recess and organize my thoughts. Maybe I’ll even make a few notes before we reconvene. I had envisioned an altogether different process, something much more relaxed.”
The two men agreed to the break. Ellie walked down the hallway to where a government sitter was staying with Nikki. “You can go now, Mrs. Adams,” Ellie said. “We’re taking time off for lunch.”
Nikki could read the worried look on Ellie’s face. “Are those men being mean to you, Mommy?” she asked.
At length Ellie smiled. “You could say that, Nikki,” she said. “You certainly could say that.”
Richard completed the last of his walking laps around the basement and headed for the washbasin in the corner of the room. He stopped first at the table for a quick drink of water. Archie remained motionless on the floor behind Richard’s mattress. “Good morning,” Richard said as he wiped his sweat with a washcloth. “Are you ready for some breakfast?”
“I’m not hungry,” the octospider replied in color.
“You have to eat something,” Richard said cheerfully. “I agree with you that the food is terrible, but you can’t survive on water alone.”
Archie did not move or say anything. For the last several days, ever since the supply of his stored barrican had been exhausted, the octospider had not been very good company. Richard had been unable to engage Archie in their usual stimulating conversation and had become concerned about the octospider’s health. Richard put some grain in a bowl, sprinkled water on it, and carried it “over to his friend. “Here,” he said gently, “try to eat a little.”
Archie lifted a pair of tentacles and took the bowl. As he began to eat, a bright orange burst came out of his slit and moved halfway down one of his other tentacles before fading away.
“What was that?” Richard asked.
“An emotional expression,” Archie answered, his response accompanied by more irregular color bursts.
Richard smiled. “Okay,” he said, “but what kind of emotion?”
After a long pause, Archie’s colored strips were more regimented. “I guess you would call it depression,” the octospider said.
