“I can’t take any credit,” I said. “My aunt did everything. She’s really talented.”
“I’ll say. Is that a Darrius XV desk?” She inspected my ornate antique writing desk which was made from some extinct wood that I couldn’t remember the name of. The desk had a curvilinear design adorned with various engraved shapes, and it was very expensive.
“Yes, I believe so.”
I moved to the Meierbinden bar and fetched us bottle of Cuvée Panthère cognac and some snifters.
Lirala’s eyes lit up. “Well, Jannigan, now you’re talking.”
I knew the cognac was one of her favorites, and I was hoping to tip the delicate scales in my favor, so I might escape the evening with minimal damage. At least that was the thought that passed through my alcohol-sodden brain at the time.
“Are you guys up for a game of scarto?” I asked.
“Maybe a quick one, while these take effect.” Lirala produced a jeweled pill case and opened it to reveal two large silvered gel capsules.
Okay, here we go. “And what is the featured drug of this evening?” I asked.
“Take it first, then I’ll tell you. It’s more fun that way.”
Preity grinned. “When in New Torino…” She popped the silver pill into her mouth and washed it down with cognac.
I hesitated, but Lirala slid closer and whispered in my ear. “You do this for me, and we’re good. You don’t, and we’re not.”
I didn’t say anything.
Her lips caressed my ear. “Jannigan, after last night, you owe me. You need to make it right.”
I took her by the shoulders and turned her, so we were eye to eye. “No one gets hurt.” That was my condition.
“Agreed,” she said, placing the pill between my lips. “No one gets hurt.”
I nodded and swallowed the pill.
A big cat-like smile played across Lir’s face as she handed me my cognac. “No one gets hurt,” she repeated. “Permanently…” And then her smile grew even larger.
What the hell did I just get into?
“So…?” Preity moved closer in to the both of us. “What was it that we just took?”
“Imperieux,” Lirala said.
I had never heard of it, and neither had Preity. That wasn’t surprising. Lir was always sourcing new and exotic pharmaceuticals.
“It’s made from the borcho plant, a nightshade that grows on Gilaa,” Lirala said lightly. “Technically, imperieux is a nitro-benzodiazepine hypnotic, similar to flunitrazepam, but much more potent.”
“Enough with the scientific jargon,” I said. “What’s it going to do to us?”
“What do you want to hear first, darlings? The good or the bad?”
“Let’s get the bad out of the way,” Preity said.
“Let’s see. Minor side effects might be blurred vision, dizziness, confusion, disorientation, impaired motor functions.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I was waiting for this mess to take effect.
“I wasn’t finished, Jannigan,” Lirala said. “The fun part, at least for me, is that imperieux affects your cognitive functions, especially the activity of your prefrontal cortex.”
“What?” That was the last thing I wanted to hear.
“For the next six hours you will both do exactly what I want.” She smiled and took both me and Preity by the hand. “My kit’s in the bedroom. This will be fun.”
19
I guess you could call Lirala a psychopath. But what does it say about me as being someone who willingly has a psychopath as my girlfriend?
To be fair, Lir was probably on the spectrum. I once had an off-the-record conversation with a psychologist about Lirala. This was back when the pendulum was swinging more towards the getting married side of things.
I had spent an hour or two describing Lirala, her history, childhood, and our life together—including a no-holds-barred account of our sex life.
The doc said that while it was obviously impossible to diagnose without spending time with her, he had seen personalities similar to Lirala’s—with elevated traits of hypersexuality, narcissism, and impaired empathy. He thought that she might have HPD—histrionic personality disorder coupled with either pathologic sexual aggression or paraphilic coercive disorder. Or even sexual sadism.
When I asked how you have an intimate relationship with someone who is that way, he said that generally there’s a continuum of severity with personality disorders. Sometimes it’s possible, through love, acceptance, and other touchy-feely stuff, to ease someone back down the continuum, from severe to moderate, moderate to mild.
Acceptance.
I guessed that was what I was doing now with Lirala.
But it didn’t make me feel better about everything that came next. I only thank Dynark that the drug made me forget most of it.
But not all of it.
There were flashes of terrible pleasure, horrible wild sensations that I was only dimly aware of. Sliding, writhing, soft caresses, then stabs of pain that struck deeper than my body had the capacity to feel. Burning deep tremors of rapture shuddering through me, the sweet poison of unnatural delights.
And I know I was on the giving end as well, powerless to resist carrying out Lirala’s obscene commands, acting as her puppet as she visited all sorts of depravities upon Preity.
I’m not at all religious, but now I know what it feels like to be at the mercy of an all-powerful being, a dark goddess who didn’t think twice about pushing her supplicants to the brink of madness. There was no end in sight.
It seemed like I was caught for days in this paralyzing dream turned nightmare turned dream, shifting endlessly from revulsion to ecstasy and back.
At the end of it I was left weak and sobbing and alone in the dark. Which was exactly what Lirala wanted.
It was her revenge.
20
The next morning, I expected to wake in my own bedroom, with the bright sunlight streaming through my window. I expected to be hurt but alive, and maybe ill from the drugs and drink, sore and bloody, unable to sit or walk. But nothing Mr. Jeris couldn’t fix.
What I didn’t expect was to awaken on the cool metal deck of the Vostok’s bridge, with every alarm in the ship blaring in my ears.
Was this another dream?
I eased myself upright and blinked to try to get my
