He pressed his lips together, knowing there were no words to exonerate himself. Yet he felt compelled to say something. 'Skye…' He couldn't even open his eyes.
'It's all right,' she said. 'I had to pretend I was Wendee too.' Long Shadow barely had time to assimilate that before she added, 'I don't want you to go unless you have to. Unless he calls you.'
'All right.' It was the least he could do to make amends for what had happened.
There was an awkward pause. Then she added, 'If you want that again, just tell me. Only don't go. I'd go mad if they got me again.'
'I understand.' Long Shadow sat awkwardly at the fire, but he had no appetite, and later when he was lying across the teepee from Skye who was pretending to sleep he hated himself for the thoughts that filled his mind — of the tapes he'd seen of her in that cavern with two men ploughing her body as another waited his turn, the sucking mouths, scraping teeth, squeezing and probing hands. The looks of pained ecstasy on their faces as they'd filled her with their 'filth'.
Then he hated himself more as his body reacted to those thoughts. He rolled onto his side, away from her, but the more he tried to clear his mind the more he imagined what they’d done to her — what she’d allowed them to do because she loved Wendee. That was the worst part, but instead of quelling his excitement, the thought of Wendee watching that debauchery fuelled his arousal. It was nothing of love and all of sex and in despair he groaned, soft and low. Seconds later he felt Skye’s hand encompass the resurgent flesh. He covered it with his own, meaning to push her away, but when he tried to move, to stand, she shoved him back down with surprising strength and crawled onto his legs
'As many times as it takes,' she said, and through a silent scream of denial he felt the lips encompass him again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
'You're either braver than I remember or remarkably desperate,' Armande said, leading the way down a narrow steel passage.
'DeMartande's don't become 'desperate' as you well know, brother,' Pietre replied tersely, taking comfort from the fact that Mr Black was two steps behind him. 'I've done as you asked. Let me take what is mine and go. I grow tired of your company.'
Armande laughed, a dry knowing laugh. 'You grow uneasy in my company,' he corrected. 'I remind you of our past. Our family.'
Pietre gritted his teeth. 'I do not care for reminiscing,' he said. 'I look to the future.'
'Is that why this woman is important to you?' Armande asked, stopping at an oval, steel door. 'Is she your replacement for Belle?' He reached for the handle.
'She's more than that,' Pietre said, deciding suddenly to take a risk. A huge risk. 'Wendee is the future of our line. She bears the DeMartande heir,' he lied smoothly.
'A child?' Armande released the handle and turned slowly to face his brother, all trace of cynicism wiped from his face. 'You have done this thing?'
Pietre inclined his head in assent.
Armande looked away, dazed. 'Had I known…'
'She is not damaged?' Pietre asked imperiously, pushing his advantage. 'I assume your men — '
'No damage,' Armande cut over him, 'They're screened and cut. There is no risk of disease or conception.'
'As are my men,' Pietre confirmed. 'The child is mine.'
Armande shook his head, looked at his brother in awe. 'I never imagined either of us would be able to — '
'It is done.'
They were silent for a moment, each nursing their own thoughts, then Armande asked, 'The gender of the child?'
'A daughter,' Pietre lied. 'A woman-child.'
Armande closed his eyes in rapture. 'A female DeMartande,' he whispered, and Pietre felt some of that elation inside himself.
It would be. He would make it be so. 'Take me to her,' he commanded.
Armande turned back to the door. Stopped. 'I'd arranged a exhibition for you, before I knew…'
'Open the door, brother.'
'Very well.' Armande turned the handle and swung the door wide, then stepped inside the large room.
Pietre hesitated, then he saw Wendee and was drawn into the room — into her presence, as though someone had gently grasped the front of his shirt and pulled. His chest felt constricted and he noticed with some alarm that his breathing had become shallow, irregular.
She lay blindfolded on a long table in what appeared to be a large dining room. A raw-food pungency filled the air. That, and the scent of sex. Vaguely, Pietre heard Mr Black enter the room behind him and the sound of the door closing, but as his brother had intended, his attention was riveted by the centrepiece of the banquet. Wendee herself.
Spread-eagled on her back, she was surrounded by naked men. Pietre counted them. There were ten. Two stood at the head of the table masturbating themselves in her fists. Papaya pulp oozed from her fingers.
Another knelt over her upper-body rutting her honey smeared breasts, while in front of him, and just taking his place at her mouth, crouched an eager sailor about to insert his avocado smeared penis between her lips — lips that Pietre thought had grown lusher in her absence from him.
In the middle of the table, blond dreadlocks tangled in dark curls as a sailor drew out her own juices with his quick tongue, at the same time penetrating her with a smooth green cucumber and occasionally moaning as he was buggered in turn.
Her feet, covered in crushed strawberries, were sucked and tongued by two kneeling sailors who alternated between masturbating themselves and each other, while one or two roamed about buggering whomever showed a likely ass. It was a moving, fluid montage that Pietre found erotic, and yet deeply disturbing.
He could appreciate the symmetry of it, the unashamed greed of the participants. But it was too close, too intrusively real.
The smells that drifted across were overpowering and the grunt and moan of need and fulfilment, not flattened by a camera pickup, were rich and frighteningly intense.
But even as he acknowledged his fears, he knew they must be overcome. He forced himself to look, to put himself in the participants place for the first time in his life, imagining himself making those sounds as he lay over Wendee with his penis inside that writhing, shuddering body. Would she moan and cry out her fulfilment as she did now. Would she…
He glanced away, pretended to be absorbed by the conga-line of three who had broken away from the table and were enacting their own private dance, the middle sailor pivoting back and forth between the ass in front and the penis behind. Their movements were mesmeric and allowed him time to think. About Wendee.
He could visualise her blissful orgasm as many times as he liked, but the immediate question wasn't even would he be able to penetrate her, but would he be able to touch her at all. That must be established first.
The conga-copulators finished their routine with a resounding smack of buttocks, then promptly withdrew their depleted organs to return to the table. Pietre glanced back at Wendee as the cucumber was removed and the sailor who had given her such pleasure lifted her hips and guided his penis inside.
The thick column of flesh was swallowed up by the place Pietre knew he must also enter. Not only enter, but conquer. The thought made him sick with fear.
The sailor began his short ride to glory but Pietre could watch no more. To Mr Black, he gestured that they would be leaving and Armande obediently opened the door.
Outside in the passage with the door closed behind them, Pietre said 'I will wait on the launch. Bring her to me.'
'The entertainment upsets you, brother?' Armande asked casually.
