Jane doubled over with a sob as the aching emptiness renewed its attack on her.

She felt Croyd"s hand lightly on her hair and shouted, "Don"t touch me, it hurts!"

"I thought it was kind of strange that you weren"t, ah, moist, but I wasn"t sure. Everything seems a little strange at this point." He crunched the last of the ice cubes. "What is it? Plain old heroin, or something more exotic?"

She raised her head from the musty cushion. "You wouldn"t believe me if I told you."

"Try me. Tell me what you"re looking for."

With great effort she pulled herself all the way up and sat with her legs tucked under her. "I need something that goes directly to the pleasure center of the brain and stimulates it continuously."

"Don"t we all," Croyd said grimly, tapping the last drop of water from his empty gla.s.s.

"Well?" she said after a moment. "Well what?"

"Do you know of anyone who has such a drug and will sell it to me?"

He gave a short, humorless laugh. "h.e.l.l, no."

She stared at him, feeling the void consume her hope along with the rest of her, and then, absurdly, she sneezed. "Gesundheit," he said automatically. "Listen, there"s no such thing, not animal, vegetable, or mineral. Except maybe about five hours of good, dirty s.e.x, and frankly I"m not up to more than an hour at a time. Terrible to have to admit that-"

She was off the couch, heading for the door. "Hey, wait!"

She stopped and turned, looking at him questioningly. "Where are you going?"

"The only place I can go."

"And where might that be?"

She shook her head. "You"re wrong, Croyd. There is such a thing. It exists. I know it. And I hope you never do. It"s the worst thing in the world."

He licked his lips again and wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand. "I doubt that, Bright Eyes."

"Good," she said. "I hope you always will. Stay where you are. I"ll let myself out."

But she couldn"t. She had to wait patiently while he undid all four locks before she could rush away from the "twin reflections of her own hopeless face.

Hiram opened the door to her this time, Hiram all alone in the empty apartment.

She didn"t have to ask to be let in. "It left you," he said quietly.

"Yes." Her voice was a whisper as she stood with her head bowed.

"Are you . . ." his voice failed him for a moment. "Are you ... all right?"

She looked up at him and his eyes reflected the emptiness she felt inside. "You know I"m not, Hiram. And neither are you."

"No. I suppose we"re not." He paused. "Can I get you anything? A gla.s.s of water or something to eat or. . ." His words hung in the air between them, futile absurdities. He was offering a teardrop to a forest fire.

It was too painful to leave at that. Jane raised her head with as much dignity as she could muster. "A cup of hot tea would be nice, thank you." It would be no such thing, and she almost never drank hot tea anyway, but it would be something they could do besides just stand there and ache together.

He busied himself in the kitchenette while she sat at the small table, staring at nothing. If pleasure was real, then the absence of pleasure was a palpable thing as well; where there had been rapture in every movement there was now the pain of the void he had left. Mg Master, she thought with dull revulsion. I called him Mg Master.

"I couldn"t let you go after you"d seen," Hiram said abruptly. He didn"t turn around and she didn"t look up. "I"m sure you understand that, now that you know."

She made a small murmur but said nothing else.

"And he"d seen you in my thoughts many times as well. So when you showed up..."

Pause. "Why did you come here?" The memory made her burst out laughing. Alarmed, Hiram turned around from the counter where the tea was brewing and stared at her. He looked so frightened that she tried to stem her laughter, but she had no control. She only laughed harder, shaking her head and waving him away as he made a move toward her.

"It"s all right," she gasped after a while. "Really. It"s just just so-" She was off again for nearly a minute while he stood watching her, misery emanating from him in waves she could almost feel.

"It"s just so ... insignificant," she said when she could finally speak again.

"Bright.w.a.ter delivered a load of rotten fish and I had to send it back. n.o.body knew what to do about getting in a replacement shipment for the sushi bar, and Tomoyuki said that Mr. Dining Out was coming from New York Gourmet to review the twilight sushi bar-" She laughed again but weakly this time. "I guess we wont be offering the sushi bar tonight. I told Tom to get sick if I weren"t back in an hour. That was-I don"t know. What time is it?"

Hiram didn"t answer.

"No, I guess it doesn"t matter, does it?" she said, staring at him. "I got the address off the back of your desk blotter, but I wasn"t going to use it unless I really had to, and I felt like I did. They"re all turning against you, Hiram.

Emile"s walking around saying he thinks you"re a junkie."

"I am," Hiram said bleakly. He checked the teapot and then set it on the table with two cups. "And so are you. And Ezili. And everyone else he"s kissed."

"Is that what you call it?" she said as he poured the tea. "Do you have a better word for it?"

"No."

"It"s an instant, permanent addiction," Hiram went on, almost matter-of-factly.

"He connects directly to the pleasure center of your brain. That"s why everything feels so good. Eating. Moving. Making love. Just breathing. And when he leaves you-it"s like death. There"s no cure, no relief. Except the kiss. I"ll do anything for it. And so will you."

"No."

Hiram paused in the act of raising his teacup.

"We"ve got to pull ourselves together. There must be some kind of cure we could take, or even a drug that could act as a block or a replacement-"

"No, nothing." Hiram shook his head with finality. "There must be. We could look for it together, you and I. I went to Tachyon"s clinic--"

Hiram"s cup clattered into the saucer. "You what? You went to Tachyon?" His face had actually gone gray; she thought he might drop dead of horror.

"Don"t worry, I didn"t tell him. And he didn"t find out."

"He"s swamped with new wild card cases. He didn"t bother reading my mind. But if you went back there with me and talked to him-"

"No!" he roared, and she jumped, spilling tea all over the table. Hiram immediately went for a dish towel and began wiping up the mess. "No," he said again, much more quietly. "If anyone finds out, they"ll kill him. He can"t survive without a human host. We"d lose him and we still wouldn"t have a cure.

We"d have to be like this for the rest of our lives. Could you stand that?"

"G.o.d, no," she whispered, putting her forehead in her hand.

"Then don"t talk crazy." Hiram tossed the dish towel at the sink and took her hand. "It"ll be all right. Really. It"s not so bad a lot of the time. Not really. I mean, does he demand that much for the pleasure he gives? And he does leave you alone a lot, and it"s not like he"s evil, not really. If you were the only mount, could you deny him his life? If you knew he would die without you, could you let that happen?"

She pulled her hand away, shaking her head. "Hiram, you don"t know what"s happened to me."

"You don"t know what"s happened to me!" he cried. He knelt down to look into her face, and she was horrified to see tears in his eyes. "Whatever you"ve done is nothing compared to what I"ve done! Don"t you think it"s been horrible for me?

The fear of detection, the powerlessness-I"ve considered suicide, don"t think I haven"t, but the awful part is, there might be an afterlife and he wouldn"t be there and that really would be h.e.l.l! What happened to you-! Know what happened to me? I let him take a friend! I swore I would not, and I did it anyway! I let him take you!"

She pulled away from him. "Oh, Jesus, Hiram, I wish I"d died that night when the Astronomer came to Aces High. I wish you had let me fall!"

"I wish I had, too!" he bellowed at her.

Hiram"s statement seemed to echo in the silence that followed. It was over, she realized wonderingly. Aces High, her obligation to Hiram, her life as an ace if she"d ever really had one, everything. It had all been wiped out, leaving both of them with nothing.

"You"re not wet," Hiram said, belatedly aware.

Before she could answer him, there was a knock at the door.

Hiram jerked his head at the bedroom and she went without protest, pulling herself into a huddle on the floor next to the bed. Whatever was coming next, she wasn"t ready for it.

Exhaustion suddenly swept over her; she leaned her head against the side of the mattress and let herself fall into a strange half-sleep. She heard the voices in the other room, but they made no impression on her, even when Hiram"s rose angrily. Some uncounted time later she sensed someone"s approaching and she tried to push down into unconsciousness, away from the presence, fantasizing again that Hiram had made her weightless so she could drift off into the sky.

But strong hands pulled her up and flung her down on the bed. She struggled feebly, her eyelids fluttering with- groggy alarm. Then she felt the feather touch of small fingers along her back, and she stretched her neck obligingly for the kiss.

The scene in the living room was troublesome, but she was far above it, riding in a state of transport with her Master. There was Hiram of course, and Ezili, and two men she didn"t recognize and couldn"t be bothered to care about, and Emile, of all people, bound and gagged and lying on the carpet. Her Master forced her attention to him and she acquiesced, all the while reveling in the renewed contact.

"Jane," Hiram said tensely. She turned to look at him through pleasure-glazed eyes. He seemed to be having some difficulty keeping his gaze on her, or perhaps on her Master. It didn"t matter, though. Everything was all right again.

"jane."

"Heard you," she said, completely happy. "What is it?"

"Why did you give Emile the spare key to my office?" Her Master commanded that she answer, and it was exquisite to obey. " I put him in charge while I was gone. It seemed to be the logical thing to do."

"When I gave you that key, I told you no one- no one-but you was to have it, for any reason."

"You gave me that key ages ago, before you left on the trip, and after you came back, I thought you"d forgotten all about it. It just didn"t seem to make any difference because you didn"t seem to care anymore." She smiled dreamily.

Hiram"s fist was clenched but she wasn"t worried. With Her Master there was nothing to worry about. She marveled at how the surrender could be so much more profound on the second time. On the third time she would probably lose herself to him completely and that would be absolute perfection. She could hardly wait.

"You don"t understand what you"ve done, Water Lily," Hiram said miserably.

"You"ve killed this man."

Something in her started at the use of her ace name, but she let it go. Her Master liked it. He liked the water that was trickling down her face and running from her hair, saturating her clothes and soaking the carpet around her feet.

"If she was responsible," her voice said at her Master"s command, "then she can take care of it, yes, Hiram?"

"It will kill her," Hiram said. "Or drive her mad."

"She"s already mad." Her Master had her laugh for him. "And she"s not really so terribly interesting, except for her power." Her face turned to Emile. His eyes widened, and he made desperate little noises against the gag.

"Get him ready for her, Ezili," said her Master. " I am so curious as to what it will be like."

Ezili struggled to pull down Emile"s trousers while he tried to wiggle away from her. One of the men Jane didn"t know forced Emile over onto his back, crushing his bound hands against the floor, and knelt on his shoulders. Emile began to scream against the gag, but it came out as m.u.f.fled bleats. His bound legs kicked upward, and the man pressed harder on his shoulders until he was still.

After a while Ezili got up, wiping her mouth delicately. "Show him a good time, little girl."

Jane moved to Emile and knelt beside him. Her Master had already explained wordlessly what was required of her. It wasn"t too much to ask. He wanted to know how it would feel; her only mission in life was to show him. She pulled up her dress and casually ripped away her underpants.

The horror in Emile"s eyes fed her sensation as she straddled his body and lowered herself onto him. He stiffened and she heard him grunt in pain. Water poured down on him in rhythmic splashes. More sensation. She gave herself over to it, letting her consciousness dissolve so that it, too, was like fluid.

Somewhere lost in the pleasure was the little tiny Jane screaming against this atrocity, but little tiny Jane didn"t count for much in the face of this magnificent pleasure-power. What had to be sacrificed for Ti Malice"s enjoyment would be; if Emile could have known, he might have offered himself up willingly.

It was more than an honor. It was a blessing; it was a state of grace. It was-- Her eyes met Emile"s. Motionless and stiff beneath her, he was staring at Ti Malice. The waves of pleasure parted suddenly, and for a moment there was a small rift between her and her Master. She opened her mouth to scream, and then the waves crashed together again and she fell forward. Water poured over her and Emile in a small flood.

Ti Malice was talking to her as he rifled through her sensations and thoughts.

He laughed at the memory of the clinic and Dr. Tachyon (No, little mount, there is no drug that could go directly to the pleasure place, as you call it) and took special note of the information about the contagious virus (You would never expose me to that, little mount, you will give your life before you allow that to happen to me). Even as her body moved and twisted and reveled, she worshiped the thing at her neck, promising everything to it, offering everything she had.

Whatever. Always.

She felt him bring her up to full awareness to concentrate on Emile.

Whatever. Always. He had her bring tears to Emile"s eyes, and together they watched as he struggled, trying to blink them away. Her Master found the calling of the water a wonderful sensation and wanted more. She did more, calling the water only from his body and not out of the air around him, because her Master liked it so much. He made another suggestion, and pleasure surged anew as Emile bucked beneath her, the involuntary action turning quickly to pain for him. If he only knew what his body was serving, she thought.

The power seemed easier to wield now than it ever had before. Because she was whole again, she thought, watching with Ti Malice"s pleasure as the blood swelled from Emile"s pores and he screamed against the gag. She had never realized how good it felt to do that, to call the moisture from a living being instead of the lifeless air. If she really let herself go with it, it was better than anything, even better than the s.e.x Ti Malice enjoyed so much.

And at last the permission was given and she did let herself go with it, all the way to finality. Whatever. Always. It was an explosion that went beyond pleasure, into something that was completely alien, a ripping away of whatever humanity had been left to her and Ti Malice, leaving the hard, bright, burning thing that had thrust itself upon them in an act of irrevocable conquest. For one single eternal instant they were purely the living wild card virus, not just living but sentient.

Then she was herself again, watching through a haze of dying sensation as Ti Malice himself trembled under this new awareness. This had almost been too much even for him. She cold not even raise a protest as he left her for Ezili again.

A little later she realized she had been blinded by the last of the fluids she had called out of Emile"s body, and there were only his clothes and some substance that looked like a spill of powder on the floor where he had been.

She took a long fall into blackness, screaming all the way down.

Faces came out of the darkness at her; she made them fade away. At some point she was looking at Hiram"s face, and try as she would, she couldn"t make him vanish. He seemed to be trying to explain something to her, but none of it made any sense. I quit, she told him at last, and that finally made him go.

Clean her up, get her some clothes, and get her out of here. For now, said Ezili in her own voice. She makes me ... uncomfortable. Laughter.

Then the craving hit her and the lack of Ti Malice was too much to bear. Her mind folded itself up into a tiny little box and flushed itself away.

She was walking through a bizarre, wasted wonderland and Sal was at her side.

She was only mildly surprised that he was there with her; she thought it might have been because Ti Malice had left her with so little that she wasn"t completely in existence anymore. But it was nice that of all the ghosts she could have run into, she had somehow met up with Sal. Meeting Emile would have been terribly unpleasant; perhaps he hadn"t been dead long enough to have become a ghost yet. She covered everything that had happened within the first few minutes they were together, all the degradation, the lies, the broken promises.