“I guess you like the outfit,” Megan said. He’d pulled the halter away from her breasts and she’d managed to get the skirt out of the way of any outflow. But the outfit had never really come off.
“Maybe too much,” Paul said, getting up and starting to retrieve his shirt.
As she wiped herself she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Paul,” she said. “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he replied, dismissively.
“Was it me?” she asked with a plaintive note in her voice.
“No, sweetling,” he said, sitting down by her. “It’s just work.”
“You look tense,” she said. “Lie down.”
“Why?”
“On your stomach,” she replied, pushing him over. She rolled over and straddled his back, the skirt hiking up out of her way. She thought for a moment of simply hammer-driving his upper vertebrae, but she wasn’t sure if his healing nannites would cure it. And whoever took over from him was sure to kill her, even if she succeeded. Instead, she took her thumbs and started digging them into his back, rolling upward with strong, firm, strokes.
“God that feels good,” Paul exclaimed. He pillowed his head on his hands and rolled his back up. “Thank you.”
“Now, what’s so troubling at work?” she asked. “Don’t you dare tense up on me,” she added, pushing at the muscle that had bunched at her words until it had eased back down.
“It’s nothing I think you’d be interested in,” Paul said.
“Probably not,” Megan said. “But verbalizing a problem is quite often a way for the unconscious to find a solution. You talk, I’ll massage. Call it division of labor.”
Paul laughed at that but was quiet for a while as she continued massaging his back.
“Minjie Jiaqi’s aide killed him and took his Key,” Paul said, finally. “He’s willing to join with New Destiny, but he’s putting too many conditions on it for me to feel that I can trust him. Minjie had been a friend for years. I don’t feel happy just letting the son of a bitch get away with it.”
“Good God,” Megan said. “I hope the Coalition doesn’t know.”
“They don’t,” Paul replied. “We have a very good source close to their Council. But the problem is…”
“You’re tensing up again,” Megan warned. “Talk, don’t tense.”
“The problem is that if he feels he can go his way, the others will too,” Paul snarled.
“Calm,” Megan said. “Shuuuh. Talk it out.”
“I’m holding a tiger by the tail, honey,” Paul said, rolling out from under her and sitting up. “The council members that side with me don’t understand the importance. Really, only Minjie ever did. Celine wanted to be able to make her damned abominations. Chansa… Chansa just wants power, direct power. The kind that the Council couldn’t really wield before the Fall. Reyes has his… girls.” Paul stopped and looked to the side, shaking his head. “Every time I come in here I think of the… the horror that they are suffering and it just makes me want to throttle that perverted bastard.”
“You need some more massage, Mister Paul, sir,” Megan said, grabbing him by the shoulder and pushing him facedown again. “So how do you keep them in line?”
“Subtly,” Paul muttered. “For one thing, all their guards are bound to me. They didn’t notice at first and since they have I’ve been quite pleasant but very definite about it. The thing is, if one of them decides to defy me, I can take them out at any time. Furthermore, it’s my guards who hold the power plants and my word that locks the shields. And I’m very careful to remain shielded myself. When I’m in here, no one can enter or leave and there’s a shield up to ensure that. But this Patala bastard had all my guards killed and refuses to have them replaced. He doesn’t have access to much power; I could destroy him in an instant. But I’m afraid if I do, it will cause the others to react.”
“How was Minjie killed?” Megan asked. She lay down on his back, pressing her breasts into his muscles and rolling them around. “Now, doesn’t that feel better?”
“Oh, very much so,” Paul said, rolling over.
She mounted him, smiling sweetly, trying hard to enjoy it enough to get moist and started moving up and down. To her surprise she actually did start to enjoy herself, at least partially because she was looking at his unguarded neck. She clamped down on him and leaned in, stroking up and down, imagining cracking his hyoid bone and watching him choke to death on his own blood. When she realized she was finding sexual pleasure in the thought, she tried to think of something, anything, else.
“How was Minjie killed?” she asked, panting.
“You want to know now?” Paul gasped.
“Um, hmmm.”
“Binary toxin,” Paul said. “Part in his food, part in his wine. By the time the nannites could react, he was already effectively dead.” He rolled her over and began thrusting until he came and collapsed onto her, burying his face against her neck.
“Kill him,” she said, grabbing his hair and pulling his head back to where she could look in his eyes. “Have him assassinated. Quietly. Then make a deal with his aide. Don’t fuck with me, I won’t kill you.”
“How?” Paul asked as he drew out of her.
She knew the answer but wasn’t about to tell him.
“That should be easy to figure out,” Megan said. “Have Celine do it.”
“Hmmm…”
“There,” she said, using a corner of a towel to wipe herself, “don’t you feel better?”
“Yes,” he replied, kissing her on the lips and running his tongue into her mouth. He needed to use a toothbrush and he smelled. “Thank you.”
“I live to serve,” she said, running her hands over the back of his neck. She knew damned well how she would kill this unnamed usurper. The only problem was escaping after she did it.
Paul returned over the next three days in quick succession, each time looking more worn and wan. Each time he chose at least one of the girls, sometimes two. Twice in the three days it was Megan, to her well-hidden disgust.
After the quick succession of visits Paul didn’t come back for two weeks and then another long pause of almost a month. The last visit he bedded Ashly and Velva, one of Ashly’s little clique, giving them something to talk about for days.
This pattern continued for months. From time to time one of the girls would begin showing signs of being pregnant and after a brief check by Christel she would be whisked out of the harem and into the confinement quarters.
Each month, Megan secretly prayed that she wouldn’t be one of them. If she was taken out of the harem, away from her “experiments,” away from the books that at least gave her a few hours of work during the week, if she was simply cooped up and fed like some damned brood mare, she was sure she would go completely insane.
She wondered, as the time passed, about the pregnancy rate. She had spent enough time on the outside to know that farmers’ wives spent most of their time “knocked up.” But over a six-month period, only two of the girls tested pregnant. A similar group on the outside would be at least an order of magnitude more efficient as “breeders.”
But given Paul’s infrequent visits, the rate was not so surprising. A couple of visits a month, one maybe two of the girls “taken” at apparent random and there was no way that the rate was going to be much higher. And he was getting to be in terrible shape. She had to wonder if his nannites were bothering to maintain his sperm count. It was just another of Paul’s studied blindnesses. He had a “duty” to perform, even if he was performing it badly. The fact that this “duty” happened to be sex with voluptuous young females, none of whom had a say in the matter, was quite beside the point, of course. It was just another proof that Paul was absolutely crackers.