Setting up the block seemed strange, as though I’d never done something like that before, but it wasn’t terribly complex and didn’t take very long. Kel-Ten continued to kiss me and touch me, unaware of what was being done to him, his mind straining unconsciously against the hold I had on it. He wanted to get on with doing what he had to, wanted it-wanted it—then suddenly wanted it less. The urgings of the drug were being shunted past the center of his desire by the block, freeing him from the constant, driving need he’d been in the grip of so long. What the mind believes it feels is what the body feels, and Kel-Ten’s mind was beginning to feel that he didn’t want me after all. Too much of anything can sour a normal human being on it, and the man who held me had had too much for far too long. His feelings slowly retreated away from the point where he could do anything but touch and kiss, which eventually made him raise his head to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said, some of the confusion and embarrassment he felt showing in his expression. “It looks like I may have extended myself a little too far yesterday, and now I can’t-quite get into the mood. I’m afraid we’re going to have to get back to this later.”
Instead of waiting to find out how I felt about that, he simply rolled away, then got out of the bed. If I’d needed relief he could have given it to me without being more than marginally involved, but that wasn’t the way things were done around there. If he’d gotten me hot, so much the better; by the time he was back to being interested, it would simply be a bonus for him.
“Let’s not forget what we’re supposed to be doing now, sweet thing,” he said as he stretched hard, the words lazy and his attention elsewhere. “While Kel-Ten is under the shower, where does pretty sweet thing wait for him?”
He turned back to look at me with the question, a faint grin on his face, a satisfaction in his mind that he could give me embarrassment to partially offset his own. I gave him the glare he was expecting before acknowledging my helplessness by crawling to the foot of the bed and lying there the way he wanted me to, and he laughed softly as he came over and patted me on the head.
“Now that’s a good sweet thing,” he said in icky-smooth tones, really enjoying himself. “Belly down and watching the door is the way I want her. I’ll be back in just a little while.”
I kept my eyes on him until he’d strolled out of the room, still pretending to be annoyed, in reality feeling ten times the satisfaction he did. The emotionless calm had left me as soon as I’d finished doing what needed to be done, and the best part of it all was that Kel-Ten had no idea he was acting to the urging of someone else. There had to be quite a lot I’d be able to do with that, but before I even thought about it there was something else of higher priority that needed seeing to. Moving around on the bed had shown me how much pain was left from what had been done to me the night before, which meant it was time to work with pain control. There were decisions I would have to make that day, and they would be hard enough without distractions.
By the time I heard Kel-Ten coming back, there was only a faint soreness from the way I’d been savaged. I hadn’t remembered until I’d started that I’d gotten better at pain control too, and after all the ugly shocks I’d had, a pleasant surprise was a nice change. I watched the man walk to his closet and begin taking out things to wear, wishing I hadn’t decided against “asking” him to let me have a bath. I didn’t just want a bath I needed one, but I couldn’t afford to suddenly have everything going to my advantage and comfort, even if outwardly it seemed to be no one’s decision but Kel-Ten’s. The people in that place had to be used to seeing the results of mental manipulation, and if they were given the least reason to believe the First Prime was being twisted around, the game would be up and my neck would be in a noose. I had no doubt that they would be very interested in finding out about what I’d learned to do, which meant bath time would have to be put off until it really was Kel-Ten’s idea.
After dressing in a slightly different short outfit of gold, my partner in deception came over to the bed with something for me to wear, in point of fact the same something I’d worn the day before. It had been cleaned by the bedroom wall unit and was therefore fresh and ready, and Kel-Ten got a lot of amusement out of seeing me put it on again even though I so clearly didn’t want to. Once again it was a matter of wearing the torn shirt or wearing nothing, a choice I didn’t have to be reminded of, a choice I was still limited to even though I was awake. All I could do was follow a chuckling Kel-Ten into his kitchen with my jaw clamped tightly shut, knowing my expression was the reason he was chuckling.
I would have enjoyed being able to think during breakfast, trying to decide on a time and a way to tell my partner we would not have to wait to make our escape after all-among other things—but Kel-Ten had shifted into too good a mood. For the first time in a very long while he wasn’t being tormented by the demands of his body, even though he didn’t really understand why he felt so good, he apparently decided to enjoy the time by tormenting someone else. The breakfast delivered to me was different from the one of the day before in that it was richer, showing that the eyes-in-charge still weren’t pleased with my caloric intake, and that meant to Kel-Ten that he could force some of his own breakfast on me without worrying about being reprimanded. I made short but nasty comments to him while he stuffed me almost to the exploding point, and finally managed to get him to stop by saying I wasn’t feeling well at all. If he got me sick he knew they would bother him about it, but he’d had such a good time he was still chuckling when we left the apartment.
We left the drop at the same level we had the day before, but although the crowds of men were the same the experience was more of a first encounter, at least for me. Even before the drop door opened I could feel their minds, every one of them actively alive, some calm and calmly controlled, some roiling at one level or another of agitation. As Kel-Ten and I left the drop and lift area and entered their midst, the vast majority of them seemed to draw back mentally even though physically they didn’t move. They still stood in their small groups, engaged in conversations, but they knew Kel-Ten was there and they gave him what amounted to a clear mental aisle. The expression never changed on the face of the man I walked beside, but his mind smiled with satisfaction over the deference paid him, a deference that was his due. I wondered how he could feel that way with all the resentment and hatred muted behind those withdrawals, and then I spent some time wondering if he could sense it. None of the minds were shielded, but they seemed to have learned to do their feeling on two separate levels. The upper levels were filled with random thoughts and properly deferential feelings, but the lower levels—