The Amber Columns (The City of Dark Pleasures Book 2) (12 page)

“Tully.”

“Yes.”

“You…your father tri…kill me.”

“I know. He told me. He thinks you’re dead.”

“Who is your father?” the doctor says. I almost feel proud that I’ve been able to keep this secret for so long.

She bends over O’Mara. “Who is his father? Who did this?”

“Trenoweth Portero.” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

The doctor stands back, a look of horror on her face. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Treno…” O’Mara can’t manage anymore. Her voice trails off.

“We’ll all
disappear
,” the doctor says, wild-eyed. “The guards will come in the night.”

“No one is saying anything,” I say, reassuring her. “No one would believe us anyway.”

“She can’t stay here. I can set the broken leg. The rest will heal okay on its own. It will take time though. I’ll give you some antibiotics and—”

“Out,” O’Mara says, one hand flailing over her pelvis.

“I’ll give you a shot to expel any pregnancy, but your contraceptive implant will still be working so—”

“Out!” The force of saying it makes her cough and gasp.

“It’s just dislodged. It can stay like that for a few days. I’ll fix it when you’re feeling better.”

Something about O’Mara’s fraught expression makes a chill wash over me. It’s more than pain. “Did they put something in you?” The idea is horrifying. It could be anything. Time release poison. Even a bomb.

“No…no…” Her eyes roll back, barely holding on to consciousness.

The doctor and I exchange a look. She seems to think about it for a second before turning and pulling some instruments from a drawer.

“Sentinel. Create a sterile environment over the pelvic area.”

Another robotic arm swings down and casts a weird green light from O’Mara’s navel to the top of her thighs. The doctor rotates her hands in the light before carefully moving O’Mara’s legs apart.

“Hold her,” she says.

I look away, into O’Mara’s face as the doctor works. O’Mara gasps again, and whimpers.

“There’s some minor trauma here too. It’s….what
is
that?”

O’Mara whimpers again, then sighs softly. I risk a look back at the doctor. She’s holding something in a pair of thin forceps. It takes a second to process but we both realize what it is at the same moment.

A data stick—a high-capacity, slow-record data stick. Citizens use them to record shows in the Pleasures sometimes. If you set them to audio only, they keep recording for days. The recording light is still on, blinking greenish and knowingly.

I glance back at O’Mara. She’s smiling, drowsily, a hint of triumph in her bleary gaze.

What. A. Woman.

I lash out for the doctor’s wrist, twisting it hard until the forceps fall to the floor. I dive after it, snatching the data stick out of the forceps. With one hand I click the power off and the break the perma-seal. Now nothing can erase whatever is on the stick. You would have to incinerate it to get rid of it.

“Give that to me,” the doctor says. “Give that to me or I’ll call the guards. I’m not going down for a Cull and a gutter bitch.”

I lunge for her, the forceps neatly capturing one nipple through her fitted scrubs. She falls to her knees, whimpering as I squeeze.

“I’ll kill you,” I say. “You think I won’t? You think I don’t have a dozen ferals just waiting to bust in here and tear you all to pieces?”

She raises her hands and I squeeze the forceps tighter, making her squeal. I could almost laugh. It reminds me of a demented nipple torture show I used to do with a licker in one of the weirder subway level offerings. I probably
would
laugh if lives weren’t on the line.

“The Administration will take you out,” she says. “They’ll take us all out. Even with a recording. They make it disappear then they’ll make us disappear.”

“Maybe, but you’re the one with something to lose. Treat her. Let us walk out of here and your name will be kept out of it. But if I don’t walk out of here with O’Mara, my friends and allies have instructions and they’re not going to be fun for you.”

It’s bluster, bluster that I’m making up as I go along. Lucky for me this doctor has seen Culls lose their shit on many occasions. There are suicides, yes, and self-harm. But there’s plenty of harm of other people too. We may not be naturally very aggressive, but even kittens have claws.

She seems to be buying it, groping at her breast, trying to pull the forceps apart. “What do you want?”

“Set the bone. Antibiotic and contraceptive shots. Give me some morpha to take with me—”

“Tully, you know I can’t—” 

I add a little pressure to the forceps.

“Ahhhh, alright. Alright! I’ve got some expired vials. I’ll pull them out and incinerate the packaging. But I can’t give you much.”

We glare at each other. “Turn the sentinel off,” I say.  “And delete the file.”

“Sentinel, delete the last entry and disengage. Voice authentication Diaz seven-seven-two -four-two.”

There’s a beep. The robotic arms retract. The faint hum that I had barely noticed ceases, leaving an incongruous silence. I release the forceps and the doctor falls forward onto one hand, clutching her nipple with the other.

I turn and look back at O’Mara.

She actually
winks
at me.

Chapter Twelve – O’Mara

Every woman, every Cull and most of the unbroken men here in the Pleasures have been raped at one time or another. They endure it because they want to survive. Those who don’t endure it end up dead. If a citizen male is high status enough guards will stand by and let him finish if they catch him assaulting someone. No guard on the Island would have stopped Trenoweth Portero and his sons doing what they did. I endured it so that I could survive. So that Tully could survive.

That’s what I’ll tell myself.

I linger in a morpha haze for what feels like days until finally I catch Tully’s arm as he reaches for me with an injection.

“No…no more…”

“You’re in pain, love.”

“Not that bad…please…I can’t think.”

He frowns darkly but sets the syringe aside.

My surroundings come into focus around me—a small simply furnished and windowless room. From the tungsten lightbulbs hanging from cables strung across the ceiling I surmise I must be in Tully’s boudoir. A back room maybe? His living quarters? Tully helps me sit up and take some sips of water.

“How long have I been here?”

“You arrived yesterday evening. You were in the clinic for a day before that.”

I sink into the pile of pillows behind me, slowly becoming aware of my body, taking stock of my condition as much as I can. My leg throbs with pain—that’s broken. My jaw and skull both ache. Bruised? Or fractured? My face feels numb, and like it doesn’t quite fit me. Breathing hurts. Maybe there’s something wrong with my ribs or lungs. I vaguely remember being in the clinic so some things have been treated and repaired. Maybe not everything. I try to shift positions a bit and feel a burning pain below, between my legs.

Tully fusses with my blankets, tucking them gently around my feet.

“Did you listen to the recording?” I ask.

“You don’t want to talk about that.”

I wonder whether I even want to hear it. I lost consciousness before…well…I don’t remember anything sexual, though from how I feel I’m pretty sure I know what happened. I examine my emotions about this. Maybe I should be upset, traumatized, but I feel triumphant. Powerful. I used my weakness as a strength, as a weapon. I feel invincible.

But as the last dose of morpha wears off, the pain grows and my sense of invincibility is replaced by pitiful moaning.

“Come talk to me,” I manage.

Tully is by my side in seconds, holding my hand, wiping my brow with a wet cloth. “I can give you something,” he says. “Morpha, some weed maybe…”

I shake my head painfully. “Makes me feel sick,” I say. Under all the injuries at last I put a name to the nausea. It’s like constant falling, tumbling towards an impact that never happens. “I just need to sleep.”

He looks down at me, stroking my hair from my face, a little smile on his lips. “Do you want to dream?”

I laugh, which hurts. My ribs, my face, pretty much everywhere. “How bad is it?” How bad do I…look?”

“You look beautiful.” He bends and leaves a little kiss on my tender lips before stepping through a doorway.  Seconds later he’s back with a bundle of cables and a hand held controller. He plugs everything into a monitor and sets it on a low table by the bed.

“Back where we started,” I say, as he carefully attaches electrodes to my face and scalp. He slides his hand under my head and presses the last one onto the back of my neck.

“Did they break my nose?” I don’t know why I say that. I guess I want to still be beautiful for him.

“Shhh. Don’t worry about that.”

I let my eyes drift down his body. He’s wearing a fitted sweater and black jeans that are somehow cut to conceal his damaged anatomy. I wonder about that as he stands and turns back to his monitor and keyboard. He carries himself like a whole man, despite the missing parts.

“I’m going to set it so you can have a long sleep,” he says, turning back to me. “You’ll still dream, but it won’t be so intense, and you won’t have so much control.”

“I’m tired.”

“It will be restful. I’ve used this setting myself, many times.” He sits on his stool, the controller in his lap. “Close your eyes and…”

His voice fades out.

I’m in bed—a large bed with fresh white sheets and piles of plump pillows. And Tully is lying beside me, letting his hand stroke up and down my bare arm and hip as he continues a conversation I appear to have joined halfway through.

“…before I never thought about it. I mean I had trained myself to not think about it. There was no point.”

I look up at his face and see the intensity of his gaze.

“All that has changed now.”

I take a deep breath. I can smell him—a mix of cucumber and lime, as though he’s just come from a soak in Emerald. As I wonder about that my eyes drift down his naked body. His penis rests semi-soft on his bare muscled thigh.

“Tully…I…” But I can't find the words for what I was going to say. Why would his penis matter anyway? I reach down and curl my hand around it, feeling it spring to life.

He smiles at me as I look up. “You haven't had enough? I could die of exhaustion keeping your pussy satisfied.” But he slides one hand between my legs, slipping his fingers into my cleft, and then further, into my hungry core.

I moan as he pistons his fingers in and out, rolling onto my back, letting the pleasure build. My fingers tighten on his now rock hard cock, making his eyes roll back. “Fuck…what you do to me, my princess.” He closes his free hand around mine, stilling it. “I want to taste you,” he says. “You're already full of my cum. I want to taste it, mixed with your cream on my tongue.”

I open my legs further as he removes his fingers. But he shakes his head.

“Not like that. Come up here.” He lies back, moving the pillows away from his head and pointing to his mouth.

I sit up, half expecting my ribs and leg to hurt, but hardly remembering why I would think that. There's a faint sense of something not very important I forgot. Nothing urgent, just a tickle in the back of my mind that I'll worry about later.

Tully’s smirking lips look so inviting. I move to straddle him but he shakes his head. “Facing the other way, beautiful girl, because then you can bend over and take my cock in your lovely little mouth.”

I do as he says, turning my ass towards him. He slides his hands over my thighs and pulls me backwards, threading his arms through until I'm hovering over his face. He lifts his head and kisses me, his nose nudging into the soft wet skin between my pussy and ass. Then he pulls me down, opening his mouth to devour me.

“Move,” he says into my scorching flesh.

I slide my hips back and forth, his tongue and lips, consuming me, biting, sucking, licking until I'm almost screaming. His hands slide up my sides to grasp my breasts, massaging and pinching my nipples.

I'm dazed, barely able to think, my eyes drifting from his beautiful cock, to the details of the room that I only half see through the haze of my ecstasy. Soft yellow walls lined with a wooden dresser and bookshelf, dedicate floral curtains frame a large window. Outside the window…

Trees. Sky. Clouds. A few birds flit by. I should feel something about that but all I can feel is Tully’s tongue inside me. I press down on him, pumping, pushing my clit against his pulsing top lip.

Suddenly his hands move up, grabbing fistfuls of my hair, and pull me down, roughly, urgently. He slides one hand behind my head and the other around his cock.

“Suck me,” he says into my heat. “Swallow me. All of me.”

He pushes down on my head as I open my lips, forcing his cock into my throat. I close my lips around him and rock back and forth, relishing the fullness of having his length filling my mouth and deeper.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…” he says. The vibration of his words on my clit pushes me into an orgasm like nothing I've ever felt. It comes quickly, from nowhere and everywhere. The strength of it causes every muscle in my body to pulse with energy, including my lips and tongue. Tully moans into me as I writhe above him and seconds later I feel his cum shooting down my throat in hot bursts. He holds my head down, not letting me move until it's over.

Gradually his grip on me relaxes, and I let his glistening cock slip out.  He strokes my back as I lay my head on his thigh, then he flips me over, crawling out from under me. He clambers around and lays a sticky salty kiss on my lips.

“Sleep deeply now,” he says, although his voice doesn't quite seem to come from him.

Suddenly exhausted, I close my eyes, drifting down with the warm, secure feeling of his arms around me.

When I wake, I’m alone. I sit up and look around. A dusky light seeps through the open window, along a breeze which wafts the curtains, and smells of something…floral. I don’t recognize it, though it seems to fit into my thoughts like a missing memory.

I’m naked. Looking down my body I note traces of bruising, but they fade even as I watch. A dream, I think. Now I remember. This is a dream I can control. I let myself flop back onto the bed, smiling. Any moment now, Tully will come back in and fuck me again. I think of how I want it. Bent over maybe? Or pressed against the window, my breasts mashed against the glass? I wonder who is outside to watch us.

The thought makes me laugh. And I wait. But the door doesn’t open. Tully doesn’t appear. Maybe I’m doing this wrong. I vaguely remember the waking world, remember that I should have some control. But didn’t Tully say it might be different?

Tully…if I think of him enough will he appear? Could I think of him more than I do? The idea of him fills up my mind so completely I wonder if any thought could ever be so big.

A cool breeze through the open window makes my skin ripple with goosebumps. I turn my head to find, not unexpectedly, an elegant grey silk kimono slung artfully over a carved wooden chair. I stand, testing my limbs, but finding no weakness or pain. I barely remember why that should be notable.

Slipping on the kimono and tying it loosely, I open the door, uncertain of what I might find. Is this place real? Some reconstruction of a real place I once visited or read about, or am I making it up as I go along?

Outside the door is a wide landing, an orange sunset glowing in through a ceiling height window over some wide carpeted stairs. There are three doors leading off the landing, but the stairs look more inviting. I skip down them, the kimono streaming behind me like a train.

Reaching the bottom, I find myself on the ground floor of a beautifully furnished house – shining wood floors, large windows, a fireplace, all things I’ve long admired but never dreamed of having. I’m now growing more certain that this is some fantasy I’m constructing. I recognise an antique armoire as one I saw in a museum. There’s a painting on the wall I’ve always loved, a self-portrait of an unapologetically beautiful and proud artist from centuries past. She seems to bless me as I pass, as though she approves of my dream.

I cross the large space trailing my fingers over the upholstered sofa and chairs. The room ends in a large archway leading down three stairs to a brightly lit room. When I cross through the archway, I stop suddenly.

Tully is there, sitting at a cluttered table with a coffee cup in front of him. Across from him sit three grinning children devouring ice cream. The youngest one, a round-faced girl of about two, her black curls in high pig tails looks up at me.

“Mama!”

The two other children, both handsome boys with close cropped hair and bronzed and ruddy cheeks, join her chorus of greeting.

“Mama! We
made
ice cream. It’s dragon fruit and banana!” the older one says.

“I wanted to tell her!” The smaller boy mashes another spoonful into his pouting mouth. The ice cream is bright pink, then purple, then red as blood.

I can’t move. My feet feel as heavy as impossibility. What is this fantasy now? It’s beyond sex, beyond love. Instead it’s part of a dream I let go when my heart settled on Tully. He can never give me these golden-eyed children. He can never give me any children. And even if he could…

The memory of the real world comes crashing down on me as a scream rises in my throat. I’ve lost my citizen pass. I’m marked for death by the most powerful man in the world. I’m hiding in the deep bowels of the City of Dark Pleasures, cowering like a sewer rat. I’m nothing. I’m no one.

I’m screaming. Screaming. Only Tully seems alarmed.

“Kids, go outside,” he says. The children stand like obedient bots and file out the door into the darkness beyond.

I can’t stop screaming. Tully stands, approaching me with caution, his hands raised. His voice seems to come from everywhere but his mouth.

“I’m going to bring you out of it now. Just try to relax.”

When he reaches me and takes my shoulders in his firm grip, the scream fades at last, a keening despair taking its place.

“Tully…” I moan. My jaw aches. My chest aches. I hurt all over.

“You’re fine. Your fever spiked and I called the doctor. She just gave you another antibiotic shot. But you need to wake up.”

“I don’t want to leave our children.”

He shakes his head sadly.

“There are no children, are there?” I ask. Maybe it’s in
this
world that I have the fever. Maybe everything else is a delirious hallucination.