Double Identity

Chapter 4 The Sweet Death

Nick dozed off but awoke immediately when he heard the brass monkey swing on its pivot. He sat bolt upright on the bed, dimly understanding what was happening to him — and caring nothing for it or any consequences. Lust simmered in him.

A single butter lamp flickered in the chamber. The brazier glared with a great red eye. Dyla Lotti came into the room and the monkey creaked shut behind her. She advanced to within a few feet of the bed and halted. Unspeaking, they gazed at each other.

Even without the devil mask she was tall. She would come nearly to his chin. She wore a single sari-like garment of translucent jade silk. Beneath it her skin, well oiled and scented, glistened with the shimmer of old ivory. A delicate pale yellow. Her hair was a burnished mass of black silk caught high and held with amber combs. Her mouth was small, a moist crushed rosebud, and when she spoke at I last her teeth glinted white in the semi-gloom.

“You like me, Nick?” There was a tease in her tone.

“I love you!” said Nick Carter. “Come here.”

“Not yet. Do not rush me.” Her smile was languid. “One does not hurry love — one lingers with it and enjoys it more.”

Desire welled in Nick. Such impetuosity might ruin everything — yet he could not control himself! He had to have her. Now! This minute — this second! He leaped from the bed and dropped his robe and slipped out of his shorts.

His lungs hurt with the effort of speech. “Come here,” he croaked again. “For God’s sake!”

Dyla Lotti gasped at the sight of him. Her red mouth formed a round O of surprise. She laughed, “You were right, Nick, dear. The sanga root does have side effects!”

Nick took a step toward her. Rage flared in him. What the hell — if this pale yellow bitch turned out to be a tease after all the buildup he — he would strangle her! So help him he would!

Dyla Lotti pointed a long scarlet fingernail at him. “Sit down on the bed,” she commanded quietly. Nick found himself obeying. It seemed right that he should obey her. Without question. His anger of a moment before faded and was lost.

N3 sat naked on the bed and stared at her. Dyla Lotti i, approached him slowly. He noted for the first time that she was wearing a pair of red high-heeled slippers. At the moment they did not appear incongruous.

She halted a scant twelve inches from him. He could see the gleaming fire of a huge sapphire, affixed to her navel, shining through her diaphanous gown like a beckoning eye. Her belly was flat and taut and the color of rich cream. It was cool and velvety when he leaned to kiss it.

Dyla Lotti put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him gently away. She kissed him on the forehead with moist hot lips, then drew back a little. She raised her arms and the garment fell away, a slithering froth washing the long perfection of her legs. N3 gazed at her in awe. Every pulse in his body clamored for her. This was perfection in a woman at last! The ultimate — the plus! What every man, in every time, had dreamed of and yearned for! For a moment doubt and fear struck at him — she was not real! He was dreaming her — under the power of the drug he was only dreaming her!

Dyla Lotti cupped her hands beneath her breasts and leaned to him, extending those succulent melons for his caress. “Kiss!”

Nick Carter obeyed. It was no dream. Her breasts were warm and cool and firm and soft. The perky small nipples were heavily rouged. They were aromatic with scent which stole into his nostrils as he kissed and laved them with his tongue. He noticed, almost without conscious perception, that she had painted spirals of gold around each breast. It did not seem particularly odd. Nothing was strange now — it was all perfection, all just right and as it should be.

Dyla Lotti stood with her fine legs wide apart, her head and shoulders back, her flat pelvis thrust forward. She ran her fingers through Nick’s smooth hair. She moved her pelvis in an undulating circular motion. She permitted the greedy search of his fingers. She moaned and moved closer to him, writhing and twisting as his hands sought out every secret.

Suddenly, with a breathless exclamation, she fell across him on the bed. Her long legs clamped him in a vise of velvet flesh and he was powerless to consummate his fierce desire, to loose the awful red tension that was tearing him to bits. When Nick began to curse, to protest bitterly, she closed his mouth with her own.

Her mouth was avid, even cruel. It sucked at his and her tongue went crazy, lashing his desire even higher. She kissed him with a vampire’s eagerness and her fragile small hands toyed with him. It was beyond bearing! Nick reached for her. Enough of this damned nonsense!

Dyla Lotti was too quick for him. Like a wraith her slippery oiled flesh slipped from his grasp. She put a finger on his lips. “Lie quietly,” she commanded. “Lie quietly and listen, my lover. I desire you as much as you desire me — but it cannot be! I am a High Priestess— I have taken vows of virginity!”

“This is a hell of a time to think of that!”

She touched his lips again with her finger. “I said to be quiet! I will talk. I will explain — and you will not be sorry, my Nick. Only be patient. There are other ways, you know, ways that can give great pleasure. You must remember where you are, my dear one. This is not the United States where everything, even love, is done in a great hurry. This is Tibet and we are very near to India — have you never heard of the Kama Sutra?”

N3 fought his way out of the drug haze long enough to say that he had indeed heard of the Kama Sutra, that he had read it, and he was damned if he was interested in Hindu erotic literature at the moment!

Her tongue was a sweet lance of honey in his mouth and she was whispering, “The Kama Sutra mentions alternatives, Nick. Other ways. So you see I am not going to disappoint you — so now be quiet and be patient and come with me into the perfumed garden. Close your eyes, my dear one, and think no thoughts. Do not try to understand what I do — only enjoy it. I will take you to Paradise!”

Nick Carter stared at the ceiling. It appeared to move in the faint light of the single butter lamp. Dyla Lotti left him for a moment — he heard the faint slip-slip of her bare feet — and the odor of incense began to permeate the room. She had thrown it into the brazier. The stuff had the pleasant pungency of burning wood, only much lighter and sweeter and with the barest suggestion of a flesh smell.

“Breathe deeply,” the woman whispered. “Breathe deeply — it will aid your pleasure.”

Nick obeyed. Somehow he knew that he would always obey her now. Dyla Lotti was the High Priestess—his Priestess! He would always obey her. He must! In return for obedience she would lead him into the perfumed garden and show him such pleasures! It was really all rather cut and dried, he thought. Fated! Karma! He was fulfilling his destiny at last — why else had he come so many weary miles to this place to do — to do what? He had quite forgotten.

Dyla Lotti settled herself at his feet. He could feel her slim buttocks against his feet, feel her slender fingers tracing up his thighs. Higher and higher — fingers that were skilled and patient and evoking. Nick felt himself begin to tremble ever so slightly.

It was a war between his sensual being, now being so exquisitely stimulated, and his intellect. And his instinct. The tiniest of bronze gongs was beating somewhere in the back of his brain, warning him. Against what? He did not know and, almost to the point of peril, he did not care.

He began to feel a strange tenderness, mixed with an — unexplained enmity, for this woman who was ravaging him. For the moment, he thought, no matter how it turns out, we are lovers! It was a caught instant of time when all else was forgotten and there were only the two of them in the world. It was the drug, of course. The drug working to destroy the will and intellect of Killmaster, he who was a masterpiece among agents, who was as near perfection in mind, body, and will as a secret agent can be and still remain human.

And Killmaster was very, very human.

He also sensed that, for the moment at least, he was losing this battle. Perhaps this time he had taken on more than he could handle. The drug was so powerful and, at the moment, he was so weak. Yet he must somehow retain his sanity, even in this sweet ordeal through which she was now putting him. He heard her moan for the first time then, and sensed that she shared some of his feeling of passion.

He could not move. Could not speak. For the moment he was a floating island of tranquillity sans all desire. He was alone in the universe. He was nothing. Did not exist. He had at last achieved the Hindu goal of perfection — Nirvana. Nothingness!