The wedge-shaped tub beside the bloody one she had found herself in had a dark blue liquid in it. The one beside it was holding bright green fluid. Beside it, was another wedge-shaped tub filled with what looked like molten gold. The last one appeared to hold clear water.
In the center of the spiral formed by the triangular tubs was a towering fountain which had all of the various liquids the tubs were filled with gushing down its sides. Strangely, the fluids never mixed and each one flowed directly into the tub it was designated for.
Nikki would have spared a moment to wonder at the strangeness of it all, but she was still completely preoccupied by being drenched in blood.
“Ugh!” she moaned again, trying in vain to brush the sticky red liquid off her arms and legs. I must look like that scene at the end of Carrie! I need to get this off of me!
“Mistress? Are you well?”
The deep growling voice startled her so much she jumped and slipped on the slick surface underfoot. She would have fallen and probably gashed her head open, adding her own blood to the nauseating mess in the tub, but a strong hand caught her under the arm and steadied her before she could go down.
“Oh!” Nikki gasped and turned to see who had caught her. To her immediate discomfort it was a man—but not just any man.
This guy was seven feet tall if he was an inch and he was in incredible shape.
Oh my God, his muscles have muscles, Nikki thought, taking him in. It was easy to see his muscular form because he was bare from the waist up—his broad shoulders and brawny chest on display. Below he seemed to be wearing tight leather trousers and some kind of a loincloth, which was weird.
He had long, wheat-blond hair which he wore braided in the back and piercing eyes which seemed to see right through her. They were a strange, pale color which almost looked silver but that must be a trick of the light, Nikki was sure. Nobody had silver eyes—not even seven-foot-tall muscular man-candy guy who looked like he belonged in a Magic Mike movie.
“What? Who…who are you?” she gasped, and then realized she was still naked and tried to cover herself with her bloody arms.
He frowned, his dark brows, which seemed at odds with his blond hair, going down in an expression that made him look even scarier than he had been to begin with.
“What do you mean, who am I? I am Malik, your bodyslave, my Mistress. You know that.”
“Bodyslave? What’s that?” Nikki demanded. “And where am I? I was just on the beach a minute ago and now I’m here. Also, who took off my clothes? Was it you?”
He frowned even more. “Naturally, I helped you disrobe as I always do. As your primary bodyslave, it is my duty to dress and undress you for your daily rejuvenation treatment.”
He still wasn’t making any sense and from the way he was looking at Nikki, he was thinking the same about her.
“Forgive me, my Mistress, but did you perhaps slip and bump your head in your yerba-blood bath?” he asked. “It is the only reason I can think of that you would become suddenly disorientated in your own domicile.”
“Did I slip and hit my head?” Nikki repeated stupidly. “Of course I didn’t! I—"
“Because the only other explanation I can imagine for your apparent confusion is that you are an imposter who has claimed Mistress Hellenix’s place.” He glared at her, his strange silver eyes flashing. “If that is so, I must inform you that the penalty for impersonating a Mistress of Yonnie Six is death.”
“Death?” Nikki stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Yes, you know it is,” he growled. “You lobbied the Sacred Seven yourself to pass the law so that none should infiltrate your ranks and claim to be a Mistress if she was not. So now, any who are caught pretending to be a Yonnite Mistress must be summarily executed.”
Finally what he was saying began to sink in. Clearly, he thought she was this “Mistress Hellenix” and if it turned out she wasn’t, he was fully prepared to kill here right here and now.
Eyeing his huge hands, which were clenched into loose fists at his sides, Nikki was certain he could do it with no problem. He looked like a freaking Norse God straight out of a Viking legend—he was only missing a giant hammer that came flying to his hand when he called it. Probably he could snap her neck like a pretzel stick so she’d better straighten up and at least pretend to be who he thought she was until she could figure out how to get home.
“You know, I think I did hit my head,” she said, putting one sticky, bloody hand to her scalp and wincing while she tried to keep herself covered with her other arm. “I slipped in the tub when I was taking my, uh, blood bath. Maybe I’d better get out and rinse off now.” She made a face. “I really need to get this off me, uh….” She snapped her bloody fingers. “You know, I can’t remember your name? I know that I know it but—”
“I am Malik of the Volt Kindred. You have known this since the day you bought me and put your collar on me.” The Norse God frowned at her and for the first time, Nikki noticed that he was wearing a thick black collar around his brawny throat.
“Of course—Malik! Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Wow, my head really hurts. I think I need to rinse off and go lay down somewhere dark and quiet.” And hopefully private, so she could try to figure out what was going on without him staring at her.
“Why do you simply not finish your treatments, my Mistress?” He gestured to the other tubs in the spiral seashell spa-fountain, which was the best way Nikki could describe the odd setup. “You know the brantham bile in the next pool will cleanse away the yerba blood.”
“Oh…um…bile?” Nikki said weakly, looking at the triangular wedge tub beside her which was filled with dark blue liquid. Presumably that was the “bile” he was talking about.
“Yes, of course. And then the zoil slime softens the skin and smoothes away wrinkles…” He pointed to the bright green tub. “After which the lengua tongue oil youthens and burnishes your hair and nails… “He pointed to the tub which appeared to hold melted gold. “And finally, a refreshing rinse in the tears of a thousand shau-pins cleanses you of the residue from the other baths.” Here he nodded with finality at the last tub in the spiral seashell, which Nikki had assumed contained water.
Silly me, she thought faintly. Whoever this Mistress Hellenix is, it’s clear she wouldn’t bathe in anything as common as water.
In fact, she was beginning to get the idea that the woman she had been mistaken for must be a real bitch—or maybe a vampire, considering the blood bath thing. And of course, someone like that wouldn’t hesitate to finish the treatments in the other triangular wedge-tubs since she had certainly ordered them in the first place.
Nikki didn’t like the idea of taking baths in bile and slime and tears and tongue-oil—whatever the hell that was—but she also didn’t like the idea of being killed by the massive Norse God bodyguard named Malik who was staring at her like he suspected she was an imposter.
“Of course,” she said and swallowed hard. “I’ll just…continue the treatments and uh, take my bile bath next.”
“That would seem to be best,” he rumbled and folded his arms over his broad chest as he watched her narrowly with those strange silver eyes.
Nikki stepped gingerly over the dividing wall between the dark red blood bath and the deep blue bile bath and slowly lowered herself down into the liquid. It was thinner than she had expected—wasn’t bile supposed to be thick and viscous? Also, it fizzed wherever it touched her skin. It didn’t hurt though—it just felt like taking a bath in dark blue Coca-Cola. Which she was certain was something the soft drink company would advocate if they thought they could get people to pay for it.
The blood was everywhere. So, taking a deep breath, Nikki dunked under the fizzing blue liquid completely and stayed as long as she could, hoping to get it all off.
The result, when she came up and looked at herself, was a limited success. The blood was gone from her skin and hair and from under her fingernails, but her pale skin had turned a delicate shade of blue
, as though she’d gone diving in a vat of blue jean dye.
“Hey!” She frowned and looked up at Malik, who was still staring down at her. “Is this supposed to happen? Me turning blue, I mean?”
“It always happens, Mistress. It is part of the rejuvenation process,” he said flatly—he had a very deep voice, Nikki noticed. “If the bump you took to the head has affected you so deeply that you cannot remember the details of a bathing routine you designed yourself, maybe I should send for the healer.”
“No, no—I’m fine!” Nikki said quickly. “It’s all coming back to me now. If, uh, you want to leave and go do, um, bodyslave activities I can finish up on my own.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, frowning. “If you slipped once, you could slip again. You’re already disoriented, Mistress. I must stay and see to your safety—it is my duty as your primary bodyslave.”
“Well at least stop staring at me!” Nikki burst out. She still had her arms covering her breasts and sex as best she could but those intense silver eyes staring at her mostly naked body were making her feel incredibly exposed and ashamed of her more-than-ample curves.
Malik looked surprised.
“You wish me to take my eyes from your luscious curves, Mistress? In the past it has always been your particular pleasure to taunt me with your beautiful body as you bathe—knowing as I do, that I will never have you.”
“Umm…” Nikki didn’t know what to say about that. Was the huge bodyslave serious? Did he really think her curves were “luscious?” If so, he certainly had a different idea of beauty than she had lived with back home.
Her husband’s words from the night before came back to haunt her—he had called her “extra-extra-large.” She wondered where Gary was now—probably back in his office texting to his new girlfriend and feeling smug that he had gotten away from his family responsibilities so neatly.
“…Mistress,” Malik said, and she realized she had missed whatever it was the huge bodyslave had said in her miserable musings over her soon to be ex-husband.
“Sorry,” she said. “What? I didn’t catch that. I think I still have some, uh, bile in my ears.”
“I said, I will avert my eyes from your beauty if you wish, Mistress,” he rumbled. “Though looking at your body is the only joy I have in life.”
“Oh, uh…” Nikki didn’t want to take away his only joy, but she really didn’t feel comfortable letting him stare at her while she went naked from tub to tub, dunking herself in the various awful liquids and fluids the original Mistress Hellenix had ordered up for her bath time pleasure.
She cleared her throat. “Maybe…uh, maybe you could just look away for now and I’ll let you see me later,” she said as tactfully as she could. Like much later—when the real Mistress Hellenix comes back!
“As my Mistress wishes—I live only to obey your word and make your every whim a reality.” Then he turned, giving her his broad back to stare at—which Nikki did for a long moment. Was he serious? She was beginning to wonder what exactly a bodyslave did for his Mistress. She’d thought he was just some kind of bodyguard but maybe it was more than that…
Then she realized she still had several more tubs to get through before she could hopefully get some privacy. Crossing her fingers that the next liquid which was bright green would remove the blue tint from her skin, —(was it the slime or the tongue-oil or the tears? Nikki had lost track)—she climbed carefully into it and settled down in the lukewarm tub.
The green fluid was definitely the slime, she decided after a moment. It stretched in gooey strings when she lifted her arm from the tub and coated her skin and hair in a viscous layer that felt like snot. Ugh! It did, however, get her skin back to its normal non-blue tone, so that was something, she supposed.
She spent as little time in the snot-like slime as possible before climbing into the tub full of melted gold stuff which she thought was the tongue-oil. She was a little afraid at first—the stuff really did look like molten metal and she wasn’t anxious to get third-degree burns all over her body. But when she got in, she found it was only a little warmer than the slime and had a much more pleasing consistency.
This is more like it, she thought, stroking the silky gold fluid over her skin. It really did seem like a skin treatment you might find at a really high-end spa. Not that Nikki had ever been to a place like that. As soon as she started having kids, her free time had been effectively eliminated and there was certainly no money for a spa day with three growing boys to care for.
As she poured the silky golden liquid over her skin, she was struck again by the bizarre predicament she found herself in. Who would have guessed that she could go from standing on the beach contemplating suicide to having a series of crazy spa treatments on an alien planet? If she was on an alien planet, that was. Nikki really had no idea and she was afraid to ask, considering that the Norse God bodyslave had basically threatened to kill her if she wasn’t who she was supposed to be.
It was all very confusing and all—as far as she could tell—due to the strange purple M&M pebble she’d found on the beach. She still had it clutched tightly in one hand—hopefully it was her ticket out of here. As soon as she could get out of the spa room and get some privacy, maybe she could figure out how to make it take her back home.
The next pool was the clear one filled with tears and—as Malik had promised—it did, indeed, get the rest of the slime and the golden tongue-oil off her skin and out of her hair. It also had a sweet, fresh smell which Nikki liked a lot. She didn’t want to think about what had been done to the people or creatures who had supplied the tears in the first place to make them cry, though. She was just glad to be done with her spa treatments.
“Are you finished bathing, my Mistress?” came Malik’s deep, rumbling voice.
Nikki jumped. He had been standing so silently with his back turned to her while she was preoccupied with her strange dilemma that she had almost forgotten about the massive bodyslave.
“Um, yes…yes I am,” she said, standing up and looking around for a towel, while she kept herself modestly covered with her arms. But there wasn’t so much as a tiny washcloth in sight. Was she just supposed to stand here and drip-dry?
“May I dry you off then, Mistress?” Malik inquired, still keeping his back to her. “You know you always say that excessive moisture causes too much activity in the tska box.”
The tska box? What the hell was that? Nikki didn’t dare to ask, although she wanted to. What she didn’t want was to let the huge bodyslave come dry off her naked body. His remarks about her “luscious curves” aside, she was not comfortable letting a stranger see her in her birthday suit.
But since there didn’t seem to be any towels around, she didn’t feel like she had a choice.
“All right,” she said, biting her lip. “But please don’t look at me while you do.”
“I will avert my eyes if my mistress so commands it,” he rumbled and came over to her, his silver eyes cast considerately down at the floor while he held out a vast towel covered in short, black fur.
Nikki thought about protesting that the furry towel would probably shed and the hairs would stick to her naked body but she didn’t dare. If this was the kind of towel the original Mistress Hellenix used, she would just have to go along and use it too. If she got out of this mess after experiencing nothing worse than some weird alien spa treatments and a hairy towel, she would count herself lucky!
To her surprise, though, the towel didn’t shed on her at all. Instead, the tiny hairs seemed to thirstily soak up the beads of moisture all over her body. In fact, she almost thought she could feel them drinking—a slight, velvety brushing sensation all over her naked skin which somehow managed to be sensuous and creepy at the same time.
“Come, my Mistress—I have readied the tska box,” Malik told her. He led her over to one wall of the spa chamber which was tiled in deep blue lapis lazuli, or something very like it. In between the large, hand-sized blue tiles were tiny golden ones arr
anged in various swirling patterns.
But it wasn’t the fancy spa wall that held Nikki’s attention—her eyes were glued to a large rectangular box which was a pure, shiny white. It had sleek, rounded corners and looked a little like a spaceship…or a coffin, she thought uneasily. Malik slid it away from the wall and arranged a short set of three steps which led up to it.
“Now then, Mistress—if you would be so kind as to climb the steps before I open the lid,” he instructed. “Please get into the box quickly. They are especially hungry today and we don’t want any of them to escape.”
Don’t want any of what to escape? Nikki longed to ask—but of course she couldn’t. Numbly, she climbed the steps which almost made her as tall as Malik and stood next to the shiny white coffin-looking tska box. Standing so close to it, she couldn’t help noticing that there was a soft, ominous rustling sound coming from within. What was that? What was the box filled with?
She didn’t have long to wonder. With a flourish, Malik lifted the heavy rectangular lid and revealed the interior of the long white box.
Nikki took a look and almost screamed.
The shiny white box was filled almost to the brim with five-inch long cockroaches! Or no—not roaches, she thought, in the split second she looked at them. Because she had never seen cockroaches with long, serrated mandibles before! Mandibles that looked sharp enough to cut off a finger or a toe. Ugh!
Nikki couldn’t help herself—if there was anything she hated, it was roaches—especially big ones. She gave a little scream and jumped backwards, forgetting she was at the top of the small, rolling flight of steps.
Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23 Page 3