Warrior-Woman

by Mary Ann Steele

  Adrienne's hands sifted through crisp dark hair, and she smiled. "Sit down, and let me pull off your boots," she whispered.

  Having done that service, the courtesan responded with seductive pliancy, as strong hands pulled her forward across their owner's lap. Amin's fingers withdrew two ornate metal pins from her coil, freeing a cascade of rippling tresses, and releasing a cloud of fragrance. His hand stroked the wondrous length of wavy locks, with unhurried, sensuous strokes. "All night, I've wanted to loose your hair," he murmured, his voice an aural caress. Lifting her of a sudden in muscular arms, he stood, holding her slack body against his chest. "Where…?"

  With languid grace, Adrienne pointed to a door at the opposite side of a lushly carpeted expanse featuring plush chairs, two commodious couches, various handsome coffee tables, and a state-of-the-art galley. "Take me to bed," she invited, sliding her arms around the spacer's neck.

  Senses erotically stimulated by close contact with warm, bare flesh narrowed the man's focus, but the aristocrat in Amin grew cognizant of the tastefully restrained elegance of the spacious sitting area. His memory painted a sharp contrast between these quarters, the equal in luxury to his boyhood home, and drab antechambers to tawdry cabins in which professional women of far less renown than the legendary lady he bore in his arms plied their ancient trade. The scent of perfume rose like incense, further inflaming desire already hot.

  Having deposited his burden on the oversized double bed, Amin deftly stripped off her pants, and stepped out of his own. Exhibiting feline grace, the woman pulled open the drawer of the exquisitely fashioned table by the head, and set a datapad and a stylus on the gleaming surface. Turning to lie supine on a soft, unimaginably costly peach-hued sheet, she invited her patron to recline. She then set about demonstrating the superb skill for which she was famous.

  The price Adrienne demanded of Amin represented the amount she customarily charged for an hour of her time. Prepared to give value for credit, she exerted herself to arouse her partner with subtle arts designed to lift him to an unprecedented height while delaying his climax--to prolong his pleasure until the hour seemed an eternity. Men used to hiring the legendary courtesans expected such service, and seldom sought to confer pleasure in their turn. Adrienne preferred that they not try. Habitually, she preserved her own detachment while raising her clients to lofty pinnacles of ecstasy. If her customer's male pride proved such that for full satisfaction, he needed to feel he was man enough to satisfy her, the adept acted a part to perfection. Seldom did she fail to compel her partner's belief.

  As she expected, Amin nowise conformed to the norm. Not content to lie back and enjoy her practiced manipulations, he employed arts of his own. Far from hindering the professional as she used her own skill, he complemented her efforts. When with hands and lips and tongue she caressed his tall body in intimate fashion, his hands moved over hers with equal skill; his tongue stimulated her with tantalizing effectiveness. She caught glimpses of the mischievous mirth that danced in dark eyes: amusement that proved contagious, and lent a most unwonted pleasure to the act of raising this chance conquest to the heights of rapture.

  To her amazement, Adrienne found herself growing aroused in her turn. Sternly resisting so unaccustomed a sensation, she managed to stymie her patron's best efforts. Her own manipulations succeeded, causing the Captain to succumb, finally, to a need for release grown intolerable. Satisfaction suffused the adept as Amin achieved a climax that sent him half into trance.

  Realizing that she had given her partner an experience as memorable as he could have wished, Adrienne lay slackly beneath him, tormented by a most unaccustomed surge of unsatisfied desire. Outraged by her body's betrayal, and her mind's unruly acquiescence, she lay limply, trying to still her racing pulse.

  Amin stirred. Propping himself on an elbow, he gazed quizzically at his companion. One long finger traced the bow of her upper lip, sending a most unexpected tingle down nerves ordinarily lethargic.

  "What an incomparable artist you are," the man breathed. "All the legend promised."

  "I admit to thinking the exact same thing about you," she responded with perfect honesty, smiling up at her client.

  Amin's hearty laugh warmed the courtesan. His finger slid along her full lower lip, parting it from its mate, and once again traced the bow. "But you shrank from letting me succeed in giving you what you gave me in such abundance," he chided gently. "I can imagine why. A woman's more vulnerable than are most men, and you won't risk entangling your heart: arousing emotions dangerous to your peace of mind. I know the feeling. A man in my profession fears that sort of complication just as you do. If you granted me an hour five nights in succession, my resistance would crumble. I won't risk that . You keep your guard up night after night with the same man, by rigorously refusing to let your partner give you a climax.

  "I admire your self-command. Truly, I do--because I sense that you're a deeply passionate and wholeheartedly affectionate person, underneath that admirable self-possession. But you needn't be afraid to let down your guard with me. This is a one-time experience for both of us. One night--one ascent to physical release in my arms--isn't going to endanger your peace. Take me on again, Adrienne…and let me give you a memory as full of delight as that which I'll take away with me."

  Stirred to the core, the recipient of that unorthodox invitation gazed wide-eyed at this man--a stranger before tonight--whose assessment she knew to be astoundingly accurate. Why not? she asked herself. One night … Let myself go … I trust Amin. Implicitly--the way I do Arlen. For the same reason, I suppose. Amin's a man of equally sterling honor. Rare, that quality, right now, in Columbia. Why not?

  Adrienne replied wordlessly. With a sinuous movement of her body, she rose, to position herself above her partner. Once again she commenced to arouse him.

  Having just attained fulfillment, Amin felt far less urgency now, than earlier. With unhurried seductive facility, he indulged in intimate caresses of the sort few of the courtesan's clients employed in an encounter with her, even if they knew how to do so. Aware that her body, trained by her imperious will habitually to suppress the sort of reaction he strove to elicit, would be slow to respond, Amin proved singularly patient, wondrously persevering, languorously, erotically proficient.

  Exquisitely conscious of the marvelous degree of artistry his actions displayed, grateful for his willingness to take such pains to give her pleasure, the woman strove to make him an equal return. Slowly, voluptuously, her beauty gloriously enhanced by a joy that animated her face and lent magic to her hands, Adrienne gave herself with abandon, with verve, with a surpassing transcendental channeling of energy into the production of ecstasy.

  The pairing took on the semblance of a mystic dance: a rhythmic, graceful, flowing ballet in which every subtle movement reflected meaning. Devoid of guilt, untroubled by any sense of shame, each mind gradually filled with a supreme, consuming, ebullient happiness: a cosmic joy in the touch, the scent, the taste, the warmth, the ecstatic closeness, of two bodies brimming with health, and boasting athletic perfection, their owners each totally uninhibited in the throes of steadily mounting passion.

  Time stopped. Their minds meshed, as their physical selves approached the final culmination, and the pair achieved the ultimate ecstasy simultaneously, ending prolonged indulgence in a dalliance that had seemed to last an eon. Spent, drained, floating in the ether, two sensualists lay entwined, fulfilled, satiated, one.

  After an age, Amin stirred, and rose on an elbow. Adrienne raised eyelids fringed with dark lashes, her eyes soft with remembered bliss. Leaning down, her companion saw her instinctive movement to avoid a kiss full on the mouth. His hand gently turned her face towards him. "What harm in a kiss, after what we reached together?" He murmured that inquiry, smiling, before his mouth closed over that of his partner.

  Surrendering the last shred of her reserve, the courtesan returned his intimate gesture passionately. When at length he freed her lips, and raised himself to look
down at her, he declared softly, "Earthyears from now, when I'm an unimaginable distance from here, I'll remember tonight, Adrienne. Your beauty…your incomparable skill…your daring…but most of all, the bold, unfettered spirit inhabiting that soft, pliant, feminine body."

  His eyes strayed to the clock, and filled with astonishment. "You granted me an hour, and I heedlessly took two," he apologized. With a determined movement, he reached for the datapad and stylus, intending to write the woman a draft on his credit balance.

  The courtesan laid a restraining hand on her patron's arm. "Three hundred credits, Amin," she instructed with uncompromising firmness.

  "For each hour."

  "For the whole. To cover what I did. For the balance of the time, I owe you."

  The frown furrowing Amin's hawk-face vanished. "I sense that I succeeded in giving you a night full of joy," he agreed candidly. "So I'll let you override my scruples. I pay my just debts."

  "So do I, spacer-captain." For a second, the two sensualists gazed narrowly at each other. Simultaneously, they broke into spontaneous, delighted laughter.

  Rising with lissome grace, Adrienne walked unconcernedly naked to the sitting area, and retrieved Amin's tunic and boots while he donned his pants. With equal aplomb, she returned to help him into his garment, her glorious hair falling in tantalizing disorder about her face.

  Before he vanished through the door, the premier lover drew her close, and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Good-bye," he whispered.

  "Take care," Adrienne replied, evading the finality of the expression he chose to employ. Smiling, she retreated out of sight of passers-by in the corridor, and watched the door slide shut behind him. Her smile deepened as she strolled in leisurely fashion back into her bedcabin. What an intriguing personality that man possesses, she marveled. And what skill! I feel reborn--able to face Courtney, tomorrow night, with renewed equanimity. What a pity the men most useful to me never seem to exhibit Amin's charm, or Arlen's decency. Well … if they did, my resistance would soon crumble.

  I'll wager Arlen acts forcefully on my warning. Will he dare to strip his four commanders of their Earth-armed ships? His running that risk wouldn't surprise me. He agreed that a war in space seems likely. If new conflict starts, Signe may regain her mine. Rare, dense metals will increase tenfold in value. Should I …? Gamble, Adrienne. Ten thousand credits … no, fifteen. Now, not tomorrow. It's 2255. Which broker should I … Meyer. Will he be in bed? I doubt it. It's very likely that he'll just be returning from a coffeehouse.

  Having slipped into her tunic, the woman deftly coiled her hair, and fastened the lustrous mass with the pins. Refusing to bother with the pants invisible to the man she prepared to raise on the screen of her terminal, she seated herself. With a series of keystrokes, she accessed her credit balance: the record of her financial worth listed in her world's national databank under her unique given name, and her surname code.

  Frowning, she weighed certain unsettling factors. If I deposit this draft now, Courtney conceivably could discover that I've entertained a new client during the hours I reserve for him. Might he check my credit balance occasionally? I doubt that he'd bother. Besides, I warned him that no man gets a monopoly on Adrienne, when I took him as my current lover. He most assuredly won't suspect that I've violated my hitherto unbroken self-imposed rule regarding discretion. Even if he went to so unlikely a length as to have me followed, he'll conclude that I boldly sought to work my wiles on a spacer-captain famous for his discriminating taste in professional women.

  A chill crept down the spine of the courtesan evaluating the degree of risk to which her actions of the evening exposed her. If Courtney ever does learn what I did tonight, I'll end dead, she acknowledged with a shudder. Erased. Vanished. But he won't. I trust no other man as I do Arlen ¾ with good reason. Shrugging, the worldly-wise risk-taker plugged the datapad employed by her customer into the terminal, and deposited Amin's draft to her account. Twin minor puckers creased her forehead as she calculated rapidly in her head. At length, she raised the broker.

  The patrician face of an elderly gentleman came into view on the screen. "Adrienne! What a pleasure!"

  "What gallantry you exhibit to so presumptuous a caller, Meyer! I apologize for bothering you at this late hour."

  "Best time to catch me, as you well know. What can I do for you?"

  "You customarily act as intermediary between private investors and representatives of Lansing Metals, do you not?"

  "I do."

  "I'd like to place an order, buy, and arrange for storage of my purchase. I'll pay for both in advance. I've got a list in my head, and I know the prices per kilogram as of two days ago. Let me dictate my order to you."

  From her capacious memory, the shrewd investor effortlessly recited the names, quantity, price per kilogram, and total cost of eight different rare metals. "If any of those figures have changed, adjust the quantity to keep the total purchase at fifteen thousand credits, Meyer. Do you wish me to add on your fifteen percent commission, or write you a separate draft?"

  "Add it on. I'll settle tomorrow with Lansing."

  Her business completed, the courtesan smiled warmly at the businessman regarding her with unconcealed thoughtfulness. Musingly, Meyer remarked, "You obviously believe that your investment will increase in value, stable as prices have stayed for the last four Earthyears. I expect you have good reason. I trust your…intuition…implicitly enough that I'll consider imitating your gamble. I appreciate your placing your order through me."

  "I've always found you to be discreet and trustworthy, Meyer. You keep your clients' business strictly confidential, as do I. I value that quality in the brokers with whom I deal."

  The recipient of that compliment chuckled. "I wouldn't keep any client long, who discovered I'd blabbed his business to the men chatting in Cyril's, or proclaimed his perspicacity to the patrons of Swenson's. You can rest assured of that. I'll enter this transfer now, at today's closing price. Will that be acceptable?"

  "Perfectly so. I thank you."

  After indulging in a shower and concluding her nightly ritual of brushing her hair, Adrienne fell asleep on pseudosilken fabric, thinking of Amin, her rosy lips parted in a faint smile.

  Arlen drifted off to welcome oblivion in the arms of his wife, soothed by the comforting warmth of Karyn's chest pressed against his back.

  Deaf to the strident tones of the patrons conversing volubly all around him, Amin sat alone at a small table in a crowded coffeehouse favored by military men. Lost in reverie, the spacer-captain sipped a cup of fragrant brew as an achingly lovely face swam in his inner vision.

  Dahl tossed restlessly in his hard bunk, fighting black depression. Arlen's commendation, while welcome, accentuated the aide's consciousness of the change in his fortunes. No balm, no praise, no relief generated by his recent narrow escape from a harsh punishment, disgrace, and possible death, served to allay the fundamental grief tearing at the spacer-fighter's vitals. Flayed by regret, he contemplated the unbearable possibility that he might never again know the soul-satisfying thrill of commanding a ship.

  Chapter Three

  Twelve raiders buoyed by the success of their snatch of an Earth-armed military ship climbed through the hatch to emerge onto the bridge of the prize won at no cost in lives. Halting, they gazed uncertainly at ominously unfamiliar surroundings.

  Sensing her veterans' uneasiness at finding themselves in an alien environment, the Commander briskly issued orders. "Conor, Sean and Yuri, harness into couches at the board. Eric, ascertain how to assemble the harnesses stored below the bunks in the cabins, and set the crew inflating them. You eight people will occupy the bunks when we lift."

  Three apprentice spacers watched intently as the strategist who engineered the capture of this priceless prize activated the board. Concealing the trepidation assailing her, Signe accessed the lift program created under Dahl's tutelage, and scrolled through the complex compilation of data. Confronted with the necessity of pr
ogramming a flight path for the transit to Main World of Gaea, she jutted her jaw as her gut contracted in a painful spasm.

  Acting on a hunch, she mounted a search in the ship's databank. To her vast relief, she located a stored program that could be used to set the vessel on a trajectory to Norman's former headquarters on Main World of Gaea, and a descent sequence that would dock it there. Taking no pains to hide her delight, she exclaimed, "I thought those programs might still exist. None of Dahl's spacers bothered to wipe them! Well. That simplifies matters enormously." Speaking into the intercommunication system, she asked, "Ready, Eric?"

  "Ready."

  The ship Signe regarded as the nucleus of a fleet lifted into the void. We must all be purged of everything we've eaten for weeks , she concluded dourly as her jaded digestive system failed to eject tangible evidence of its wrath. We face Earthyears of gastric upheaval . Gritting her teeth, the neophyte stoically endured the trauma.

  The acceleration ceased. The ship now moved in free flight along the trajectory monitored by banks of computers and intricate, sensitive equipment. Weightless at this juncture, Signe set the vertical torus rotating within its protective envelope, and warned her companions, who raised their couches as she did. The board slid down to face the novices enduring the wicked sideways thrust that lasted until the rotating structure achieved uniform angular speed.

  The warrior-woman felt her flesh sag on her bones, as the centrifugal force duplicated the sensation of possessing weight that, prior to this momentous day, the landsman had experienced solely as an effect caused by her planetoid's gravity. Ignoring the stress produced by the rapid change in motion, she activated the transceiver, so as to listen on the band that only military vessels could employ. Exquisitely conscious that this captured prize could encounter a Columbian warship, she commanded, "Conor, bring up the program for utilizing this ship's weaponry. Figure out how to aim and fire it, while I determine how the others stood the lift."