Christ, what would one of the sibs do to Madison? She remembered Dan orbiting so high she thought he’d never land and that only women (something maybe to do with hormone chemistry) had the talent to metabothe drug in half an hour.
She fought and twisted and writhed but they gathered her legs one by one and sat on them, too heavy to be forced off except at the risk of cracking bones. As her arms were already roped to hold her back-to-back with Madison that left only her head, which could be conby grasping her hair. Forced back, back until her neck muscles could not stretch to meet the counter-tug on her jaw and her cheek was against Madison’s wiry beard, she tried to turn sideways, hold her mouth against his neck to bar the pill’s entrance and didn’t make it. Flip between her parted teeth, tap on her tongue, brace to stop herself swallowing it when the expected blow in the stomach came.
Except it didn’t. Shedding the relaxing men in a tumof limbs she was lifted hup into the air and found herself briefly looking at the ceiling. She spat out the pill because that was the thing she most wanted to do in all the world.
The ropes tightened on her arms, first left, then right, and hurt for a fraction of a second but it was worth it They snapped. She fell sprawling and landed with one hand in a wet clammy substance which held up to the light showed shit-brown. Naturally. She got away from there, frog-hopping, wiping her hand wherever a piece of the black carpet was relatively dry, turning when she was out of reach to look at Madison.
No one else seemed to be paying much attention exMikki and her eight booted men. The loving couon the slopes at the end of the room went on with their slow slow parody of passion, and for the rest the world did not currently exist.
They had stripped Madison too and his stocky dark body glistened like oiled sealskin, a ridge of light on every tautened muscle. The man branded pat, as though hoping to benefit by that ebony embrace, said, “Ho-hooo!” and advanced coaxingly. A little stooped, legs apart like a wrestler’s braced for the next grapple, eyes warily flicking to take in his surroundings, Madison waited until he came within reach, and-snapped. Big white gleaming teeth. An animal growl without words. As yet, only a warning: on Pat’s hand, a mere line of blood traced by one canine fang, and some spittle. He paled and shook it, mouthing a curse.
“Get back, Pat,” said Mikki, brought down from whatever plane she had been orbiting at by the shock of seeing the ropes break. “Looks like this is Dutch courage in a pill we gave him. Give me a clear field for the whip, will you?”
She made it whine through the air, confident, having used it often on much bigger opponents. As yet indeed there was no real alarm. A glance to the side showed Lyla crouching and trembling, not offering to join in. One against nine made excellent odds; Lyla could alhear the thought And the booted young men were strong and healthy.
On a distant slope of the room someone sat up, alerted by the whip-whine, maybe: a girl wearing nothing, who first crossed her arms over her bosom for concealment, then gave a foolish grin and parted her legs to set her elbows on her widespread knees. She leaned forward to watch with concentration.
On the back of Lyla’s tongue: a taste. Not the sourof fear which was everywhere else in her mouth. Bitter/pungent/acrid? She sucked up saliva to suspend it in and rolled it forward to the area most sensitive to such flavors.
Memory clicked and she was instantly horrified. Once she had broken open a sibyl-pill before taking it, to find out if she liked the taste of the contents. She didn’t. This was the same. The gelatin shell must have split, pertrodden by a bare foot after she knocked it aside the first time they tried to push it into her mouth. And she had noticed too late to stop herself swallowing as much of the drug as had spilled out on her tongue. Only a few milligrams, probably, but without the violence of the pythoness frenzy to burn it up what would it do to.?