5. Golden Girl
"My name is Kim Tuyen Tien," the half-naked girl smiled gently. "I take care of new slaves."
"My back?" I asked, the question plainly being: shouldn't it hurt like hell right about now? I shifted on the bed, luxuriating in a warm liquid glow that lightly coated me -- pretty much everywhere.
"I've taken care of it, love," she said. She lifted a plain glass jar, dipped in two fingers and drew out an amber lotion. "This heals as much as it arouses," she said, "and I have warmed your skin with it while you rested." She arched her eyebrows and tossed her head, stray bangs falling over her almond eyes as she indicated the light blue smoke around us. "I dare say the herb has eased the pain, yes?"
Well -- yes. Something sure had. I wiggled my fingers at the haze. "What is that, anyway? Opium?"
"A special mix of my making," she smiled with gratitude for my implied compliment rather than pride in her accomplishment. "Not opium, although the poppy figures heavily in it."
Poppy. I need to get a plan together to get out of a Chinese maze of a prison in the middle of a part of the Southeast Asian jungle no one bothers to try to claim to rule (other than the wackos holding me prisoner), and after a bucket of god-knows-what dope they'd already pumped into me, this Viet chick was tickling my nose with poppy smoke.
Think, anyway! I told myself. By now you're known missing; the Congressman will put that pasty little dough boy Tompkins on it, he handles foreign affairs. He'll love it. He's been wanting to handle me for two years. But he will know how to cut to the chase and chase me down -- even out here. He arranged the damn mission to begin with. I just have to last it out.
"Chuang?" I demanded. "Is he coming back?"
"I very much doubt it," she turned to soak the rag in a water bowl, and as she was ringing it out, she added, "He's dead, you see."
Past the charming lilt made from both the sibilance of the Vietnamese tongue flowing through obviously British schooled English, she looked about my age, her round face and high cheekbones a lovely stage for those large brown eyes, framed by oil black hair falling thick to her shoulders and on down to the top of her ass. She turned back to me, this time bringing the cool relief of the rag to my throat. I noticed her flawless saffron skin, her forearm brushing against my nose.
She was what smelled like cinnamon. I say that her arms, and torso, and breasts, were coated with that same golden lotion that pleasantly warmed my skin. It shone in the tight curve of her bronze hip. Warms more than arouses, she had said. More, not instead.
"Chuang is dead?" I smiled.
"Mr. Stephens returned to your cell and found it empty. When he found Chuang with you, he took ... disciplinary measures." She brought the rag back to my forehead and pressed sweet cool water over my eyebrows. "Mr. Stephens believes whipping to be a barbaric custom, and one that fails to produce magnificence in slave girls. Quite right, that, I think!"
"Stephens ... killed Chuang?"
She hesitated, a flash of fear in her eyes. "Eventually."
Acid bit at my stomach. She frowned.
"You wanted him dead," she said. "You told Stephens as he took you down from the chains. You don't remember?"
I shook my head. But I had to admit I felt the first bit of triumph in a while at the thought of the hateful little man dead. Painfully dead, it sounded like, and I was quite happy about that.
"You're the American spy, aren't you?" Kim murmured. "Poor baby. They'll really want to see you twist. You're quite a prize."
"Twist?" I squinted at her, remembering all too well twisting for Mr. Chuang. "You said Stephens doesn't whip girls."
"He finds no pleasure there. Others ..." she shrugged. "But by twist, I meant --"
My hips hopped up from the bed, a blue hot bolt slamming from my nether lips as she deftly, gently, stroked them apart, just once, and then sat back, smiling at me conspiratorially. A back draft of nervous shock ran from my head to my toes, and I could feel a blush burn my brown skin burgundy.
Okay, so -- when did I start liking me some girl?
"You see?" she said. "Despite your whipping, the Serpent's Tongue is licking at you." At my frown, she added, "No doubt you've already guessed that there is a drug involved in Mr. Stephens' work?"
