"Where were you last night?"
I rolled onto my side and a headache thunder-clapped through my skull. A nude woman occupied with me a bed so broad it seemed a landscape of satin sheets.
"Where did you go last night?" she asked again. Whoever she was, she was royalty. A holo-tattoo of the Imperial Dragon coiled around the pupil of her left eye, shimmering iridescently. A princess? A queen? By all the gods and goddesses! Maybe I was an adulterer, and soon the king's guards would burst through the arched door and castrate me. I winced and crossed my legs.
But wait... Maybe I
am
the king! I smiled at the idea. Could I be that lucky? It would explain why I'm in bed with a woman who is so long and broad she takes up half again as much of the feather-stuffed mattress as I do. I doubt I'd be haughty enough about my sexual prowess to take on a mighty Amazon... unless—unless I am the king himself!
"I'm waiting for an answer," she said. Her deep voice sounded more annoyed than curious.
"The Net," I said. "Surfing the Net."
"That much I have deduced, woman!
Where
on the Net?"
She called me a woman. Why the slur? Next to her, I am petite, but I am no sissy. Or am I? Should I take offense and defend my manhood?
I shrugged. "Just scanning. Random hits."
Does her insult prove that I am not the king? Only the queen would have the audacity to belittle the king, so perhaps it merely shows that she is my queen. If so, I'm wed to one with the meanness of a shrew.
She uncorked a tiny silver vial and waved it under my nose. I jerked back from the sharp smell, but my headache cleared almost instantly as if a fresh breeze had chased a dark storm cloud over the mountains.
"I need to know exactly where," she said. "Which links?"
"Uh...let's see..." I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. My headache had vanished, but my brain still felt like a biological specimen pickled in alcohol. How much plum wine had I guzzled last night? I didn't recall drinking any.
"I linked with an A.I. satellite orbiting Europa V," I said. "What a view! The nanos are turning the whole moon green. It's already got oceans. The satellite felt so happy and proud—like a mother-goddess looking down on her newborn creation."
"And?"
"And then I linked with an eco-viewing satellite over Eden and watched a pod of orchid whales floating in the stratosphere. I love to see them talking in colors. So beautiful!"
All the while I was trying to remember where I was
now,
but I couldn't even recall my name. Yet for someone wiped out from amnesia I felt no panic. Shouldn't I be afraid?
She nodded impatiently. "Where else did you link?"
"Mm. I don't... last I remember I was linking with a club somewhere on New Bangkok colony. There was this erotic dancer, super-empath—with hundreds of customers plugged into her mind. I could experience everyone's sexual desires at the same time." I shivered and let out a sigh. "Intense!"
She gazed into my eyes. "You don't know who I am." Her cobalt blue irises were lovely; the coiled dragon tattoo shimmered and flashed in rainbow hues. She had remarkably broad shoulders. "Can you remember anything?"
I tried an apologetic smile—a crooked, masculine grin that said,
Sorry. I'm a rogue and I can't help it—but hey, I'm an
adorable
rogue.
The frown on her broad face told me it wasn't working.
My eyes darted around the room for clues to both our identities. The emerald headboard featured elaborately carved hunting scenes and knights on armored dragons engaged in violent mid-air clashes, but the artwork's central theme was lust: dozens of handsome bodies coupled in an imaginative variety of lovemaking poses. On the molded ceramic wall above the headboard hung what must be a giant painting, but it had been covered with a tapestry; only the bottom edge of a gilded frame peeked from beneath the folds of cloth that draped it. The tapestry offered scenes of a battle in space. Crisscrossing laser beams sewn with diamond thread glowed in the slanting light of the suns through the bedroom's high triangular windows.
"You don't even know my name!" she said. Strong fingers dug into my flesh as she turned over my forearm. There, on my wrist, a branded scar of a coiled dragon matched the seal glowing in her eye. Okay. So, I'm not the king. Apparently, I
belong
to this extremely butch dyke. I must be her royal slave.
In bed with her, naked; so, I presume I am her sex slave. All the stars like diamond dust! I must be an erotic virtuoso! I'm so skilled at making love I can even satisfy this giantess.
"Sundari," she said.
"Your majesty's name is Sundari?"
"No, fool!
Your
name is Sundari."
I suppressed a laugh. "Your highness jests with me. Apologies, but I know my name cannot be Sundari."
She raised one eyebrow. "You're certain?"
I wasn't sure of much in that moment—but, hell, a man can't have a woman's name.
She read my mind. "If you're a man," she said, "how do you explain these?" She yanked down the bedclothes to my waist and cupped my bare, ample breasts in both hands.
My jaw dropped. I gawked at my bosom. Her warm, strong hands gave me goose bumps and my large pink nipples stiffened. Impossible! I lifted the covers and stared at my genitals—female. Under a mound of curly red hair, I had puffy love-lips as pink on the inside as a conch shell. Gods! I
am
a woman! And I am unreasonably
beautiful
!