Warren Murphy: White Water

"I trust I am not late for the meeting," he remarked.

"You are early."

"Good."

"I despise earliness."

Houghton swallowed. His tongue turned to dry rubber.

"I-I can come back if you'd rather."

At that moment he noticed the long-stemmed scarlet rose tucked into the loop of chain draping her lyrelike hips. With a quick gesture she plucked it into the air.

Turning so that her body showed in full profile, the uplifted breasts and the stunning ice-princess profile, she lifted the rose to the light. Red mouth compressing, she began snapping off the thorns one by one.

"Approach," she invited.

Cautiously he stepped forward. Her nimble fingers snapped off thorn after thorn. They dropped to the black glassy floor with dry tiny sounds like cat claws clicking on porcelain.

"Unzip!" she commanded.

"Whatever for?"

"Obey!" Mistress Kali snapped.

Slowly, because his heart was pounding, he drew down his trouser's zipper as Mistress Kali stripped the stem of its thorns. When the last was on the floor, he stood there tumescent and quivering.

"Whatever are you-?"

"What was it you said the other day?" she said thinly.

"That you never touch me."

"What else?"

"That we never do anything new anymore," he admitted, his voice a bleat.

"So you want to try something new, do you?" she asked in an arch voice. She wasn't looking at him. He felt almost beneath her notice. His quivering member stiffened further.

"I do," he said, bowing his head, "very much."

"Very much what!"

"Very much, Mistress Kali. I want to try something new very much, Mistress Kali," he said hastily.

A faint smile touched her scarlet lips. From somewhere about her person she palmed a long vial of massage lotion. She snapped the cap with her blacknailed thumb and dipped the stem to its full length. A faint fishy scent came to his nose. Cod-liver oil. His favorite. He tingled down to his curled-in-anticipation toes.

"What are you doing?"

"Something new," she said, drawing the stripped stem from the bottle. It dripped viscously.

He licked his lips. "Really?"

Her voice dropped several degrees. "Yes, really."

And whirling, she took his member in one hand and with the other inserted the lubricated rose stem deep into his urethra, jerking it in and out, in and out until he screamed in the exquisite pain and pleasure of a sensation he had never in his wildest imaginings imagined.

The pain brought him to his knees. He knelt there, gasping and clutching himself, a fresh spill like fish milk and dark red raspberry juice forming under his agony.

Her voice cut through his agony like a steel needle. "Never again complain that I won't try anything new ...."

Chapter 32

United Nations Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat stepped through the buzzing door into an anteroom that was surprisingly sumptuous.

The walls were some pink-veined marble that brought to mind the delicate flesh of a concubine. At least that was how his romantic eyes perceived the cold marble.

There were statuary. A black-skinned woman with more than her natural provision of arms. They were held in an attitude that was both provocative and inviting.

Kali, of course. The Hindu goddess of death. How appropriate for a woman whose cyber-pseudonym was Mistress Kali. The eyes of the statue looked down upon him, two blind blanks.

He noticed that her proportions were generous to the point of ripeness. He took this as a promising sign. Anwar Anwar-Sadat liked his women on the voluptuous side.

On the other side of the door, another statue. This one not of basalt, but porphyry. He did not recognize the god depicted but decided it could only be Shiva, consort of Kali. Shiva clutched in his four arms various devices both arcane and doubtful of purpose.

Clearing his throat, he raised his voice. "Hello?" "Do you desire to enter into the presence of Mistress Kali?" a very firm voice returned.

"I do. Are you she?"

"Silence!" the voice cracked out.

In spite of himself and his position in the world, Anwar Anwar-Sadat felt a cool hush descend over his soul. "Allow me to gaze upon you," he asked.

The voice was coming from the mirrored area between the two statues. It was at once evident that these were mirrored doors. He was being studied. Assuming a rakish pose, he allowed this.

"Anwar Anwar-Sadat, are you brave enough to enter into the domain of Kali?"

"I am," he said in a voice that cracked with anticipation.

"Very well. Steel yourself."

"I am steeled."

"For those who enter into my terrible presence are forevermore changed."

For a dark moment Anwar Anwar-Sadat quailed inwardly. He did not wish to be changed. He only wished to meet this creature who had so bewitched him sight unseen, voice unheard, until this pregnant hour.

He swallowed. And then the doors parted.

Mistress Kali was all that he had imagined, Anwar Anwar-Sadat saw at once.

She was tall and statuesque and as blond as sunlight on pure gold. Her features were classic, ethereal yet chiseled. The domino mask of golden silk framing her Nile green eyes added a touch of mystery that was perfection itself.

Her body was a black flame, and as she shifted her weight from one generous hip to the other, it shimmered. Leather. She wore leather. He had not expected leather.

His eyes followed the shimmer to pick out the enchanting details. The silver chains, the vampiric black nails and ivory skull set in her navel like a barbaric ornament.

She held a whip in one hand. The other clutched a dog's leash.

Anwar-Sadat's eyes followed the leash to the floor and his heart jumped quick and hot in his chest.

On the floor at her side crouched a man on all fours. He was naked except for a spiky dog collar banding his throat. He clutched a scarlet rose between his teeth like an obedient dog holding a bone. It dripped crimson droplets on the floor.

His eyes were on the floor. Mistress Kali gave the leash a sharp tug, and he raised his head.

"Allow me to present the minister of fisheries and oceans, Gilbert Houghton," said Mistress Kali in a voice that mocked the two dignitaries.

"Er, pleased," gulped Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

Through the clenched rose, the Canadian official growled low in his throat.

This was not going as expected ....

Chapter 33

At Folcroft, Harold Smith was watching the global conflict unfold.

"This is unbelievable," he said to himself. "It is as if the entire seafaring community has descended into a feeding frenzy."

In the North Atlantic the renegade U.S. fishing fleet had retreated to a closed fishery called the Flemish Cap, where they were taking Canadian cod and yellowtail in a feeding frenzy that defied fishing regulations of both nations. Coast Guard cutters were moving to rendezvous with them in an effort to persuade them to abandon Canadian fishing waters.

In the Pacific the U.S. destroyer Arkham was prowling the waters between Alaska and Washington in search of the Canadian submarine Yellow-knife/Couteaujaune before it could surface in the midst of American salmon-fishing craft.

Meanwhile Canadian coastal-defense vessels were trying to collect transit taxes and taking small-arms fire from disgruntled U.S. salmon fishermen.

From Ottawa there was silence both official and unofficial. But from Quebec emanated semiofficial rumors that in the U.S.-Canadian fishing war, Quebec intended to side with Washington.

And so Harold Smith saw the first seeds of Canadian civil war. The choosing of sides.

Already in the U.S. media, old memories were being dredged up. The depredations of one French and Indian war. The Deerfield raids. Louisbourg. How during the War of 1812, Canadian and British forces had burned the White House to the ground.