The Pleasure Palace. Evangeline Anderson

to Shaina. “Mistress McCullough, Master Tyson is enamored of you and has been from the first moment he met you. His caring and deep concern for your safety are what causes him to treat you in a less than civil manner sometimes.”

      “Master Tyson,”—he turned back to Ty—“Mistress McCullough both desires and fears you. Her fear stems from both inexperience and the somewhat exaggerated rumors she has heard about the extreme sexual appetites of D’Lonians, which I understand makes up a large part of your heritage. Were she not a virgin…”

      “That’s not exactly what I meant,” Tyson growled, cutting off the Glameron’s calm speech. “What I meant was how do we turn it off?” Across the room, Shaina was rapidly reciting prime numbers inside her head to keep from thinking any embarrassing thoughts he might overhear, but her face was red with mortification at Faron’s blunt revelations. Ty wondered if she really was a virgin…

      “Yes, I bloody well am. Does that make you feel happy? Or is it more like smugly superior? Just one more thing that you’re good at that I’m not,” Shaina yelled at him, her face crumpling into tears of embarrassment. Damn it all to hell, now he had made her cry when hurting her was the last thing Ty ever wanted to do.

      “How do we turn it off?” he demanded, feeling ready to strangle somebody, preferably Minister Waynos, who had talked them into this in the first place. But the fat little bastard was light-years away at this point. Through the symbi-link he could hear Shaina thinking much the same thing. Well, great minds think alike, he thought, although they don’t usually have to hear each other do it. He sighed.

      “I am afraid, Master Tyson, that there is no way to ‘turn it off,’ as you put it, but there are techniques for controlling what messages you send through your link.” The Glameron still spoke as mildly and calmly as if they were standing around discussing the weather instead of wallowing in each other’s most embarrassing private thoughts.

      “Okay, so gimme a technique. In case you didn’t notice, we’re having kind of a rough time over here. And so far you’re not helping it any.” Tyson’s voice was tense.

      “As you desire, so I shall serve. Come, place your hands in mine and try to clear your minds.” Not knowing what else to do, Tyson seized the Glameron’s hand angrily and squeezed, probably harder than necessary; Faron winced slightly but said nothing. Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, Ty eased up. They stood there, waiting for Shaina, who was still pressed against the far wall of the room looking at them mistrustfully, with tears drying on her cheeks.

      The wall of the sleep chamber was covered with the same, pale gray moss as the other walls of the ship. Ty saw her turn her cheek against the soft touch of the moss as though for comfort. The gesture tore at his heart; he had never wanted to hurt or scare her, it was just that his need for this woman was so damn strong…

      “Shaina…” he thought and then tried again out loud. “I’m sorry, McCullough. Please…” He didn’t know what else to say. Obviously he had scared her to death with his strong emotions and his desire to possess her. “It was just the aftereffects of the hypersleep talking, Shaina. I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said desperately, although it was untrue. She obviously wasn’t ready to reciprocate his emotions, and until she was, he would just have to keep them under wraps. If these damned symbiotes would let him, that was.

      “Come, dear one.” Faron’s voice was soft and coaxing. “It is difficult to have another in your head for the first time. Let me help you.”

      Shaina straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks in quick, jerky motions. “I don’t feel like I can trust you now, Faron,” she said quietly. “After what you told Tyson about me…”

      “Child, I am sorry that I revealed your secret, but you must understand that it was not a secret you could be allowed to keep.”

      “I don’t see why not. It’s no one’s business but mine.” She raised her chin defiantly and stared at the constantly changing, jewellike eyes of the Glameron, which swirled green and amber alternately. Faron stared calmly back.

      “Have you really so little understanding of what will be expected of you on Syrus Six?” he asked sternly. “You cannot abstain there and expect to be believed. If your innocence is suspected, your lie will be exposed and you will be found out and killed. Better for your partner to know now than have to guess later at some critical time when both your lives and the life of young Master Paul hang in the balance. Do you see?”

      “I…I guess so. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Shaina frowned and took a deep breath. Ty could see her gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. “Can you really help us control this?”

      “It is a certainty. Come, take my hand.” Reluctantly, Shaina did so. Inwardly, Tyson breathed a sigh of relief.

      “Now,” the Glameron said. They stood in a loose circle, both holding hands with Faron, although Ty made sure not to touch Shaina and he noticed she was equally careful not to touch him. “Close your eyes and clear your minds of everything but what I tell you. I want you to picture a blank white wall. Nothing has ever been written there. It is smooth and clean as an eggshell curving in the void of your minds…”

      Tyson began to see the wall that the Glameron spoke of. It curved across his mind looking like the huge white barrier between the regular and private port sector back home.

      “Good, Master Tyson, a very apt analogy,” Faron murmured. “Now behind this wall is where you will keep your private thoughts. When you want to send a thought to one another, I want you to picture what you are saying being written in bold black lettering on the wall. The script that you see is all that you will send through your link. Master Tyson, you will attempt this first.”

      “I…don’t know if I should.” Ty had never felt so uncertain of himself before. He only knew he didn’t want to hurt Shaina any worse than he already had. The Glameron didn’t answer him in words but only squeezed his hand slightly. Ty found the gesture oddly reassuring. Hesitantly, he began to picture a black marking tube writing words on the vast, curving expanse of the blank white wall in his mind.

      “Shaina, I don’t know what to say.” He concentrated fiercely on only sending the words and not the emotions he felt for her. After a moment, he heard her answer.

      “I don’t either.”

      Now that he was calmly concentrating, Ty noticed that her mental voice left a very distinctive flavor on the back of his tongue, sweet and a little salty. It was the way he had always imagined her soft little cunt would taste. He was very careful to keep this particular thought behind the white wall. “You taste good inside my head, sweet.”

      “You taste spicy.” Unexpectedly, he felt her soft, cool hand slip into his. Ty dared to open his eyes and look at her. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were still a little puffy from crying. Her full lips were swollen from the passionate kiss they had shared earlier. God, she was beautiful.

      “Thank you.”

      Hastily Ty closed his eyes and concentrated on the wall.

      At last Faron declared himself satisfied with their progress. “Master, Mistress, I shall prepare nourishment for you if it would please you both to step into the fresher and cleanse yourselves. I will provide appropriate clothing for both of you after we eat and your real lessons will begin. I warn you, however, that mastering the mannerisms and society of Syrus Six will not be quite as easy as mastering the symbiotes.”

      Tyson groaned as he stumbled off to the fresher to take a much needed shower. If the second lesson was harder than the first one, he wasn’t sure he could take it. Already he felt wrung out emotionally and physically and all he’d done for the past hour and a half was hold hands with Shaina and think really hard.

      7

      Lunch—Shaina assumed it was lunchtime, that was what her body clock told her anyway—was a silent meal. She didn’t know about Tyson, but she was concentrating fiercely on keeping her private thoughts behind the big white wall. To her