Flicker of Doom

  Annotation

  The Baroness Sees the Light.

  Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini has to face cameras with flash bulbs that kill in her riskiest assignment yet. Don Alejandro, descended from the original Spanish Inquisitor, along with the sex-starved computer genius, Dr. Otto Funke, has a sure-fire plan for world domination. It will all be over in a flash — unless the Baroness moves in. Can her sexual versatility and iron will thwart her deadly adversaries in the ultimate battle? Or is the world doomed to suffer blinding and horrible obliteration?

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  Paul Kenyon

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  * * *

  Paul Kenyon

  Flicker of Doom

  OCR Mysuli: denlib@tut.by

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  "I think he's sexy," said the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini.

  She stretched cat-like under the silk sheets, her body comfortably aglow from the long morning of lovemaking. The Baroness was one of those heartbreakingly beautiful visions you sometimes see in fashion ads, with her huge, luminous green eyes and those incredible cheekbones and perfectly etched lips, all framed by a cascade of glossy black hair that came tumbling down around her naked shoulders.

  The man lying beside her in bed wasn't half as pretty. He had a tough, irregular face with a broken nose and a long jaw that showed a day-old salt-and-pepper stubble. But there was a humorous crinkle at the corners of his eyes and an ironic play to his lips.

  "Sexy?" he said doubtfully. He cocked an eye at the bedside television set. "He's just another politician — even if he is French. He doesn't look sexy to me."

  "That's because you're not a woman, Morgan darling," the Baroness said. She patted him fondly on his hairy thigh. "Thank goodness."

  He quivered at her touch, as though she'd given him an electric shock. His hand groped under the sheet for one of her breasts.

  "Damn right," he said. "And I'm not a picture on a TV screen, either. That makes me sexier than Leclerc. Turn the son-of-a-bitch off."

  "Why, Morgan," she said mockingly, "I thought you were here to cover the run-off campaign. They're paying you a quarter-million dollars for it."

  "I'd rather cover you at the moment," he said.

  Morgan Manley was the reigning literary superstar. He'd been paid a million-dollar advance on his latest book, Death and the Naked Maiden, a thinly fictionalized biography of the Hollywood sex goddess whose suicide a decade earlier had rocked the world. Sales hadn't been hurt by the fact that Morgan had been one of her four husbands. His Korean War novel, The Hill, was considered an all-time classic. His agent was rumored to be negotiating a million-and-a-half-dollar contract on his next novel. In the meantime, Morgan was marking time with journalistic assignments — currently a supercharged book about European politics in crisis. He was probably the highest paid journalist of the century.

  "Pay attention to Leclerc," she said firmly. "This is an important speech. You should be out there in the provinces, covering it in person — not watching it in bed in a suite at the Ritz."

  Morgan glared at the television screen. It showed a dark, somewhat brutal man with the shoulders of a boxer. There was a battery of microphones in front of him. He was standing on a wooden platform, behind a transparent bulletproof shield.

  "It's the same speech he's been giving during the whole campaign," Morgan said. "I know it by heart." He scowled. "Demagogic bastard!"

  The Baroness moved her hand up his thigh. It encountered an obstacle. She arched her eyebrows in mock surprise.

  "Again?" she said. "So soon? Morgan, love, you were the one who asked the desk to send up the idiot box."

  "Je préfère quelque chose de mieux," the television set said.

  She turned her head for another look at Leclerc.

  There was no doubt about it: Gaston Leclerc had charisma. He was a muscular, intensely masculine figure, with penetrating eyes and a firm, blue-shadowed jaw. His voice throbbed with animal magnetism, even now as he spoke in the soft, almost purring tone he liked to affect. You had to strain to listen to him — that was his trick. He'd come far in the last two years, appealing to an unlikely constituency of farmers and workers and businessmen who were willing to trade a few unimportant freedoms for political and economic stability. He'd polled more than a third of the votes in last month's preliminary election, and there was no doubt that the runoff would give him a stunning majority. The press and the pollsters expected him to be the next President of France.

  "Screw the idiot box!" Morgan said. His hand closed around her breast again.

  This time the Baroness left it there.

  * * *

  Leclerc faced the crowd in the provincial square, feeling the vast throb of sympathy that poured from them like a tangible force. It was almost mystical, the way he and his crowds became one at times like this, he thought with satisfaction. There was nothing to compare with it, except perhaps the rapport a great actor had with his audiences. His opponents couldn't approach it.

  "A qui est la faute?" he demanded, and the crowd roared its approval.

  It was hot and bright in the cobblestoned square. The bulletproof shield in front of him cut off whatever breeze might have helped. He could feel the sun beating down on his unprotected head. But he resisted the temptation to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief. One didn't show human weakness to a crowd that had come from miles around to have a look at France's savior.

  He smiled and raised a hand to quiet them. A sea of upturned faces waited to hear what he was going to say next, and there were more faces at the windows of the tall stone buildings that enclosed the square. The mayor and other local dignitaries were behind him on the raised wooden platform. Facing him was an array of video and motion-picture cameras.

  He looked directly into the lenses and began the wind-up of his speech.

  "Ce qui est juste n'est pas toujours utile…" he began.

  He broke off, annoyed. There had been a brief flash of light, directly in his eyes, dazzling him. At least he thought there had been. It was gone so quickly that he couldn't be sure.

  "Ce que je dis est la véirité…" he began again.

  Again there was that strange sensation of flickering light.

  The journalists were waiting, their pencils poised above their pads. He shook his head to clear it. It was odd, but he suddenly felt edgy, confused. That wouldn't do. His constituents expected him to act decisive, self-assured.

  "J'aime ce pays," he said firmly. "J'en admire les institutions…"

  He went on smoothly, automatically. The flashes of light had blended into a steady flicker. He ignored it. Some fool at a window across the way was playing with a mirror. It was a childish trick to distract him. His opponents would stoop to anything.

  He tried to catch the eye of one of his security men. What was the matter with the stupid fools? Hadn't they noticed anything? By now there should have been a couple of them headed across the square to locate the prankster and beat the shit out of him.

  He was feeling strangely lightheaded. He shook his head again and went on doggedly. "…Ceci est la honte de France…"

  The security men were staring at him, instead of keeping their eyes on the crowd. What was the matter with them? They were a tough bunch of boys, former OAS members, most of them. They usually knew their job. There had been two attempts on his life already. That was the reason for the transparent shield and the bulletproof lectern. He didn't mind. It lent a sense of drama to his appearances. The crowds were impressed by it.


  The audience was looking at him in a peculiar manner, too. They weren't responding to him the way they usually did. That was odd. He was making the best speech of his life. The words were tumbling out of him. He didn't know exactly what he was saying, but he knew it was important. Profound, in fact.

  "Que je meure, si je mens!" he shouted with emotion.

  He could feel himself twitching all over. Something warm ran down his leg. He'd lost control of his bladder. No matter! An unimportant detail!

  A huge flash of light exploded inside his head.

  He shook his fist at the mob.

  "Je suis le roi!" he shouted. There was a hand on his arm. He shook it off and went on talking.

  The American television reporter nudged his French colleague. "What's the matter with Leclerc?" he said. "He's been rambling. That's not like him."

  "I don't know," the man from French television said worriedly. "He's been blinking, as if the light were bothering his eyes."

  "The sun's behind him," the American reporter said. "It can't be that."

  "Listen to him. He's not making any sense. He's acting manic."

  The correspondent from the BBC joined them. "I say, chaps," he drawled, "is it my imagination, or is there something odd about Leclerc's behavior?"

  The crowd began to notice, too. It stirred uneasily. There was a low undercurrent of buzzing voices.

  "Look!" the American said. "His face is twitching!"

  Up there on the platform, Leclerc was shaking his fist. His face had gone beet red.

  "Je suis le roi!" he ranted.

  "Is the man mad?" the BBC man said. "Asking to be struck dead? And shouting that he's the king?"

  The village mayor had come up behind Leclerc and put a restraining hand on his arm. All of a sudden Leclerc's face contorted in an insane rage. He grabbed the mayor around the throat and tried to strangle him. A woman in the crowd screamed. There were men crowding around Leclerc, trying to pull him off the mayor. Leclerc struck out at them. He seemed to be possessed of superhuman strength. He tossed them aside like sacks of potatoes. A couple of Leclerc's tough-looking bodyguards were scrambling up over the edge of the wooden platform. Before they could reach him, he fell to the floor. He was rolling back and forth, his limbs jerking uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth.

  "Jesus!" the American correspondent said.

  The camera crews were working frantically to get close-ups, except for the French cameramen. The senior government man with them had spoken sharply, and they weren't filming anymore.

  Leclerc was mouthing obscenities. The words poured out of him in a foul stream — doubly shocking because his public language had always been a model of propriety. The bodyguards were trying to keep the foreign television cameramen from taking pictures of their boss. Little scuffles broke out in the press section. One of the American network correspondents had a bloody nose.

  Two of the security men were holding Leclerc down, trying to calm him. You couldn't understand what he was saying now; the words were running together. He went into a violent spasm that flung the two bodyguards aside.

  "Jesus, he's having some kind of a fit!" the American reporter said.

  Leclerc was lying on his back now, his body twitching spastically. His spine suddenly arched in an impossible curve, lifting him off the platform, supported only by his head and heels. He made a violent gagging sound. There was a dry, snapping noise, like someone breaking a tree branch.

  "Oh, my God!" the reporter whispered.

  * * *

  The Baroness stood on her head, her long black hair streaming across the coverlet, her breasts spilling over the pillow she'd put there for support.

  "Go ahead, Morgan, darling," she said. "What are you waiting for?"

  He knelt on the bed, facing her, a pale, bony, elongated figure with a mat of curly hair covering his chest, shoulders and belly. His forehead was furrowed in what she took to be a puzzled frown. It was hard to read people's expressions when you were seeing their faces upside down.

  "I'm a writer, not an acrobat, for the love of Mike!" he said.

  "Haven't you any sense of adventure?"

  "My sense of adventure isn't the problem," he said. "It's my sense of balance."

  "I've seen you stand on your head, darling — doing your yoga exercises."

  He looked at her doubtfully. "That's different. In yoga, the object is to remain calm. And motionless."

  "Come on, darling! I'll help you."

  He walked over on his knees. She spread her legs in a vee and wiggled her toes at the ceiling. He stared thoughtfully down into the cleft.

  "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" he said.

  "We've done it every other way," she said.

  She looked at him through her legs. His long face hung framed between her thighs. It suddenly dipped lower, and she felt his tongue, hot, slick and muscular, probing her moist labia. A pleasurable vibration went through her, and she almost fell over.

  "That's very nice, darling," she said, "but I still want you to stand on your head for me."

  He raised his head. His chin was shiny with her juices. "I couldn't resist," he said in a shaky voice. "It was like staring into a goblet of mead."

  "Come on, darling. I can't keep this up forever."

  "Neither can I."

  He touched his head to the mattress and, with a quick heave, thrust his legs at the ceiling of the Ritz. The mattress shook. He started to go over backwards, but made a quick correction, and fell over in her direction. Penelope hooked him behind the knees with one arm, supporting herself with the other.

  "So far, so good," she said.

  They were plastered together, cheek to cheek and belly to belly. Penelope twined her feet around his ankles and gave him an encouraging pat on the buttocks. She could feel his entire body trembling with the effort of maintaining his position. She squinted with one eye at the rigid post of his penis, projecting between her thighs. It was pointing downward at a forty-five-degree angle. No, pointing upward, she corrected herself. At any rate, it was almost — not quite — in line with its destination. She squirmed forward an inch or two to align herself. The purple-veined club bobbed, heavy and swollen.

  "You're right," he panted. "This is exciting!"

  "Trust me, darling," she said.

  Careful not to overbalance herself, she reached upward and got a firm purchase on his organ. He moaned, and she could feel it twitch in her hand.

  "Steady, old thing," she said.

  She pulled, and the fleshy chestnut at the end of his shaft bumped her gently as he tipped toward her. She looked upward and could see it resting in her cleft.

  Morgan began trembling again. It wasn't muscular tension this time.

  Cautiously, she rubbed herself back and forth along his mast. It began to pick up a sheen of vaginal glare. She was overflowing, spilling down into her own pubic bush. There were glinting jewels of moisture nestled in the hair. She could feel a fiery warmth down the entire length of her vagina. She gasped, and clutched convulsively at his mast. He gasped, too, and she made herself wait a moment before she began rubbing his fleshy chestnut against her own stiffened bud. The friction sent flashes of pink lightning all through her interior channels, making the base of her spine tingle.

  Morgan almost toppled over. She caught him with a hand on one buttock, and made a better scissors of their legs. She held him steady until he adjusted himself.

  "This is doing it the hard way," he panted.

  "I hope so, darling," she said.

  She guided his throbbing probe into her scabbard. It slid in easily, all the way, with a spring-tension pressure against the anterior wall. His mons pubis, wiry as steel wool, was scrubbing against her. There was a sudden uncontrollable clitorial spasm, then another, but she bore down hard to keep it from exploding into orgasm.

  "Now what?" he said hoarsely. "I can't move in and out without falling over backwards."

  "I can, love," she said. "I have better coord
ination than you."

  She unhooked one leg from behind his knee and stretched it backward until her toes encountered the top rail of the bed's headboard. Using it for support, she began a to-and-fro seesaw motion, keeping her other leg wrapped around Morgan's, and one hand supporting his behind.

  It was interesting.

  Balanced precariously upside down as they were, she couldn't predict all the little variations in direction. Morgan would start to tumble and give a quick jerk to keep vertical, or one of them would shudder and heave with the effort of maintaining the upside-down posture. Her head was full of blood — a delicious dizzy feeling. All her senses were altered by the fact that her orientation was different.

  There were lots of little surprises — unexpected frictions in the little area of flesh that had grown into a vast, throbbing universe. The universe expanded: a feverish plenum of pulsing sensations. A pinpoint of over-stimulated neurons discharged and exploded into a nova. There was a sensation of shooting sparks through her groin. She twitched, and there was another shower of sparks.

  Morgan's breath, hot and bourbon-flavored, was in her ear. He was making a meaningless, rhythmic grunting sound that somehow excited her still further. She could hear her own gasping breath, coming from a million miles away.

  She pushed at his rear end, impaling herself thirty times a minute. An image came to her: someone pumping a bellows. She pushed faster. Forty times a minute. The sparks within her glowed redly, getting hotter. She was catching fire. The embers grew, spread. Her insides were melting, like flowing iron. The molten metal was cherry-red now, pouring through her interior cavities, blending everything together. She could no longer differentiate the details of her sensations; it was one big bubbling cauldron of pleasure, its surface heaving and popping. Each of the pops brought a cry to her lips, but the big one was still down there, a bubble as big as the Ritz itself, floating sluggishly to the surface, taking its time.

  She pumped him back and forth faster: fifty times a minute, sixty. The sweat poured down her body, running down her belly, splashing on the breasts that hung upside down like succulent pears. A vagrant thought flashed through her head: what if the maid or the valet walked in now? What a sight! She laughed aloud. Morgan made an indistinct questioning sound. "Nothing, darling," she gasped.