Programmed for Peril

Carson Thomas and Queen of My Heart. Sly Carson had winked his approval of the three hidden videocams, but she—she never dreamed. Later Champ’s swift hands and natural sense of style and art had made short work of the editing. The rich harvest from the vines of the trio of machines was gathered, culled, compressed, and distilled into ten vintage performances, ten tales for the pleasure of the solitary sultans— Carson and himself. Tell your tales, oh Scheherazade! Speak!
    Champ viewed one of the tapes every day. It was an element of the new routines begun since his last meeting with Carson. He commanded Champ: new house, new work area, new disciplines. These changes brought sharper, clearer focus to who Champ was and what he wanted from the terrifying tangle of life; his obedience was complete. Always when Carson reentered Champ’s life he arrived like a timely messiah, leading him from the wilderness of his tortured, jangled thoughts out onto the purposeful path.
    He squirmed on the bed, finding his own nakedness curiously arousing. How his sexual powers had risen lately! Beholding Carson’s past triumphs commanded him to strive to regain for himself those sensual heights defended by the armies of time and circumstance. In the attempt he knew he ignored the lesson taught by literature and common lore: One must sail forward, never back. Were he and Carson ordinary men, he might have checked himself. But they were in no way ordinary.
    He spoke toward the control unit Carson had conceived. “All lights off... drapes closed... bed angle sixty degrees... on TV One...” The wall-wide screen with a resolution video engineers could only dream of—another of Carson’s genius patentable toss-away designs—glowed to life. “... VCR One on... Cue up to sound and stop.”
    He closed his eyes for a long moment and drew deep breaths, readying himself for this portion of the saga in which Carson, through strength of will, persuasive powers, and masterful eroticism led Queen of My Heart to... just exactly what stage of subjugation? He told himself he couldn’t recall. His stiffening flesh told him he lied. “Play!” he croaked.
    He had added suitable music to the ten tapes. This one began with a lush surge from the Tchaikovsky Sixth. Trite, but what stronger pillar of the Romantic period? What was Carson about, if not the romantic?
    The lit screen came to life. There she was! On shackled hands and knees, looking back over the alabaster curve of her shoulder, mink gag a furry parenthesis spreading her lips to a snarl. Above the arch of up-tilted nose the gray eyes sloed in comprehension of her naked, eager anticipation. “Freeze!” he said. Her lovely, contorted face filled the screen, spread motionless like an exotic blossom. Queen of My Heart! Brightest coal on the hearth of Carson Thomas’s passion. Queen of his heart, brain, liver, and the hot stones between his legs. Queen of his May and June and July... Queen of his hopes and desires, time without end—amen! “Slow motion,” he commanded. Speak her initials, QMH; gloat over the squirm of the mouth shaping those letters being so like a loose, arousing kiss.... Her long lashes fluttered. Lids descended to bar distraction from focused savoring of Carson’s attentions. Her head lolled. Black bangs swung free of the high white brow to stir in the indirect draft of her hot breath.
    Behind her crouched red-haired Carson. His green eyes burned. Her perfect buttocks rose before his face, white and flawless as ancient Arctic ice. He pressed his manicured hands to the perfect skin, spread, disclosed the puckered secret. One wide hand was enough to sustain the position. The other raised the shaped plastic rod....
    When he was finished, spent, Champ stored the tape, restored all the equipment to its usual locations. He knew he was, in fact, getting it out of harm’s way.
    When had watching one of the tapes not been followed by Earthquake Anger?
    He dragged Siege Restraint, the heavy chair, out into the middle of the nearly stripped living room, slid it clear of the small couch and lamp table. He sat and fastened the Velcro straps to his ankles. His left wrist lay on the wide chair arm. With his other hand he closed the Velcro over it. He slid his right through the tight loop on the other side. He made a fist, trapping that arm, too.
    The first distant swell of anger rolled in from the wide sea of his mind, gathered strength and amplitude, crested and broke on the