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Show 205 dwarf with a head like a prick and arms like coathangers scuttled under a blue apron. She moved still lower and light burst from his feet and legs. He knew what was coming. Pleasure and pain were the same in what was coming. Gloriana herself seemed to pause for an instant. She shifted further back along his legs to re-establish her balance, and then leaned forward again, fist on hand, and with all her strength massaged-oh God, oh God-the sacro-lumbar region itself. Needles spilled onto the soles of his feet. His instep burned as hairs turned in their follicles. He floated upside down through luminous green oceans, and billows of sleep rocked him and nursed him. He wasn't sure how she had gotten there, but she was lying beside him on the floor with her dress pulled up. Her knees rubbed together and he hated himself for the idiotic smile he could feel contorting his face. He felt as though he were radiating a nimbus, and he could not remember if he had done it yet or was about to. Her hand was under his shirt and she was stroking the hair on his chest with electric fingers and remarking that his chest was very bony, but that didn't tell him anything. He was dimly aware that a threat lurked in the next room and that Yvonne had probably missed him by now and would want an explanation when he turned up not horny. He tried to think of one while he floated on the edge of sleep and watched a bank of teeth smile at him, but his attention kept drifting off and pulling apart like pictures in smoke. He noticed a cool breeze had settled on his buttocks, and he heard her say, "Now hold very still." He caught a whiff of clean hair and wine on her breath, but otherwise his impressions were private. These impressions were not unlike the ones he had enjoyed on the couch that afternoon while waiting to pick up Yvonne except that they happened and were gone with alarming speed and he had no control over them as to |
