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Show 201 palms of her hands now, and massaging so briskly that he felt his shirt front creep up from beneath his trousers and clear his belt. He hoped there was no lint in his navel. "Does your roommate have ulcers too?" he asked. "No. He gets migraines." She was watching her hands and smiling. "So it doesn't help to rub his stomach." "That's a shame, since you do it so well, ha ha." "You're very kind to say so." The truth was, he was feeling much better, and that worried him. He was not born yesterday, and he knew one or two things about signals. He had come down here to her apartment with no very clear idea of what he expected to happen, but he knew he was not braced for anything momentous. He knew also that he had felt safe and happy in his fantasies and that the warm pressure of her hands on his stomach right now was interfering with the sequence in which she pushed him, naked and moaning, into the closet and went to play with her roommate while he stood there in the dark between coats and dresses. "What does he do that he should have migraines?" he asked. "I don't mean to be nosey." "He works at Rand, but he's always had them. He's a physicist." She shifted on the couch so that her back was straight, perpendicular to his recumbent body, and he could watch her face in profile as she kneaded his stomach with one hand. The other one was in her lap. "Let's see. He's tall and thin and brilliant and drives a Ferrari. And he can be a real pain." She turned her head to look at him, with a faint smile. "That's too bad," Lorin said. "I suppose I can be one too," she said. "Here. Turn over and I'll |
