“What? Jules, what are you doing?”

She put her face up to his. Her lips parted. “What does it look like?” she whispered.

He took a step back, encountered the wall. She came after him, silent as a wraith. Then she reached out, her fingers slipping between the sides of his robe, finding him naked underneath.

“What does it feel like?”

“Jules, I—”

But her lips sought his mouth; his semi-hard penis throbbed like a second heart beneath her fingers. She felt rather than heard his deep groan of surrender, and something inside of her lit up like a flame. For an electrifying instant, she felt Sydny inside her; and then came the seawater wash of realization: it wasn’t Sydny she felt deep inside her, it was herself—her own true self, liberated at last.

Slipping to her knees, she parted his robe, took him into her mouth. His eyes closed, his head went back so hard it cracked against the wall. Above her, she heard him breathing out her name, which changed to “Jesus” and back again, until the two names merged into one strange, sex-sound that meant something only to him.

She brought him to the brink of satisfaction, then withdrew her lips, tongue, throat.

“What-what are you doing?” he said in that thick, sex-charged voice men get when their primitive reptile brains have taken charge.

Reaching up with clawed fingers, she drew him down to her, placed him so that he was supine on the floor. She undressed slowly, sensually, showing him bit by bit what was in store for him. Then, straddling him, she moved up his body until she was over his face. Engaging her powerful thigh muscles, she lowered herself until she was just above his mouth. Her lips curved in a smile of incipient delight as she quoted from Lewis Carroll, changing only the gender: “‘He opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words “EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants.’”

She dug her fingers into Orrin’s damp hair, lifted his head to her. Soon after, her eyes closed in ecstasy, and it was only after she had ridden him through three orgasms that she let go of his head. She heard him gasping, making little sobs, imploring her to give him what he wanted.

So she did.

Afterward, he wanted her to lie in his arms, but she rose, stood over him like an Amazon, and said, “Orrin, I have a service to ask of you.”

“Anything, Jules,” he said, staring up at her in wonder and stupefaction, his eyes still half-glazed with lust. “Anything you want.”

Chapter 35

35

The orthopedic surgeon had assured St. Vincent that he would have no dreams while he was under the anesthetic, but either the sonuvabitch had lied or some unusual aspect of St. Vincent’s brain ruled out sweet oblivion.