She backed away from him, toward the wall. She pictured herself asking for what she really wanted and was hit by a splash of shame at the thought. “It would be more comfortable if you weren’t standing,” she said, hoping he’d take the hint.

He cocked his head to the side slightly, then moved toward her. “I am concerned my body resembles the source of your trauma.”

“You mean Obelus?”

“Yes.”

She had a slight twinge of nausea at the thought of Obelus, one she tried to expel with a breath. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s gone. But it was true that Ampersand more resembled Obelus than he did any of the rest of the Fremda group, most of whom were much smaller and svelter than he was. He wasn’t completely wrong about that. Still, while the thought of Obelus gave her the anxiety, the fear, the nausea, the thought of Ampersand did the opposite. “I won’t feel trapped.”

He moved closer, almost over her in that fluid way that he moved, unbound by the laws of gravity. He tucked his left arm under him in that deerlike posture, half cocked on his side, then carefully, like he was testing the temperature of the water, placed his right arm on the other side of her, tucking her up next to his chest.

Yes, correct, this is correct, this is where I should be.

It was as though there were two halves of herself that had been vibrating out of sync that were finally on the same frequency. Smooth, calm, correct. She had her arms tucked up against her chest like a mummy, unsure what was appropriate. Then, she decided, fuck it. She wrapped her left arm around his midsection and pulled herself close to him, felt the texture of the carapace on his back. The closest analogue to the way his skin felt was sharkskin from a bamboo shark she’d once touched at the Aquarium of the Pacific, the slightly rough texture, the way it didn’t slip around like human skin, the firmness underneath.

With that sense of rightness, that sense of comfort, that sense of safety also came the shame. What if someone saw this? What would people think? What if people knew that this went beyond not being horrified by this but actually liking it?

She’d felt somewhat asexual ever since she’d met Ampersand, perhaps a side effect of the fusion bonding. She’d gone to a couple of gay clubs to try to hook up with a girl, but struck out there. Then she’d gone to a regular bar and found a guy, some white-collar brobro who worked for an insurance agency or something. He had a name like Paul or Chad or Dave, a receding hairline and a round, ruddy, meaty face that could have been twenty-five or forty-five. She’d gone home with him, let him have his way, in part because she was drunk but also because she wanted to see if she could feel something. It was dry and unpleasant and painful, and Paul or Chad or whatever his name was invaded her mouth with his tongue like he was a sandworm of Arrakis. She didn’t even spend the night with him.