It was easier to do than she had expected. His skin was cool and almost too smooth to be real flesh—smooth the way her fingernails were and perhaps as tough as a fingernail. “Is it hard for you to stay like this?” she asked. “Not hard. Unnatural. A muffling of the senses.” “Why did you do it—before I asked you to, I mean.” “It’s an expression of pleasure or amusement.”
