Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

Amy reaches up with one hand to rub the back of her neck. Her elbow pokes up in the air. He notices about a month’s growth of hair in her armpit, then glimpses the corner of a tattoo poking out from under her shirt.

Randy is gripped by a crazy, unaccountable desire not to bore Amy. It’s not that he is getting a crush on her, because he puts the odds at fifty-fifty that she’s a lesbian, and he knows better.

There are bandages on that arm, and underneath them, he can feel grievous wounds trying to inflict pain. But something is blocking the signals. Ah, the morphine. It can’t be too bad of a nightmare if it comes with morphine, can it?