Her lover smiles. Their blunt fingernails, painted in jellyfish luminescence, graze along Recadat’s throat. They’re the only source of illumination in this room and their movement casts odd shadows across her face. They are an antumbral vision. “Yet you feel the same about her, don’t you?” “No.” Recadat shivers as a thumb runs across her mouth. Lust lances through her, rousing her fast in the way of drugs. It makes her feel like a lab rat at the mercy of her lover, whose touch summons at will pain or pleasure or a concoction that mingles both. Now the searing lick of a firebrand, now the
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