"She's sweet," Alice heard herself saying. But that wasn't true. She only felt that Gloria had been sad. If it had been sweet it was bitter-sweet sadness. But Alice had to forget about Gloria. Gloria was gone. It was like she had never been here at all, as though all those evenings of love had never been. Switch it on, switch it off. It was like Tevee, she thought, like Tevee—
Kelsey asked her to sit down on the couch, and then he was sitting near her, nearer to her. Then he was touching her, his face inches from hers.
"It seems I've known you for years and years," he said.
And then she was forgetting everything else but Kelsey. It was easy, so easy when you looked and felt right. So easy and she didn't want to think about anything else but Kelsey, dear, sweet, darling Kelsey.
She received him in her arms, with a wild desire, a wild hunger to cover his face with kisses. She felt the intensity taking hold of her, gripping her body, quickening the pounding throb of machinery that was hidden now, hidden away deep and silent and beating now like a human heart.
She kissed his cheek. Her lips strayed over his skin. Her lips glided over his face, felt the moist trembling of his lips.
She felt his trembling, his shuddering sigh, the way his arms convulsed and gripped her, and then she saw the unsettled look, the light in his eyes as he clung to her and at the same time seemed to push her away.
He was frightened. He was trembling, and he was afraid, and his face was flushed.
"What's the matter, darling?" she whispered.