"Good Lord, of course I can feel—ouch!" She gave a little scream. The announcer had pinched her sharply on the naked flesh just below her halter. Because she had been looking into his eyes, she could not have seen the casual motion of his hand.
"There!" said Jim, standing back and bowing with a juggler's flourish. "What about that, gentlemen?"
Brave spoke. "Win, he's drunk, so don't hold it against him. But he's done you—and us—a great service." Raising his voice above her passionate cursing, he went on. "You know our mutant theory. It's been changed today but the pain angle still holds good to a degree. Well, Alan burnt you accidentally with his Rocketeer cigarette last night, and you didn't feel it; so we have been thinking that you must be one of them. Evidently you're not. You have our apologies all round."
She stood silent, taking it in; then she said, "Great heavens above!" and turned on Alan, who was looking sheepish and incredibly relieved. "You grunt-brain! Don't you, with all your knowledge, realize that there are times in a woman's life—yes, and in a man's—when she or he can be burned, whipped, and kicked in the funny bone, without realizing it?"
Alan made a gesture of incomprehension.
"You moron, what were we doing when you burned me?"
Brave reached into the encyclopedia of his mind and said, "She's right, governor. It was first explained in 1952. When one is sexually stimulated, the increase in blood pressure, the intensified heart-beats, and the rigidity of all the muscles sometimes combine to make one totally unaware of pain. The author of the theory was a Dr. Linsey, or Kinsey, or something like that." He pursed his lips. "I don't suggest that you were necking, chieftain, but if you were, that explains it, and we were damned unjust to Win."
"If you weren't necking, Doc," said Jim, "you're dead, or ought to be."
Win tossed down her rum. "I'll have more to say on the subject later," she declared to Alan. "For now, I'm too mad to risk staying here and breaking up the furniture. I found that burn on my arm after you left. By then it hurt like hell." She strode over and picked up her cloak. "Good night, or afternoon, or whatever the everlastingly blasted time it is," she said between her teeth, and closed the door gently behind her which made a more effective exit than if she had slammed it and made the walls quiver.
"Bless my soul," said Jim mildly, reaching for his glass. "We have transformed a superwoman into a livid Fury. What a day!"