"But that's different—you're a man!" she protested.
"Nor is being a man as bad as you seem to think," he said and she sensed that he was teasing her and was grateful for the change in mood. Before she realized what she was doing she called him mentally a thoroughly bawdy Martian word.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked, startled.
"Where do you think?" she countered—and enjoyed seeing him blush again. They had a pleasantly innocuous time together the remainder of that day and evening.
The following morning Lynne awoke from another horrible nightmare of alien worlds to find her headache back in full force. So bad was it, in fact, that after making a half-hearted effort to get up she fell back on her plastomat, actually moaning a little. She felt as if she were undergoing some long-forgotten sort of Inquisition torture.
Rolf walked into her room within the hour and so sick was Lynne that she didn't even protest his presence. He said, "Lynne, darling, you've got to get over this. Believe it or not you're killing me."
"Then stay in your own mind." She managed a whisper of a smile.
"You're like a bad tooth," he said inelegantly. "You know it's going to hurt if you touch it but you can't stop running your tongue over it."
"Oh, shut up," she said rudely. "So now I'm an ulcerated tooth. I've never had one so I wouldn't know."
"Nor have I," he replied promptly. "But I've read about them. Come on. I'm going to take you to Centromed and get you fixed up."