"You're asleep," Geria told him, matter-of-factly.
He was. Not really, because in sleep there was a lack of awareness. But he could not move and everything was dark and he could only think.
He felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. A mind without a body, in complete darkness. The tingle of awareness which you hardly regard as such because it always is with you was gone. Nothing.
And then it returned. He felt his heart beating again. His ear itched and he scratched it. He shifted his left arm which had fallen asleep.
Oddly, the ceiling light had moved. It had been just to the right of center—now it was just to the left, flickering again, retreating. It was gone.
He turned over on his left side, sleepily, contentedly—on the brink of real sleep. Geria knew what she was doing. He'd rest. He looked—at his own sleeping figure!
Madness toyed with the edges of his mind, gained inroads, made him look again. The silent figure to his left—himself. He raised his hands, felt the hair, long, flowing, billowing about his head—looked down, could see the gentle rounded rise of breast.
A voice nibbled at consciousness, repeated itself, became clearer, laughing: "We will go to sleep now, Smith. How does it feel to be here with me? Let's dream. Dream—"
The voice reassured, and Smith-Geria relaxed, slept.