Did he know what had happened to her in the last few moments, she wondered? It seemed not, for when she heard his voice in her head again, murinufing his love to her, it was as if he was picking up where he'd left off.
"You can't stay," he said. "You'll wake up sooner or later, and when you do-"
"I'll come and find you."
He laid his forefinger against her lips, though she was not using them to speak. "Stay away from the door," he said, "it's dangerous. There's something terrible coming through it. Understand me? Please, Phoebe, tell me you understand me?"
"What's coming through it?" she said. "Tell me." "Iad," he said, "lad Uroboros."
His hand slipped from her mouth to the back of her head, and took firm hold of her. "I want you to promise me you'll stay away from the door," he said.
She pushed her tongue out between her lips. She wasn't going to promise anything. "Phoebe," he said, but before he could get beyond her name she mashed her face against his, distracting him with her fervor.
"I love you," she thought, "and I want you inside me."
He didn't need a second invitation. She felt him pulling his belt, then felt his dick pressing into her. It was easy; oh it was easy. But it pained him. He grimaced, and stopped moving; stopped kissing her even.
"Are you all fight?" she breathed.
"Your damn husband," he said, his voice small, and punctuated with little gasps. "I don't know... I don't know if I can... do this-"
"It's okay."
"Chfist, it hurts."
"I said it's okay."
"I want to finish what I started," he said, and began to push into her again. She looked down. The water between them was tinged red; he was plainly bleeding, and badly.
"We should stop," she said.
But he had a dogged look upon his face: teeth gritted, brow furrowed. "I want to finish," he gasped, "I want t@' A shadow fell upon them both. Phoebe looked up, and saw that somebody was leaning over the side of the boat, pointing down into the water. Did she hear a voice, remotely? She thought so.
And now two of the weed-cleaners left off their labors and were diving down through the tangle of weeds. She didn't doubt their purpose. they were coming to rescue Joe.
He hadn't seen them. He was too intent on fucking, pressing into her over and over, despite the pain on his face.
"Joe... " she murmured.
"It's okay," he thought to her. "It's kinda raw but@'
"Open your eyes, Joe." He opened them. "They're coming for you." He looked up now, and tried to wave his rescuers away, but either they thought the gestures were pleas, or else they didn't care.
The latter, Phoebe guessed, glimpsing their features. they had a distinctly alien cast to them, but it wasn't their strangeness that chilled her, it was their total absence of expression. She didn't want Joe taken from her by these blank-faced creatures. She took tighter hold of him.
"Don't go," she said.
"No way," he murmured, "I'm here, baby, I'm here."
"They're going to take you."
"No they're not. I won't let them." He pulled out of her, almost all the way, then slid back up into her, slowly, slowly, as though they had all the time in the world. "We're staying together till we're done," he said.
He'd no sooner spoken than his rescuers laid their hands on him. was she perhaps invisible to all but the man who had brought her here? It seemed so, for they made no attempt to detach her arms from around his body. they simply tugged on him; as though it was the weeds he'd fallen prey to.
Joe had no choice but to unhand Phoebe in order to beat them off. But the moment he did so, they claimed him. He was hauled up through her arms, a shocking burst of blood coming from his groin as he was detached from her. For a moment she lost sight of him in the stained water. All she could do was cry out to him, mind to mind.
"Joe! Joe!"
He answered her, but all the strength had gone from his voice.
"No... " he moaned, "I don't want... don't want to...
She started to flail blindly, hoping to catch hold of his leg or ankle, and keep him from being taken, but the weeds resisted her motion, and by the time the water cleared enough for her to see his body, it was beyond her grasp.
"Can you hear me, Joe?" she sobbed.
The sound she heard in her head was not words, not even moans, but a hiss, like gas escaping a slit pipe.
"Oh God, Joe," she said, and began to struggle against the weeds afresh, desperate to rise and be with him. But their desire for her, which had been so arousing a couple of minutes before, had become nightmarish.
they pressed at her orifices with the same insistence as ever, the pods swaying in her mouth and depositing a bitter fluid down her throat.
She started to shudder from head to foot, her whole body spasming. There were other sounds coming from somewhere: distant voices, children's laughter. was it from the ship?
No. Not the ship. The world. It was coming from the world. It was morning, Festival morning, and folks were already up to meet the day.
"Don't panic," she told herself, and gave up thrashing in the weeds for a few moments, to regain control of her body. The spasms lessened. The sounds withdrew a little way. Very slowly, she looked for Joe. He and his rescuers had broken surface, she saw. Others were leaning over the side of the vessel to haul him out of the water. It didn't take her long to realize why he hadn't replied to her. He was a dead-weight, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
A shudder of horror shook her.
"Not dead," she murmured. "Oh God, please; please, not dead."
Blood was running from between his legs, a spreading pool staining the surface.
"Joe," she said. "I don't know if you can hear me... She listened, hoping for a reply, but none came. "I want you to know I'm going to come and find you. I know you told me not to, but I am. I'm going to find you and we're going to-"
She stopped, puzzled to see one of the creatures leaning over the side of the vessel, gesturing to Joe's rescuers. The mystery was solved a moment later. Without ceremony, they released the body, returning it to the elements they'd claimed it from. "No!" she yelled, seeing her worst fears confirmed. "No, please, no-"
There was no controlling the spasms this time. they convulsed her body from scalp to sole. And as they came, so did the day she had shunned, laughter, light, and all. She felt the lumpy mattress beneath her back; smelled the staleness of the room. Even now, she fought to keep wakefulness at bay. If she could only catch hold of Joe's body-stop him from tumbling away down into the darkness-perhaps she could work some miracle upon him. Put her last dreaming breath into him, and keep him from oblivion.
She started to reach up towards his sinking form-the day was upon her; she had seconds at best-and her fingers caught hold of his trouser leg. She pulled him closer. His mouth was open and his eyes closed. He looked deader than Morton had looked. "Don't, love," she said to him, meaning don't give up, don't die, don't leave me.
She let go of his trousers and took hold of his face, cupping it in her hands and drawing his mouth to hers. He came with horrible ease, but she refused to be discouraged. She laid her lips on his, and said his name, like a summons.
"Joe.
There was light in her eyes. She could not resist it any longer.
"Joe."
Her eyes opened. And as they did so, in the last moment before the sea and the weeds and her lover disappeared, she saw, or imagined she saw, his lids flicker, as though her summons had stirred some sliver of life in him.
Then she was awake, and there was no way of knowing.
She squinted up at the beam of sunlight slipping between the crack in the drapes. The sheets were as tangled around her as the weeds where she'd almost let her body go to joy; the pillow was damp with her sweat. She had dreamed all that she'd just experienced, but she knew without question this was no ordinary dream. While her body had tussled and sweated here, her spirit had been in another place, a place as real as the bed on which she lay.