It was part of being alive, like tears and hunger; and given that her being was connected with everything else with the water and the weeds and the men on the boat abovewhat fight did she have to prevent pleasure radiating from her, giving itself freely?

With a great democracy of bliss founded in her head, she looked down at Joe through the swaying veil of stems that were caressing her face. Oh, but he was beautiful. The flesh of him, the bone of him; the bruise and blood of him He seemed to sense her scrutiny, and cast his gaze'up towards her. She smiled down upon him, feeling at that moment like some sea goddess in her temple while he, her worshipper, rose up from the darkness to eat and drink from her.

The stems had caught hold of him as they had her, she saw. they were wrapped around his limbs, and pressed against his back and buttocks with the same shamelessness as they pressed against her. She no longer sa I w any reason to ke@p them out. She relaxed her body and on the instant they floated into her, down her throat, up into her bowels, even pressing between her labia and Joe's lips to come into her by that route.

The surge of sensations almost undid her, literally. For a moment her body seemed to lose its coherence, shredding itself in pleasured layers, opening at every pore and letting the waters and all they contained rush into her, dissolving her dreamed bones.

Oh, but it was wonderful. Her parameters spread to contain all that swayed and surged around her. She was present in the waters, and in the stems and in the pods; she was rising towards the boat, she was plunging towards the darkness. She was embracing Joe as she never embraced him before, her consciousness surrounding him from all sides. She nuzzled at his ass in the form of pods, eager to enter him as she was entered; she bound his legs and arms, round and round, so tight she could feel the throb of his veins; she flowed across his back and against his chest, and against his groin too, where the water was murky with blood. He was plainly wounded, but not so badly that he couldn't be aroused. She could see and feel his rod, hard in his pants, wanting liberty.

If not for the memory of their previous couplings-the particulars of which would never leave her-she might have let her body dissolve completely. But the promise of having that intimacy again, even if it was just one more time, kept her from embracing dissolution.

Tomorrow maybe, or the day after, she'd let Phoebe go, and be unmade into everything. But before that happenedbefore her body slipped from her and went into the worldshe wanted to enjoy its particulars a little longer; wanted to take pleasure in knitting her substance with Joe's.

She pulled her arms free of the strands and reached down to take hold of his head. Again, he looked at her, but now his expression was so distracted she wasn't even certain he saw her. Then a smile appeared in his eyes and loosing himself from the eager weeds he climbed her body until they were face to face, mouth to mouth.

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?