The Culture 9 - The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Author:Iain M. Banks
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Space Opera, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9781405512848
Publisher: Hachette Digital
Published: 2012-10-03T23:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

(S -14)

“Does she touch you … like this?”

“Ah … ah yes, very much like that. Just … like that.”

“And kiss you, like this?”

“… Somewhat like that. Only a little like that.”

“Only a little?”

“She kisses me differently. Oh, this is not … I shouldn’t … I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this. This is so … You are the most terrible man.”

“I know, I know. I hate myself. Am I not just the most terrible, terrible man?”

“You are, I don’t know … Oh, now what?”

“Let me see … does she kiss you like that?”

“No. Again, no, not quite like that.”

“In some other way?”

“In some other way.”

“How many ways are there, to kiss? I … I really have no idea. I am not so well versed as you might … let’s see …”

“… Well, then. Now. She kisses, let me see … more lightly, just as … passionately, but with less, less … less intensity, less muscularity.”

“Muscularity?”

“I think that is the word.”

“And, with the touching, is it like this …?”

“Oh, ah, yes, sometimes, though …”

“Yes?”

“Her hands, her fingers.”

“Like this?”

“No, not … something like … her hands, see, are more slender, the fingers are longer, they are more delicate. Yours are … fuller, more …”

“Filling?”

“Yes. And grasping.”

“Grasping? Grasping? I’m shocked, Virisse! Am I really grasping?”

“Ha, I mean … hungry, given to clutching, gripping, even grabbing.”

“And now grabbing! Good gracious!”

“You grabbed me, don’t you remember? That first time, when we were in the garden of the parliament. That evening? You said you wanted to talk about some long-term aspect of her schedule, do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. Here is more comfortable, though, don’t you think? I swear if we weren’t all departing so shortly I might have to have this bed reinforced, just to cope with our exertions.”

“Her birthday, the following year. You said you wanted to plan something special for her because it would be her sixtieth. Then. That was when you grabbed at me, almost as soon as you had me alone, in that night-shady bower.”

“I grabbed you? Are you sure this was me?”

“Oh, now. Who else? You know this. You did.”

“I thought you wanted to be grabbed.”

“I might have.”

“Just as well I did, then, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think I will say anything, when we are like this, when you hold me like this.”

“Really? I must think up something extremely terrible, then, to exploit that admission.”

“You mustn’t. You can’t. I’m at your mercy; it would be cruel, wrong.”

“To the contrary! It would only be right. You offer me this, I must take it. You lay yourself open; I must in.”

“Ah. Ah … yes. Oh, dear Scribe … But … not anything. Not anything at all. I am not so totally … I am not so … I am not …”

“Not what, Virisse?”

“I can’t remember. I have forgotten what I am not.”

“Well. Better that than forgetting what you are.”

“You steal all I have away, like this, when we lie like this. I feel laid bare, all washed away.”

“Does she do

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