The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

pleasure—as if nothing else might exist. Such a thing is impossible. It is dangerous.”
    “Why is that?” asked the Comte.
    “Because nothing would get done! Because—because—there is no border between the world and one’s body, one’s mind—it would be unbearable!”
    “I should have thought it delicious,” whispered the Contessa.
    “Not for me!” cried Miss Temple.
    With a swift rush of fabric the Contessa shifted across the coach next to Miss Temple, her lips pressed close to the young woman’s ear.
    “Are you sure? For I have seen you, Celeste … I have seen you through the mirror, and I have seen you bent over the book … and do you know?”
    “Do I know what?”
    “That when you were in my room … kneeling over so sweetly … I could
smell
you …”
    Miss Temple whimpered but did not know what she could do.
    “Think of the book, Celeste,” hissed the Contessa. “You remember what you saw! What you did, what was done to you—what you
became
!—through what exquisite realms you traveled!”
    At these words Miss Temple felt a burning in her blood—what was happening to her? She sensed her memories of the book like a stranger’s footprints in her mind. They were everywhere! She did not want them! But why could she not thrust them aside?
    “You are wrong!” Miss Temple shouted. “It is not the same!”
    “Neither are you,” snarled the Comte d’Orkancz. “You’ve already taken the first step in your
process
of transformation!”
    The coach had become too warm. The Contessa’s hand found Miss Temple’s leg and then quickly vanished beneath her dress, the knowing fingers climbing up her inner thigh. Miss Temple gasped. These were not the blunt, stabbing, rude fingers of Spragg but—if still invasive—playful, teasing, and insistent. No one had ever touched her this way, in that place. She could not think.
    “No—no—” she began.
    “What did you see in the book?” The Comte pressed at her with his insistent, terrifying rasp. “Do you know the taste of death and power? Do you know what lovers feel in their blood? You do! You know all of it and more! It has taken root in your being! You feel it as I speak! Will you ever be able to turn away from what you’ve seen? Will you ever be able to reject these pleasures, having tasted their full intoxicating potency?”
    The Contessa’s fingers pushed through the slit of her silken pants and slid across her liquid flesh with a practiced skill. Miss Temple shrank from her touch, but the coach seat was so small and the sensation so delicious.
    “I don’t think you will, Celeste,” whispered the Contessa. She softly nuzzled the tips of two fingers, then wetly slipped them deeper while rubbing gently above them with her thumb. MissTemple did not know what she was supposed to do, what she was fighting against save the imposition of their will upon her—but she did not want to fight, the pleasure building in her body was heavenly, and yet she also longed to hurl herself away from their openly predatory usage. What did her pleasure matter to them? It was but a goad, a tool, an endless source of thralldom and control. The Contessa’s fingers worked slickly back and forth. Miss Temple groaned.
    “Your mind is set on fire!” hissed the Comte. “You cannot evade your
mind
—we hold you, you must give in—your body will betray you, your heart will betray you—you are already abandoned, utterly given over—your new memories are rising—surrounding you completely—your life—your
self
—has changed—your once-pure soul has been stained by my glass book’s
usage
!”
    As he spoke she felt them, doors opening across her spinning mind directly into her fevered body—the masked ball in Venice, the two men through the spy hole, the artist’s model on the divan, the heavenly seraglio, and then so many, many more—Miss Temple was panting, the Contessa’s fingers deftly plying her most intimate parts, the woman’s lips against her ear, encouraging her pleasure with little mocking moans that nevertheless—the very provocative sound of that woman even counterfeiting ecstasy—served as a concrete spur to further delight … Miss Temple felt the sweetness gathering in her body, a warm cloud ready to burst … but then she shut her eyes and saw herself, in the coach between her enemies, beset, and then Chang dead, his pale face streaked with blood, the Doctor running and in tears, and finally, as if it were the answer she’d