He arches up with a sharp gasp, moaning and digging his fingers into the blankets on the bed. What a rush, he thinks, dizzily -- vitality streaming into him, reviving all that was just exhausted, and changing the presence of the spheres inside him from one of vague pain to one that's intensely erotic again.

"If I'm unconscious," he says, "or half-conscious," and he shivers in delicious pleasure, "consider yourself as having permission."

And that's dangerous. Extraordinarily. But he likes the idea of Ba'al manipulating him, using him even then. Passing in and out of consciousness with Ba'al inside him.

"What?" Cranes his neck. "Oh," a shake of his head, "it's not, it's really not sexy to talk about my mother caning me. Could we do that another time?"