Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon

case.
    “I don’t think I ever noticed your hands before,” he said.
    “Please do,” she twinkled. “I love the things you say, Ar-mand,” and she put her hands in his. They were long, strong hands with square palms and tapered fingers and what certainly must be the smoothest skin in the world.
    The drinks came. He let go reluctantly and they both leaned back, looking at each other. She said, “Glad we waited?”
    “Oh, yes. Hm. Yes indeed.” Suddenly, waiting was intolerable. Almost inadvertently he snatched up his drink and drained it.
    The guitarist fluffed a note. She looked pained. Armand said, “It’s not too nice here tonight, is it?”
    Her eyes glistened. “You know a better place?” she asked softly.
    His heart rose up and thumped the lower side of his Adam’s apple. “I certainly do,” he said when he could.
    She inclined her head with an extraordinary, controlled acquiescence that was almost like a deep pain to him. He threw a bill on the table, put her cloak over her shoulders, and led her out.
    In the cab he lunged for her almost before the machine was away from the curb. She hardly seemed to move at all, but her body twisted away from him inside the cloak; he found himself with a double handful of cloth while Kay’s profile smiled slightly, shaking its head. It was unspoken, but it was a flat “no.” It was also a credit to the low frictional index of ciré satin.
    “I never knew you were like this,” he said.
    “Like what?”
    “You weren’t this way last night,” he floundered.
    “What way, Ar-mand?” she teased.
    “You weren’t so—I mean, you didn’t seem to be sure of yourself at all.”
    She looked at him. “I wasn’t—ready.”
    “Oh, I see,” he lied.
    Conversation lapsed after that, until he paid off the cab at the street intersection near his hideout. He was beginning to feel that the situation was out of his control. If she controlled it, however, as she had so far, he was more than willing to go along.
    Walking down the dirty, narrow street, he said, “Don’t look at any of this, Kay. It’s quite different upstairs.”
    “It’s all the same, when I’m with you,” she said, stepping over some garbage. He was very pleased.
    They climbed the stairs, and he flung open the door with a wide gesture. “Enter, fair lady, the land of the lotus-eaters.”
    She pirouetted in and cooed over the drapes, the lamps, the pictures. He closed the door and shot the bolt, dropped his hat on the couch and stalked toward her. He was about to put his arms around her from behind when she darted away. “What a way to begin!” she sang. “Putting your hat there. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to put a hat on a bed?”
    “This is my lucky day,” he pronounced.
    “Mine too,” she said. “So let’s not spoil it. Let’s pretend we’ve been here forever, and we’ll be here forever.”
    He smiled. “I like that.”
    “I’m glad. That way,” she said, stepping away from a corner as he approached, “there’s no hurry. Could we have a drink?”
    “You may have the moon,” he chanted. He opened the kitchenette. “What would you like?”
    “Oh, how wonderful. Let me, let me. You go into the other room and sit down, Mister Man. This is woman’s work.” She shunted him out, and began to mix, busily.
    Armand lounged back on the couch with his feet on the rock-maple coffee table, and listened to the pleasant clinking and swizzling noises from the other room. He wondered idly if he could get her to bring his slippers every evening.
    She glided in, balancing two tall highballs on a small tray. She kept one hand behind her back as she knelt and put the tray down on the coffee table and slipped into an easy-chair.
    “What are you hiding?” he asked.
    “It’s a secret.”
    “Come over here.”
    “Let’s talk a little while first. Please.”
    “A little while.” He sniggered. “It’s your fault, Kay. You’re so beautiful. Hm. You make me feel mad—impetuous.” He