Periphery by Lynne Jamneck

packed of wet-wipes and after what she’d just said I was vain enough to wash my face and try and do something with my burnt hair, as well as mopping up the blood. I missed our arrival. I was trying to disentangle myself from the killer’s thoughts as they tranq’d him for shipping to the penal army on the outer rim. Murderer’s redemption plan. More freedom through service. I had no idea who they were fighting. It’s the only thing mankind’s really good at.
    “Come on. This goes straight into the apartment. I can have my personal physician see to your arm, fit a new teleprinter.”
    So that was her excuse. I followed her inside. Camera’s tracked my every move. She waved away security, moving us past checkpoints into the huge room upstairs. Without her influence it was nothing more than a bedroom with floor to ceiling windows that the night sky pressed against hungrily. I froze, unable to take another step. She did something that made the walls fill in, leaving us in comforting twilight. She tugged on my hand and this time I went.
    The couch had been replaced by an enormous satin covered bed. I didn’t care if it was an illusion. She sat beside me, fingers tender as she stroked the raw skin of my wrist, then further. Hand on my fly, she dared to look up for my approval. It wasn’t me she saw, but if it meant she’d let me touch her, I’d happily be her proxy.
    She peeled me out of the jacket then pushed me down, straddling me. For the first time she showed me her true face. I watched it age backwards to her twenties, when the man in her memories was the only one she dreamed of. I stepped into those images and made them mine, superimposed his face over my own.
    “Am I moving too fast for you?”
    
    “Then show me what you can really do. Or do you need soap for that?”
    
    I don’t know if she realized what she was giving to me. Somewhere along the line, whether saving her from death or watching me have my bones broken, she’d decided to trust me. They always do. Her mind and her body both said yes.
    My fingers brushed her breasts through the dress she wore. Her nipples jumped to attention. Good enough, but I needed skin. Thoughts sank into material. Cotton. Organic fiber, no different than flesh. A twitch destabilized the molecules. Her garments disintegrated to fine powder. The psi-wind I generated blew it away. Only the under-wires of her bra were immune to suggestion. Fascinated, she picked them up, examining them for a moment. Then she dropped them as desire gripped her.
    I flipped her beneath me. On my knees, I stroked the curved underside of her breasts and drew my knuckles down the sides of her ribcage. I traced the soft skin on the inside of her thighs with the backs of my hands and inhaled as I rubbed my cheek against her mons. I stroked her collarbone, kissed a breast, rubbed her hard clit, setting up echoes that sped across her skin. My mind magnified sensations and fed them back to her until she writhed. She drew my hand to her lips. Licked every inch.
    “Inside me,” she urged. Who was I to resist?
    She was so wet that four fingers slipped in without effort. Lifting her hips onto my right leg, stroking her G spot, I eased my entire hand inside her. I looked down the length of her body, flexing my fingers, loving what I saw.
     I told her and meant it.
    I worked my right hand in and up. Her clit jumped when I brushed it, standing to attention. I knew it was what she needed then, in exactly that way. Inside her head as well as inside her body.
    Her muscles contracted round my wrist. I drew her right leg over my left shoulder to give me a better angle. Her inner walls clenched, sucking me further in, while I flicked her hard bud.
    When she came I was with her. She never needed to lay a hand on me. The hand I’d broken to save her life gave her pleasure which in turn gave it back to me. And at that moment I felt a part of me