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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: She was beautiful and mysterious--and she never forgot. It took Elliot a long time to realize what that meant.

eBook Publisher: Rosetta Solutions, Inc., Published: 1994
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2001

18 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [75 KB], eReader (PDB) [39 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [13 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [13 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [87 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [84 KB], hiebook (KML) [71 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [76 KB], iSilo (PDB) [11 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [15 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [61 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [22 KB]
Words: 4100
Reading time: 11-16 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

It was raining outside, and the hostel very sensibly lacked a television; the dishes done, we all retired to the common room. Gwen has always loved meeting new people, and travelling as we were, we met new people every night and left them behind us each day: the sort of strangers with whom you might share sex, but never your toothbrush (okay, so I'm a cynic). Tonight, there was the inevitable pair of Germans; a New Zealander, furry and clumsy as a koala bear and about as ineffectual; an amiable Australian giant named Danny; Elliot, a mathematician from the Other Place (at last, someone I knew, thank God)... and Jacqueline.

Jacqueline was the most exquisite creation I can remember seeing outside an art gallery, as fine as cut crystal, and with a voice to match--clear, hard, and without any colour that it hadn't stolen. You could not not watch her, and watching her, you could not help but imagine the body inside those carefully-worn sloppy clothes and the lily-gilding make-up, could not help but follow the lines and curves that converged between her thighs, could not help but be drawn deeper and deeper inside her ... but never beyond the skin. Any deeper than that, of course, and you would encounter the soul of a ninja. Rather than look at Gwen, and risk comparing her to Jacqueline, I tried to distract myself by watching the chess game. Elliot had brought a set, of course--not his replica Lewis Chessmen, which I had murderously coveted since our first meeting, but a small board with a built-in computer. We watched him demolish the New Zealander in six moves, as though taking an hors d'oeuvre... well, most of us watched. Danny was lost somewhere between the headphones of his walkman, and Jacqueline was ostentatiously reading, a paperback cover-down across her thighs. Elliot accepted a challenge from Gwen; she opened with the Queen's gambit, and survived for seventeen moves.