Standing in the Shadows

Начало книги

The windowless room was dark. The only light came from banks of machines that flickered, and made soft, intermittent beeping sounds.

The door opened. A woman entered the room and flipped on a lamp. The light revealed a man who lay upon a narrow mattress made of high-tech black latex foam. His sallow, wasted body bristled with hair-fine needles attached to wires, which fed into the machines behind him.

The woman shut and locked the door behind herself. She was middle-aged, dressed in a white lab coat, with steel-gray hair and an imposing jaw. Her thin lips were painted a bright, cruel red.

She removed the needles from his body with movements both brisk and delicate. She anointed her hands with oil, breathed deeply, and performed preparatory energetic exercises to stimulate the power and heat in her large, thick-fingered hands. She then proceeded to massage him expertly, front and back, from his feet to his balding scalp. She massaged his face, her brow a scowling mask, fearsomely intent.

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