Автокатастрофа

As she stepped naked across the floor of the bathroom, pushing past me with a look of nervous distraction; as she masturbated in the bed beside me in the mornings, <…>; <…> as she walked with me to my car, fingers playing amiably across my left shoulder – all these acts and emotions were ciphers searching for their meaning among the hard, chromium furniture of our minds.

I visualized <…>, injured in a succession of accidents, fitted with orifices of ever greater abstraction and ingenuity, so that my incest with her might become more and more cerebral, allowing me at last to come to terms with her embraces

the extraordinary sexual acts celebrating the possibilities of unimagined technologies.

During the next few days my orgasms took place within the scars <…>, in the wounds on her neck and shoulder,

The exposed portions of her body were joined together by the loosened braces and straps.

For some reason I had expected it to be a detachable latex structure, fitted on each morning along with her spinal brace and leg supports, and I felt vaguely disappointed that it should be made of her own flesh.

the shape and tenderness of her nipple seemed to rape my fingers.

She gazed back at me through the windshield, playing with the chromium clutch treadle as if hoping that something obscene might happen.

‘Walk with Gabrielle, Ballard,’ Vaughan urged me. ‘Hold her arm. She’d like you to.’

Pivoting about on her heels, Gabrielle seemed to take immense pleasure from these immaculate vehicles, placing her scarred hands on their paintwork, rolling her injured hips against them like an unpleasant cat. She provoked a young salesman on the Mercedes stand to ask her to inspect a white sports car, relishing his embarrassment when he helped her shackled legs into the front seat. Vaughan whistled in admiration at this.