into my navel, then sliding lower. "And you missed me, too," he purred with masculine satisfaction, the tip of his middle finger rimming my cleft. "You're swollen and wet for me." He pulled my legs over his shoulders and licked between my folds, soft and provocative laps of hot velvet against my sensitive flesh. My hands fisted in the sheet, my chest heaving as he circled my clit with the tip of his tongue, then nudged the hypersensitive knot of nerves. I keened, my hips moving restlessly into the devious torment, my muscles tightening with the clawing need to come. The light, teasing flutters were driving me insane, giving me just enough to make me writhe but not enough to get me off. "Gideon, please." "Not yet." He tortured me, coaxing my body to the brink of orgasm, and then letting me slide back down. Over and over. Until sweat misted my skin and my heart felt like it would burst
That's why I picked this place to meet you. It's perfect, isn't it?" I ignored him, scrambling on my hands and knees, crawling toward the other door. He was over me at once, his foot stepping down hard on my leg. I heard the sickening snap before I felt it. But then I did feel it, and I couldn't hold back my scream of agony. I twisted up to reach for my leg, and he was standing over me, smiling. "Would you like to rethink your last request?" he asked pleasantly. His toe nudged my broken leg and I heard a piercing scream. With a shock, I realized it was mine. "Wouldn't you rather have Edward try to find me?" he prompted. "No!" I croaked. "No, Edward, don't--" And then something smashed into my face, throwing me back into the broken mirrors. Over the pain of my leg, I felt the sharp rip across my scalp where the glass cut into it. And then the warm wetness began to spread through my hair with alarming speed. I could feel it soaking the shoulder
receiving and accepting a Call. (Often several stages of the journey may be combined in a single scene. Folklorists call this "conflation.") Refusal may be a single step near the beginning of the journey, or it may be encountered at every step of the way, depending on the nature of the hero. Refusal of the Call can be an opportunity to redirect the focus o f the adventure. An adventure taken on a lark or to escape some unpleasant consequence may be nudged into a deeper adventure of the spirit. A hero hesitates at the threshold to experience the fear, to let the audience know the formidability of the challenges ahead. But eventually fear is overcome or set aside, often with the help of wise, protective forces or magical gifts, representing the energy of the next stage, Meeting with the Mentor. 113 T H E W R I T E R ' S JOURNEY ~ T H I R D EDITION
station on an upper floor of the Hamburg post office. It examined suspected letters on an assembly-line basis by ingeniously exploiting some principles of physics to make the invisible ink glow. It first exposed the paper to ultraviolet light. This pumped energy into chemicals of the ink, boosting their electrons out of their normal orbits into higher ones. The chemical was then in a metastable state. The heat from a source of infrared then nudged the electrons from their higher orbits back into their regular ones. As they did so, the substance would give up, in the form of visible light, the energy that it had absorbed from the ultraviolet. Since this phenomenon will occur for nearly all substances, even common salt, though some will "naturally shine more brightly than others, the Germans had a system that would develop a good many inks. The chief difficulty with secret inks was their inability to handle the
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