what you want to see first," he said softly in Arabic, pulling his shirt over his head.
"Yes, show me all of it," she answered in the same language.
There was the body she knew so well. Her eyes took in his abdomen, his chest. Traveling up, they met his eyes-his altered right eye with its new retina. Martin Lindros's face, complete with Lindros's right retina. It was she who had provided the photos and retinal scans that had made the transformation possible. Now she studied the face in a way she hadn't been able to at work on those two occasions when he'd passed by her on his way in and out of the Old Man's office. Then they had acknowledged each other with a brief nod, exchanging hellos, as she would have done with the real Martin Lindros.
She marveled. The face was perfect-Dr. Andursky had done a magnificent job. The transformation was everything he'd promised, and then some.
He put his hands up to his face, laughing softly as he touched the bruises, abrasions, and cuts. He was very pleased with himself. "You see, the 'rough treatment' I received from my 'captors' was calculated to conceal what little remains of the scars Andursky's scalpel made."
"Jamil," she whispered.
His name was Karim al-Jamil ibn Hamid ibn Ashraf al-Wahhib. Karim al-Jamil meant "Karim the beautiful." He allowed Anne to call him Jamil because it gave her so much pleasure. No one else would even think of such a thing, let alone dare to say it.
Without ever taking her eyes off his face, she shrugged off her coat and jacket, unbuttoned her shirt, unzipped her skirt. In the same slow, deliberate manner, she unhooked her bra, rolled down her underpants. She stood in high heels, shimmering stockings, lacy garter belt, her heart thrilling to see his eyes drinking her in.
She stepped out of the soft puddle her clothes made and walked toward him.
"I've missed you," he said.
She came into his arms, fit her bare flesh against him, moaned low in her throat as her breasts flattened against his chest. She ran the palms of her hands along the largest of his muscles, her fingertips tracing the small hillocks and hollows she had memorized the first night they'd spent together in London. She was a long time at it. He didn't rush her, knowing she was like a blind person assuring herself that she had entered familiar territory.
"Tell me what happened. What did it feel like?"
Karim al-Jamil closed his eyes. "For six weeks it was terribly painful. Dr. Andursky's biggest fear was infection while the grafted skin and muscles healed. No one could see me, except him and his team. They wore rubber gloves, a mask over their mouths and noses. They fed me one antibiotic after another.
"After the retinal replacement, I couldn't open my right eye for many days. A cotton ball was taped over the lowered lid, and then a patch over that. I was immobilized for a day, my movements severely limited for ten days after that. I couldn't sleep, so they had to sedate me. I lost track of time. No matter what they injected into my veins, the pain wouldn't stop. It was like a second heart, beating with mine. My face felt like it was on fire. Behind my right eye was an ice pick I couldn't remove.
"That's what happened. That's what it felt like."
She was already climbing him, as if he were a tree. His hands came down to grasp her buttocks. He backed her against the wall, pressing her against it, her legs wrapped tightly, resting on his hipbones. Fumbling at his belt, he pushed down his pants. He was so hard it hurt. She cried out as he bit her, cried out again as his pelvis tilted, thrust upward.
In the kitchen, Anne, her bare skin pleasantly raised in goose bumps, poured champagne into a pair of crystal flutes. Then she dropped a strawberry into each, watching the drizzle of fizz as they bobbed. The kitchen was on the western side of the building. Its windows looked out onto a courtyard between buildings.
She handed him one of the flutes. "I can still see your mother in the coloring of your skin."
"Allah be praised. Without her English blood I would never have been able to pass for Martin Lindros. His great-grandfather came from a town in Cornwall not eighty kilometers from my mother's family estate."
Anne laughed. "Now, that's irony." It felt as if, so long deprived of the feel