📔 Beds in the East

The mere sensuous impact of trumpet or saxophone, whatever it happened to be playing, was an echo, even though a faint echo, of that excitement and abandon. He wanted to taste, smell, hear: his senses were terribly alive.

Sullenly they paid what was asked, sullenly left, Hamzah feigning a kick at the glass showcase filled with loaves and Chinese cakes.

Occasionally she gasped out "Joe!" — a flat animal cry that her slack vocal cords made unfemininely deep, that her nasopharynx, choked with mucus, robbed of all resonance.

"Oh, yes. He talks a lot about phonemes and semantemes and bilabial fricatives. He has a van with recording apparatus in it. He's a good chap."

"Tambi will be here in..." He computed carefully. "... in exactly twenty seconds." And, lo, Tambi appeared at that very moment.

The four boys pumped up their hate to hissing steam. Harmless, quotha. Innocent, forsooth.