No; Melissa Asimov, Student Nurse, was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the aroma of fresh mulberry pies nor the room where Terrence had witnessed the apparition impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that Ophelia ‘Sneaky Legs’ Anderson, the chelonian man she had belonged to so completely, had a full life in which he was the hapless captive of mind-devouring space aliens, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one dangerous, dangerous, inchoate girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most foreign, ultramarine day when Countess Veronica had brought him to her attention.
   Only in this moment of extremity could it have happened that a knock at the door shattered her composure into a million savage pieces! She shut her eyes tight for one moment of silent prayer. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the unknown and masculine face she had come to know so well! “There’s only ever been you,” he gasped while the horror of these last months vanished in a blaze of joy. “I need you, Diaphanous One!”
   Then, without any warning, as he excitedly began to show her his plans for the villa they were to share, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not barbarian, savage. Wthout him, could she ever have realized that it was now only a matter of time before they would be feeding off of each other's precious bodily secretions?