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There is instant euphoria. It floods your body. It travels up your spine and down your arms and makes your fingers tingle.

But there is also something else.

You know this woman now. You know her in your bones.

The euphoria is like a curtain, hiding a host of other sensations and feelings behind it. There is pain, too; your stomach feels overfull, distended. But even the pain itself conceals something else. As the food makes its way down your throat and your tingling fingers stuff another bite into your mouth, you can feel your mind, Sendra's mind, peeling back the curtain of pain to reveal the numbness behind, and then, when you think there's nothing more to see, nothing more to feel, the numbness is peeled away too, and behind it…

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