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Her legs, incredibly muscular, were working their way up his arms, towards his neck. She was groaning, whispering his name amidst other words that had no meaning to him.
    Her buttocks slid across the couch, bringing her back up against the arm of the sofa, pushing her to a half-raised position. Both the crook of her arm and the spots on her back were within range of him. As her toes tickled his earlobes, Sikes wet the tips of his fingers for heightened sensation, and rubbed one hand into the inside of her elbow while, at the same time, stroking her spots with the other.
    Cathy shrieked.
    So did Sikes, although not for the same reason.
    For Cathy, it was because every nerve ending in her body was erupting simultaneously.
    For Sikes, it was because Cathy’s legs had clamped around his neck with the power and pressure of a vise. His head snapped forward and to the side, and something inside wrenched.
    His shriek was truncated, however, as Cathy, writhing in spasms of delight, twisted at her waist. Like a wrestler, she sent Sikes hurtling off the couch and crashing into the floor.
    Sikes, moaning, tried to get up to his knees, which was his latest, and last, mistake. Cathy, still in the throes of passion, snapped a foot around and tagged Sikes solidly in the jaw.
    Police brutality flashed through his mind as he fell backwards. He lay there in the darkness, stiff and unmoving—partly because he was unable to move, but mostly because he was afraid to.
    He moaned in quiet pain as Cathy’s far louder and enthusiastic whimperings trailed off. It took about five minutes.
    Then, from what seemed a very great distance, he heard her say, “Maaatt?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Matt, are you . . .” And then she realized where he was speaking from, and also recognized the agony in his voice. He heard her sit up. “My God . . . you’re hurt.”
    “I’m fine. Just . . . gotta stand up.”
    The lamp quickly snapped on and there was Cathy, kneeling on the couch, having just lit the lamp. Her dress was in complete disarray. Under ordinary circumstances, Matt would have considered it singularly attractive. Instead, at the moment his main concern was trying to restore feeling to the rest of his body.
    “Oh, Matt, I—”
    “S’okay. Really.” He smiled through gritted teeth as he pulled himself to sitting. He tried to keep his upper body turned away from her, because he had a feeling that there was going to be a beauty of a bruise coming in fairly shortly. Also, he realized very quickly that he couldn’t turn his head. “I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”
    “Matt, let me—”
    “No!” he shouted. “I think I . . . maybe it’d be better if I . . .”
    “Matt, please, I’m a doctor.”
    “Bill me, then.” He stood on uncertain legs, trying not to stagger. He didn’t succeed. He lurched toward the door as if he were on the deck of a ship.
    “Ohhhh, Matt.” Cathy sighed mournfully. “Please . . . I know we can be good together. If we could just . . .”
    “Cathy, I hear my mother calling. Okay?”
    And with that, he was out the door, leaving a perplexed Cathy sitting on the couch. She pulled her dress back into place around herself and frowned.
    “His mother?”

C H A P T E R    3
    L ITTLE T ENCTON WAS a ghetto, of course. All the cute names in the world couldn’t hide that simple fact.
    It was a section of Los Angeles that had been taken over by the Newcomers. All it had taken was some government subsidized housing, moving in a few thousand Newcomers into apartment complexes that most humans didn’t want to go near. And presto: instant plummeting real estate values. Humans had taken off from the area so fast that they’d left skid marks.
    Undaunted, the Newcomers had displayed that incredible capability for work, learning, and initiative that would become their hallmark and, in time, would also become the thing that humans resented the most. Some found human backers. There were landlords, stuck with property