Maybe it's Crichton's sheer talent for innuendo, or maybe it's all this zig-zagging between anxiety and pleasure, but Arthur is rendered incapable of reply. Instead he whimpers involuntarily as he's grasped by Crichton's hand; and when it's followed by his mouth, warm and living and wet, Arthur starts up a quiet o-o-oh my god, oh my god, prayed directly into his own palm.

His knees bend further, hips twitching up despite his efforts. And yet the rest of him feels frozen, ignoring his commands entirely, as if it's paralysed itself in sleep and left him wide awake and helpless. At the back of his mind, crawling forwards, are thoughts of his soft belly and chest and throat, pinned and pointed to the ceiling like a frog asking to be dissected. How little fight he could put up, lying here.

But he makes a fist, and attempts to drag those thoughts back into the dark, and to focus only on the much nicer things happening around his lower half.