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Watkins raised his head, and his eyes had a half-dead look, as if they had absorbed death froood is it to have the power of a god if you can’t also experience the simple pleasures of ayou want," Shaddack said exasperatedly

"Not love"

"What?"

"Not love or hate or joy or any e them has freed you"

"You’re not thick headed," Watkins said, "so I guess you don’t understand because you’re psychologically … twisted, warped"

"Youto tell you why they all choose a subhuman for creature of high intellect, there can be no pleasure separate from emotion If you deny men emotions, you deny them pleasure, so they seek an altered state in which complex emotions and pleasure aren’t linked--the life of an unthinking beast"

"Nonsense You are--"

Watkins interrupted hiain, sharply "Listen to me, for God’s sake! If I remember, even Moreau listened to his creatures"

His face was flushed now instead of pale His eyes no longer looked half dead; a certain wildness had returned to them He was only a step or two froh he was the shorter of the two He looked scared, badly scared--and dangerous

He said, "Consider sex--a basic hu, it has to be accoically daood if it’s linked to hate or pride of doative emotions can make the act pleasurable for a twisted man But done with no e impulse of an animal, just the rhyth burned the night and blazed briefly on the bedroom s, followed by a crash of thunder that seemed to shake the house That celestial flicker was, for an instant, brighter than the soft glow of the single bedrooht he saw so happen to Loman Watkins’s face … a shift in the relationship of the features But when the lightning passed, Watkins looked quite like hiination

Continuing to speak with great force, with the passion of stark fear, Watkins said, "It’s not just sex, either The sa, for example Yeah, I still taste a piece of chocolate when I eat it But the taste gives me only a tiny fraction of the satisfaction that it did before I was converted Haven’t you noticed?"

Shaddack did not reply, and he hoped that nothing in his deone conversion hi until the process had been enerations of the New People But he suspected Watkins would not react well to the discovery that theirthat he had bestowed on them

Watkins said, "And do you knohy there’s less satisfaction? Before conversion, e ate chocolate, the taste had thousands of associations for us When we ate it, we subconsciously remembered the first time we ate it and all the times in between, and subconsciously we remembered how often that taste was associated with holidays and celebrations of all kinds, and because of all that the taste ood But nohen I eat chocolate, it’s just a taste, a good taste, but it doesn’t ood anyas ’feeling good’ was part of it once, but not now The taste of chocolate doesn’t generate emotional echoes any more It’s an empty sensation, its richness has been stolen fro but fear has been stolen froray, drab--as if I’ed His cheekbone enlarged That ear began to change shape and draard a point

Stunned, Shaddack backed away fro with a slight slur but with no less force, not with real anger but with fear and an unsettling touch of savagery "Why the hell would any of us want to evolve to soher form with even fewer pleasures of the body and the heart? Intellectual pleasures aren’t enough, Shaddack Life is more than that A life that’s only intellectual isn’t tolerable"

As Watkins’s brow gradually sloped backward, slowlyaway like a wall of snow in the sun, heavier accretions of bone began to build up around his eyes

Shaddack backed into the dresser

Still approaching, Watkins said, "Jesus! Don’t you see yet? Even a man confined to a hospital bed, paralyzed from the neck down, has more in his life than intellectual interests; no one’s stolen his emotions from him; no one’s reduced him to fear and pure intellect We need pleasure, Shaddack, pleasure, pleasure Life without it is terrifying Pleasure "

"Stop"

"You’ve made it impossible for us to experience the pleasurable release of emotion, so we can’t fully experience pleasures of the flesh, either, because we’re creatures of a high order and need the emotional aspect to truly enjoy physical pleasure It’s both or neither in hus"

Watkins’s hands, fisted at his sides, were becoer, with swollen knuckles and tobacco-brown, pointed nails

"You’re transfor e subtly, Watkins said, "So we revert to a savage, altered state We retreat from our intellect In the cloak of the beast, our only pleasure is the pleasure of the flesh, the flesh, flesh … but at least we’re no longer aware of e’ve lost, so the pleasure remains intense, so intense, deep and sweet, sweet, so sweet You’ve ray and dead, dead, all dead, dead… so we have to devolve in mind and in body … to find a hile existence We … we have to flee … from the horrible restrictions of this narrowed life … this very narrowed life you’ve given us Men aren’t ressing For God’s sake, Loman!"

Watkins halted and seemed disoriented Then he shook his head, as if to cast off his confusion as he ht a veil He raised his hands, looked at thelanced past Shaddack, at the dresser rew louder, shriller

Abruptly Shaddack was acutely aware of the stench of blood, to which he had somewhat accustoh not repulsed, no, not in the least repulsed, but excited

Lightning flashed and thunder shook the night again, and rain suddenly ca on the roof

Watkins looked from the mirror to Shaddack, raised a hand as if to strike hiered out of the room, into the hall, away from the ripe stink of blood Out there he dropped to his knees, then onto his side He curled into a ball, shaking violently, gagging, whi, "No, no, no, no"

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When he pulled back from the brink and felt in control of hiainst the wall He ith perspiration again, and shaky with hunger The partial transfor all the way had left him drained He was relieved but also felt unfulfilled, as if soreat prize had been within his reach but then had been snatched away just as he had touched it

A hollow, soht it was an internal noise, all in his head, perhaps the soft boo froe Then he realized it was rain haalow

When he opened his eyes, his vision was blurred It cleared, and he was staring at Shaddack, who stood on the other side of the hall, just beyond the open bedrooh to pass for an albino, with those yellowish eyes, in his dark topcoat, the man looked like a visitation, perhaps Death hiht well have stood up and warth to get up, he said, "No ot to stop the conversions"

Shaddack said nothing