XVIII. THE MIRROR Who are those lovers in the mirror? What do we know of them? They glow like phosphorus in nakedness, in the amber light. His hands are everywhere upon her, she gently leans back into him, looks at him by looking straight into the mirror. They are not dancing figures, they are lovers wandering the roadways and alleyways of dark pleasure, transforming desire into light as they go. The bedroom mirror is stationary, and they are forever changing. Who are they, how have they come to be here, and how do they choose these ways to define their pleasure? It is a game; they discover one another again and again within the frame of the mirror, find themselves sweetly locked and studied there, and still they cannot turn their eyes away. Slowly she spreads her legs wide open and they look and look at everything he touches; he feels her shudder sweetly, sweetly climb to the next station. And now her hair is golden in the light as she pleasures him, and he watches her in the flesh, in the mirror, knowing she knows the pleasure he is finding in the double glance and finds her pleasure there. Who are those lovers in the mirror? How are they unlike us? What do they carry in their hearts? They look like us, in their thin silvered unreality are perhaps more beautiful. But he can never touch her with a warm hand the way I touch you, and she may mouth the words "I want you" but she feels nothing as he enters her.