CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Gertrude in this dream looks younger. She’s sitting on a couch with a handsome blond guy, who’s sipping from a bottle of beer as she gazes longingly at his lips.
He offers her the bottle. “Want some?”
She recoils as if it were poison. “I need to be in absolute control of my faculties to suppress my power.”
His grin is cocky. “All so I can touch you, right?”
She takes the bottle from his hand, puts it on the table, and kisses him. As they proceed to make out, I realize two things: this is a memory, as most trauma loops are, and the guy isn’t rotting despite his contact with her. I guess gangrene-givers can turn off their powers. It makes sense. If they couldn’t, how would they reproduce?
Speaking of reproduction, the guy fishes out a condom from his pocket, and
