The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

She repeated the same sentence five hours later lying naked beneath him in his bed.
‘That’s never happened to me before,’ he said.
She smiled up at him and stroked his cheek. ‘So there’s nothing wrong with me then?’
‘What?’ he stammered. ‘No.’
She laughed. ‘I think you’re sweet. You’re nice and thoughtful. What happened to these by the
way?’
She pinched his chest.
Mathias felt something black descend. Something nasty and black and wonderful.
‘I was born like that,’ he said.
‘Is it a disease?’
‘It comes with Raynaud’s phenomenon and scleroderma.’
‘What?’
‘A hereditary disease causing connective tissue in the body to thicken.’
‘Is it dangerous?’ She carefully stroked his chest with her fingers.
Mathias smiled and sensed an incipient erection. ‘Raynaud’s phenomenon just means that your toes
and fingers go cold and white. Scleroderma is worse ’
‘Oh?’
‘The thickened connective tissue makes the skin tighten. Everything is smoothed out and wrinkles
disappear.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
He was aware of her hand groping southwards. ‘The tightened skin begins to hinder facial
expressions, you have fewer of them. It’s like your face stiffening into a mask.’
The hot little hand closed around his dick.
‘Your hands and, in time, your arms are bent and you can’t straighten them. In the end you’re left
standing there, quite unable to move, as you’re suffocated by your own skin.’
She whispered breathlessly: ‘Sounds like a gruesome death.’
‘The best advice is to commit suicide before the pain drives you insane. Would you mind lying at
the end of the bed? I’d like to stand and do it.’
‘That’s why you study medicine, isn’t it.’ she said. ‘To find out more. To find a way of living with