When her arousal level was manageable again, she looked at…

““When her arousal level was manageable again, she looked at Zach and said, "The line between pleasure and pain is so narrow, sometimes you can't tell them apart." He shook his head, smiling. "I'll have to take your word for it; I've never had that particular problem." "Maybe you haven't taken either to extreme? Think of it as the face of a clock. Imagine the six, pointing down, is no feeling at all. A three is what most people consider intensely pleasurable, and a nine is what the majority would deem exceptionally painful." She paused, letting it sink in, and he said, "So what's twelve?" Smiling, pleased he saw where she was heading, she said. "Let's go back to three and nine — if you can power past either of them, the closer you get to twelve the more bleed-over there is from the other side. So when you're at five minutes after the top of the hour, which is way beyond normal pleasure, there's a touch of pain involved. When you're at five minutes till, it's agony beyond comprehension, with a little bliss mixed in. If you can power past pleasure you get to pain, and if you can endeavor beyond pain you eventually get to nirvana. At twelve exactly, it's merely sensation, you can't tell which you're feeling. It’s both, but neither. If you’re played just right you can hover between pleasure and pain... No, on top of them, or maybe swimming in both. Yeah, awash in them — feeling every extreme of bliss and agony at the same time.””

— Candace Blevins