soon it would pass into his stomach , next up his trachea , climbing the wet length of his tongue like a mountaineer an ice wall , to that tongue 's rooted summit , taking the slide in reverse , all the way to his mouth where it would rub shoulders with his filled teeth , artfully caressing the swell of his gums as if flirting at a party , inflating ( it had to inflate ) until it squeezed at last from the flaccid embrace of his lips to float in the weak night air above his bed , where he slept , where he dreamed of just such a moment and the possibilities it would , ideally , represent .