Seconds Read Free Page A

occupied by a woman, sleeping with her hair flared exquisitely over a white pillow.
    The woman stirred. Her eyelids fluttered. They opened, and she sat up slowly, with an expression at first puzzled, then worried, and finally, as she turned her head to face him fully, horrified. She screamed—or, rather, seemed to scream, for although her mouth gaped open and her throat muscles strained, he heard no sound.
    Dream or not, he thought it best to placate her. He tried to utter words, in vain; he sought to raise his hand in a peaceable gesture, but his arm remained motionless. At the same time he found himself still closer to the bed, as if he were being propelled there by some hidden force, so that soon he was virtually bending over the woman, who continued to shriek silently, her eyes rolling in terror. He himself was not the least perturbed, which he accepted as additional evidence that the woman, the room, and everything associated with it were only the creations of his mind.
    However, he was somewhat taken aback to see that her nightgown was being methodically shredded by a pair of hands that were quite probably his own, and soon the woman’s body was revealed to the impropriety of his examination. It was, he discovered, a remarkably lush body, slightly plump, with the armpits and pubic area cleanly shaven. It—or rather the woman—wriggled before him now in nakedness, and although he felt distinctly uncomfortable, he seemed unable to do other than remain as he was, leaning attentively over her.
    It appeared that he had leaned too far. He lost his balance and toppled slowly onto the woman, and as he did so, the contact of her flesh indicated that he, too, was unclothed. Her soundless screams continued. She labored beneath him, but strangely enough, although it seemed that she was attempting to repulse him, she was actually clasping him closer, frustrating his efforts to twist aside. The lights of the room burned down more powerfully, and the murmur of voices there grew louder, as if a dozen idlers had wandered into his dream-bedroom to witness his disconcerting entanglement.
    He began to question the validity of his experience as a dream. The fingers clawing at his back, the breasts that alternately caressed his chest and curved away, the smooth strong legs that turned against his own—these impressions were all too forcible to be the exhalation of the mind alone. His emotions were contradictory, as well. He was aware of a flicker of rage at being caught up in circumstances which could only embarrass him, and at the same time, he felt a remote sexual desire for the woman, whose perfumed limbs, writhing against his skin, evoked distant tinglings of passion.
    The ferocity of the headache suddenly grew, intolerably. He heard himself cry out, he closed his eyes, he sank forward on the bed with a vision of grey circles spinning.
    H e awoke in an office. He was lying on a couch, his hands clasped on his stomach, his feet propped on a pillow, and his eyes fixed on a window that framed a delicate sunset behind a domino arrangement of tall buildings.
    â€œDo you feel better, Mr. Wilson?”
    The speaker was a tall gentleman of his own age, dressed in an immaculate dark grey suit, who had moved into view beside the window, holding a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles in one hand.
    â€œI believe I do, thank you.”
    Wilson resolved that he would not be hurried. He first ascertained that he was fully clothed in his own suit, then that his Homburg was resting on a low table beside the couch, and finally that his head was clear. He examined his physical sensations more closely. He felt empty, with no desire to do anything but remain as he was, lying down.
    â€œYou evidently had an attack of indigestion,” the tall man remarked, calmly. “You had us a little worried, but we called a doctor and he said you would be quite all right, with a little rest. Are you sure you feel well enough to