wondered if his run of luck hadn't come to an end.
He was looking at a vanity table cluttered with perfume bottles. He was sitting on the edge of a fully made-up bed topped with a fluffy-stuffed white satin coverlet dimpled with tiny gold buttons and he was wearing black pajamas with red piping. These details bothered him. They were ominous, in fact â the mingled aromas added up to lilies with the rotten-sweet under-scent of gardenias, while the white satin coverlet reminded him of the inside of a coffin. He shuddered. Nicholas had often said that marriage was a prison, but he hadn't had quite that tight a cell in mind. Well, this room seemed spacious enough at the moment, at any rate, to his still-blurry eyes.
His left wrist felt hot and a little painful, as if he had tried to punch someone in the snoot last night and missed and scraped a door-post. He pulled back the sleeve of his pajamas and saw a gunmetal wristwatch with a red face and black numerals and with thin black hands pointing at eighteen minutes to four. He'd never seen it before in his life. It felt almost hot to the touch.
As he started to unbuckle the black band, which felt like reptile hide, he blinked his eyes to clear them and looked at the wall behind the vanity.
There was no wall. For a moment he thought that he had wandered into a department-store window display, but there were no peering faces of mothers and kiddies, or scornful teenagers, or anyone at all. Then he saw that there was no plate of glass and that the room simply went on and on, with clusters of furniture and soft lights here and there, as far as he could see.
Maybe he was in a department-store furniture section. Where had last night's party ended. He remembered driving on a freeway ... and a lot of noise ... including sirens?
He looked up. There was a ceiling at least. Not more than eight feet above his head, for he could touch it. A gray slick ceiling like the screen of a dead television set.
Very slowly he turned around. In every direction the room stretched endlessly, furnished at about thirty-foot intervals with easy chairs, sofas, studio couches, beds -Hollywood beds, oval beds, round beds, contour beds, beds with canopies and curtains -and each lit by lamps that glowed in pastel shades of blue, violet, pink, topaz, green -every color imaginable except red. The lamps farthest away clustered and ran together like distant nebulas in a giant telescope.
Overhead and underfoot, the slick gray ceiling and thick gray carpeting stretched off toward infinity. He felt like a bug in a crack. What if the crack should snap shut? What if the room did go on forever? What mightn't be hiding behind the furniture? For a moment he knew fear.
He asked himself what kind of engineering could hold up a ceiling that stretched without visible support for ... miles? Even in Texas -
Suddenly he noticed that he was no longer alone. Beside a long gray velvet sofa about ten yards away stood a girl in a low-cut red velvet evening sheath. A golden zipper ran down the front of her dress, glinting here and there in the rich scarlet. She was blonde, looked about twenty-one, and was smiling at him. It was a warm inviting smile, hinting at secrets â not the sort of smile you'd expect on even a perfectly built shop-window mannequin, though that had been his first thought on seeing her.
But then she leaned forward to pick up something from a low table which held a rose-glowing lamp. Nicholas Teufler didn't see what the something was, for he was looking down the front of her dress at two firm ivory breasts with nipples like coral lipstick ends. She seemed to be offering them for his inspection on a red satin tray, the material lining her dress.
He was moving toward her. His whole attitude toward his weird surroundings had brightened greatly. He and this wonder-girl would try out every piece of furniture in the place, he told himself enthusiastically. From sofa to couch to bed they would flit like
He was looking at a vanity table cluttered with perfume bottles. He was sitting on the edge of a fully made-up bed topped with a fluffy-stuffed white satin coverlet dimpled with tiny gold buttons and he was wearing black pajamas with red piping. These details bothered him. They were ominous, in fact â the mingled aromas added up to lilies with the rotten-sweet under-scent of gardenias, while the white satin coverlet reminded him of the inside of a coffin. He shuddered. Nicholas had often said that marriage was a prison, but he hadn't had quite that tight a cell in mind. Well, this room seemed spacious enough at the moment, at any rate, to his still-blurry eyes.
His left wrist felt hot and a little painful, as if he had tried to punch someone in the snoot last night and missed and scraped a door-post. He pulled back the sleeve of his pajamas and saw a gunmetal wristwatch with a red face and black numerals and with thin black hands pointing at eighteen minutes to four. He'd never seen it before in his life. It felt almost hot to the touch.
As he started to unbuckle the black band, which felt like reptile hide, he blinked his eyes to clear them and looked at the wall behind the vanity.
There was no wall. For a moment he thought that he had wandered into a department-store window display, but there were no peering faces of mothers and kiddies, or scornful teenagers, or anyone at all. Then he saw that there was no plate of glass and that the room simply went on and on, with clusters of furniture and soft lights here and there, as far as he could see.
Maybe he was in a department-store furniture section. Where had last night's party ended. He remembered driving on a freeway ... and a lot of noise ... including sirens?
He looked up. There was a ceiling at least. Not more than eight feet above his head, for he could touch it. A gray slick ceiling like the screen of a dead television set.
Very slowly he turned around. In every direction the room stretched endlessly, furnished at about thirty-foot intervals with easy chairs, sofas, studio couches, beds -Hollywood beds, oval beds, round beds, contour beds, beds with canopies and curtains -and each lit by lamps that glowed in pastel shades of blue, violet, pink, topaz, green -every color imaginable except red. The lamps farthest away clustered and ran together like distant nebulas in a giant telescope.
Overhead and underfoot, the slick gray ceiling and thick gray carpeting stretched off toward infinity. He felt like a bug in a crack. What if the crack should snap shut? What if the room did go on forever? What mightn't be hiding behind the furniture? For a moment he knew fear.
He asked himself what kind of engineering could hold up a ceiling that stretched without visible support for ... miles? Even in Texas -
Suddenly he noticed that he was no longer alone. Beside a long gray velvet sofa about ten yards away stood a girl in a low-cut red velvet evening sheath. A golden zipper ran down the front of her dress, glinting here and there in the rich scarlet. She was blonde, looked about twenty-one, and was smiling at him. It was a warm inviting smile, hinting at secrets â not the sort of smile you'd expect on even a perfectly built shop-window mannequin, though that had been his first thought on seeing her.
But then she leaned forward to pick up something from a low table which held a rose-glowing lamp. Nicholas Teufler didn't see what the something was, for he was looking down the front of her dress at two firm ivory breasts with nipples like coral lipstick ends. She seemed to be offering them for his inspection on a red satin tray, the material lining her dress.
He was moving toward her. His whole attitude toward his weird surroundings had brightened greatly. He and this wonder-girl would try out every piece of furniture in the place, he told himself enthusiastically. From sofa to couch to bed they would flit like
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