I nudged Osiecki. Where are we going?
It was the driver who answered. Take it easy, you'll find out. And you can take my word for it, it's no gyp joint.
Maybe he's got something, said Osiecki. He acted as if he had been charmed.
We pulled up to a loft building in the West Thirties. Not so far away, it flashed through my head, from the French whorehouse where I got my first dose of clap. It was a desolate neighborhood—drugged, frozen, shell- shocked. Cats were prowling about half dead on their feet. I looked the building up and down. Couldn't hear any soft music coming through the blind windows.
Ring the bell and tell the doorman I sent you, said the driver, and he handed us his card to present.
He demanded an extra buck for tipping us off. Osiecki wanted to argue the point. Why? I wondered. What matter an extra buck? Come on, I said, we're losing time. This looks like the real thing.
It's not the place I had in mind, said Osiecki, staring at the departing cab and that extra buck.
'What's the difference? It's your birthday, remember?
We rang the bell, the doorman appeared, we presented the card. (Just like two suckers from the steppes of Nebraska.) He led us to the elevator and up we went—about eight or ten stories. (No jumping out of windows now!) The door slid open noiselessly, as if greased with glee. For a moment I was stunned. Where were we—in God's blue heaven? Stars everywhere—walls, ceiling, doors, windows. The Elysian fields, so help me. And these gliding, floating creatures in tulle and gauze, ravenous and diaphanous, all with arms outstretched to welcome us. What could be more enchanting? Houris they were, with the midnight stars for background. Was that music which caught my ear or the rhythmic flutter of seraphic wings? From afar it seemed to come—discreet, subdued, celestial. This, I thought to myself, this is what money can buy, and how wonderful it is to have money, any kind of money, anybody's money. Money, money ... My blue heaven.
Escorted by two of the most Islamic of the houris—such as Mahomet himself might have chosen—we boopy-dooped our way to the place of merriment, where everything swam in a dusky blue, like the light of Asia coming through a splintered fish bowl. A table was waiting for us; over it was spread a white damask tablecloth in the very center of which stood a vase containing pale pink roses, real ones. To the sheen of the cloth was added the gleaming reflection of the stars above. There were stars in the eyes of the houris too, and their breasts, only lightly veiled, were like golden pods bursting with star juice. Even their talk was starry—vague yet intimate, caressing but remote. Scintillating mush, flavored with the carobs and aloes of the book of etiquette. And in the midst of it I caught the word champagne. Some one was ordering champagne. Champagne? What were we then, dukes? I ran a finger lightly over my frayed collar.
Of course! Osiecki was saying. Champagne, why not?
And perhaps a little caviar? murmured the one on the left of him.
Of course! And caviar too!
The cigarette girl now appeared, as if from a trap door. Though I still had a few loose cigarettes in my pocket, and though Osiecki smoked only cigars, we bought three packs of gold-tipped cigarettes because the gold matched the stars, the soft lights, the celestial harps playing somewhere behind or around us, God only knew where, it was all so dusky and husky, so discreet, so ultra-ethereal.
I had only had a taste of the champagne when I heard the two of them ask simultaneously, as if through the larynx of a medium—Won't you dance?
Like trained seals we rose to our feet, Osiecki and I. Of course we would dance, why not? Neither of us knew which foot to put forward first. The floor was so highly polished I thought I was moving on castors. They danced slowly, very slowly, their warm, dewy bodies—all pollen and star dust—pressed tight to ours, their limbs undulating like rubber plants. What an intoxicating perfume emanated from their smooth, satiny members! They weren't dancing, they were swooning in our arms.
We returned to the table and had some more of the delicious bubbling champagne. They put a few polite questions to us. Had we been in town long? What were we selling? Then—Wouldn't you like something to eat?
Instantly, it seemed, a waiter in full dress was at our side. (No snapping of fingers here, no beckoning with head or fingers: everything worked by radar.) A huge menu now stared us in the face. He had put one in each of our mitts, then stood back at attention. The two damosels also surveyed the menu. They were hungry, apparently. To make us more comfortable, they ordered for us as well as themselves. They had a nose for food, these soft- spoken creatures. Delicious looking comestibles, I must say. Oysters, lobsters, more caviar, cheeses, English biscuits, seeded rolls—a most inviting spread.
Osiecki, I noticed, had a strange look on his face. It grew even stranger when the waiter reappeared with a fresh bucket of champagne (ordered by radar) but which was even more refreshing, more sparkling, than the first magnum.
Was there anything else we would like? This from a voice to the rear. A suave, cultured voice trained from the cradle.
No one spoke. Our mouths were stuffed. The voice retreated into the Pythagorean shadows.
In the midst of this dainty repast one of the girls excused herself. She had a number to do. She reappeared in the center of the floor under an orange spot-light. A human jack-knife. How she managed it, the contortions, with the lobster, the caviar and the champagne rolling around in her tripe basket, I couldn't figure out. She was a boa constrictor devouring itself.
While this performance was going on the one at the table plied us with questions. Always in that soft, subdued, milk and honey voice, but each question more direct, more succinct, I observed. What she was gunning for, apparently, was the key to our wealth. What did we do, precisely, for a living? Her eyes wandered tellingly over our apparel. There was a discrepancy which intrigued her, if one could put it that way. Or was it that we were too blissfully content, too heedless of the mundane factors which entered into the situation? It was Osiecki, his grin (non-committal), his casual, off-hand replies that nettled her.
I devoted my attention to the contortionist. Let Osiecki handle the question-and-answer department!
The act had now reached that crucial point where the orgasm had to be simulated. In a refined way, of course.
I had the goblet of champagne in one hand and a caviar sandwich in the other. Everything was proceeding
