The SHADES of TOFFEE
By Charles F. Myers
Marc Pillsworth thought that certain
laws were futile and should be repealed--such
as gravity--which he annihilated!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures June 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Standing in the center of the basement laboratory, Marc Pillsworth held
the vial up to the light and carefully poured out a small portion of
the liquid so that the measure would be exact to the final degree.
Certainly, if he had known that the thing he measured was destruction,
intrigue and madness, he would have hurled the container and its
greenish contents to the floor. But he did not know, or even dream....
Assured that the amount was correct beyond question, he turned with the
vial, poised it over the small vat on the work table, and poured.
_Chaos!_
The room screamed with brilliant light as the vat erupted and
vengefully spat its contents to the four walls. The wall at the end
of the room shuddered and shrugged away a great, irregular section of
concrete so that the night gushed inside and swallowed up the light.
Caught in the tide of the rushing darkness, Marc felt himself lifted
helplessly from his feet, hurled upward to a great height, then plunged
downward headfirst.
He fell endlessly, it seemed, down and down. And the darkness droned in
his ears and in the pit of his stomach as he fell--deeper and deeper
into a region of black strangeness. Fear grew inside him, writhing,
coiling and recoiling like a great venomous snake in the depths of
his stomach. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound died in his
throat as the darkness rushed inside him and caused the metallic taste
of panic.
And then it was over.
He had arrived, but how and where and for what precise reason he
couldn't imagine. But, oddly, it didn't seem to matter. There was no
reason for it to matter now. None that he could think of at the moment.
His thoughts moved so slowly, it seemed.
It was as though he had lain down to rest, limply and gently, in a
soft coolness. A languor seeped through him, and he fell easily under
the spell of a dreamy quietude. What could any man conceivably have to
worry about when he felt like this?
Marc stretched his arms up over his head, then brought them down and
clasped his hands at the back of his neck. He was suddenly swept with
a mood of utmost felicity. Everything was so unreasonably wonderful!
Mother, he thought, pin a rose on me! He grinned happily at his own
urbanity.
And then the darkness began to pulse with a faint light which grew
steadily stronger with each successive impulse. Slowly, vague outlines
began to rise out of the dimness and form a horizon. And then the light
became a steady glow, and the forms moved in closer and were distinct.
Marc sat up and looked about him with astonished eyes.
* * * * *
A soft emerald greenness stretched beneath him in all directions,
lifting softly from rise to rise in the distance, gently sloping into
cool shadows. Behind him a knoll rose above the others, and along its
side stretched a grove of tall feathery trees which were graceful
beyond description. A soft breeze coiled through the trees trailing
a shimmering blue mist, like a scarf, capriciously upward and out of
sight beyond the rise.
Everywhere was a muted beauty that did not trade in harsh contrasts.
Strangely, Marc could not bring himself to wonder at his being here in
this impossible region; it was enough that he simply _was_ here.
He lay back again and gazed into the sky, noting without surprise that
the clear blueness was unmarked by any brash and orthodox ball of sun.
His mind wandered free, along heretofore untrodden paths of melody,
color and form. Had there ever been a time for making worrisome
decisions, for seeking the multi-sided answer to the human equation?
It didn't seem likely. This is Eternity, Marc thought, Eternity is
like this. Throwing his arms free, he stretched his lean length to its
utmost.
Eternity ended abruptly.
"Well, I'll be damned!" a voice said distinctly. "I'll be damned and
broiled over a slow flame!"
Marc swung up into a sitting position, and his eyes raked the scene
behind him. He froze.
[Illustration: His mouth formed a soundless whistle as he looked up to
see the scantily clad Toffee smiling down at him.]
Even in that first moment of confused surprise, Marc was quite well
aware that no girl had ever eyed him with such undisguised pleasure--or
such frank intent. Certainly no girl as beautiful as this one, at any
rate. Perhaps, if she'd just done something about getting dressed....
He'd never seen a more top notch pair of legs.
Disconcertingly, the girl had chosen to place between herself and the
raw elements only a slight green tunic of a consistency comparable to
that of the airy mists on the slope. Considering this, Marc felt keenly
that the situation called for, in full voice, a hasty apology and the
quick slam of a door; he was terribly aware that there wasn't much
more between him and this alarming newcomer than the atmosphere and a
very pregnant silence. He couldn't understand how the girl could be so
unconcerned about it.
"I'm sorry...!" Marc said quickly. "I...."
"I'm delighted," the girl said. She smiled softly, in a way that
suggested great intimacy.
"I think I'll scream," Marc said weakly, "if you're not going to."
"I'm not going to," the girl said. "Not a chance."
Marc reflected erratically that this creature, in spite of her
loveliness, was surely a traveler from hell; the fires of that region
danced unmistakably on the surface of her soft red hair and in the
depths of her vivid green eyes. His unbelieving gaze left her pert
young face and helplessly traveled the course of her supple body.
It was a disturbing trip; unhurried curves moved indolently outward
and took their time about coming back. And then, as the girl started
forward, Marc glanced up to discover that her gaze had followed his
own. He looked away sharply and was aware of a feverish sensation about
the neck and cheeks.
"There's no need to blush," the girl laughed.
"There's every need in the world," Marc said uneasily. "A crying need."
"If you're embarrassed," the girl said, "you've no one to blame but
yourself."
Marc turned back, careful that his gaze went directly to her face and
remained there. "Are you trying to suggest that it's my fault that
you're naked?"
"Of course it is," the girl said. "It's all your fault, now that you
bring it up. After all, I'm your exclusive creation. You dreamed me
up, curve for curve, line for line, and if the job seems a little
immoderate, you should have thought of that sooner." She moved
lightly to where he was sitting and lowered herself to the ground
beside him. She crossed one slender leg over the other in the manner
of a gem broker displaying a stock of crown emeralds on a length of
black velvet. "Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Personally,
especially after your bug-eyed reaction, I regard myself as a pretty
piece of merchandise."
* * * * *
Marc flinched slightly at the directness of this self-appraisal, but
found it hard to find a point of disagreement. Though the girl's
nearness had done much to impair his mental processes, he was all too
aware of the merchandise at hand and an unspoken invitation to feel the
superior quality of the goods. He breathed deeply and edged away.
"What do you mean, I dreamed you up?" he asked.
The girl sighed despairingly. "I had hoped," she murmured, "that we
wouldn't have to waste time on anything so dull as pedigrees. However,
I can see that you're the fretful type." She shrugged. "I'm Toffee."
She leaned back and gazed at Marc from the corner of her eye with an
expression that plainly indicated that she had revealed "all."
Marc tried to think. He repeated the name several times to himself.
Toffee.... Toffee.... Toffee.... It didn't mean a thing to him....
"Well?" the girl said.
"Well?" Marc echoed faintly. The look in her eyes made him warmly
uncomfortable.
"If you're going to start making passes at me," the girl said, propping
herself up on one elbow, "I think I ought to say right now that there
will be the usual hollow pretense of resistance." She smiled slowly.
"But my heart won't be half in it, and that's a fact." She reached down
and smoothed the tunic over the curve of her perfectly formed hip. "I
just thought I'd mention it."
"Oh, my gosh!" Marc gasped. "Do I understand you correctly?"
"If you don't," the girl said with a twinge of impatience, "I might as
well pick up my drawing pencils and go home. Why are we wasting all
this time and energy?"
"Don't you have any repressions at all?" Marc asked.
"Of course not," the girl answered. "That's the way you made me."
"The way I made you?"
The girl nodded and leaned toward him. "I told you, I'm Toffee." She
studied his face for a moment, then sat up. "Say, don't you recognize
me?"
"I've never set eyes on you before in my life," Marc said emphatically.
"Maybe that's because I don't habitually frequent burlesque theatres."
"Now, look here, you withered old goat!" A flame of annoyance
flickered brightly in the green eyes. "Just where do you get off,
making cracks like that? I've been in the back of your mind for years.
You've dreamed me up, hip, thigh and shoulder, just the way I am. Don't
think you're going to get away with pretending you're above it all now."
Realization blanked Marc's expression. "You mean you're a product of my
subconscious mind?"
"Now you're getting it," the girl said. She swept a hand at the slopes
behind them. "This is the valley of your mind. I've been languishing in
this trap for years. If I've grown a little eager in the meantime, it's
only natural. It puts an awful strain on a girl to have what I've got
with no market for outlet. I'm just a bundle of frozen assets."
* * * * *
Marc smiled, and his manner became a bit less constrained. "Then all
this is only a dream, and you're strictly an imaginary figure."
"You could put it that way," the girl nodded. However, there was a note
of reservation in her voice. "Of course, it works two ways really. You
might say that you're only in my imagination too. Up till now, that
is." She surveyed his sprawled length with critical interest. "And,
believe me, you're getting all the best of the bargain. If I'm a dream
come true, you're a moaning nightmare. I'll bet you're nothing but a
mess of knobs and angles under those baggy clothes of yours."
"We'll just skip my knobs and angles," Marc said distantly, "if you
don't mind."
"I do mind," the girl said, looking a trifle alarmed. "I mind like all
get-out. Why should I want to skip the awful things? Do you mean I'm
to pick them up all in a string and play jump rope with them?" She
shuddered delicately. "Is that what you have in mind?"
"Of course not," Marc said. "I merely mean to say that my knobs and
angles do not constitute a matter for your concern in the least.
I'll be more than happy if you'll just ignore my knobs and angles
altogether. Just pretend they aren't there."
"What an awful picture that brings to mind," the girl said. "Without
your knobs and angles you'd be even worse than you are already.
Besides, they're of utmost concern to me. Heaven knows they're nothing
to boast about, or even mention, for that matter, but they're the
only ones handy, and I've been waiting for years to get my hands on a
working set of knobs and...."
"That's enough," Marc broke in. "I wish you'd stop going on about your
sordid-minded desires. I don't want to hear about them. And get away
from me!" He started violently. "Leave my knobs and angles alone!"
But it was too late to protest. Already the girl had twined her arms
tightly about his neck and was drawing him toward her.
"This," she whispered with soft intensity, "is an angle of my own."
Marc struggled for a moment under the knowing pressure of her lips,
but the period of resistance was short lived. He yielded quickly to
the coolness of her arms about his neck and the warm brush of her hair
against his cheek. He had actually begun to aid and abet the effort
before it was over. Toffee released him and leaned back.
"That," she said, "is the introductory offer, merely a sample to bring
the product to your attention. The objective, in case you're somewhat
hazy, is to create a large and steady demand for the brand."
Marc was more than hazy. "Oh, my gosh!" he breathed. "I feel completely
demoralized!"
"Fine," Toffee said blandly. "It takes a heap of demoralizing to make a
man a man. We're on the right track and proceeding with a steady speed.
We'll build up steam as we go along."
"Oh, no we won't!" Marc said getting uncertainly to his feet. "We won't
build up anything, you and I. We'll put an end to this dream before we
both have something to regret. If I dreamed you up, I can get rid of
you too."
* * * * *
Instantly the girl was on her feet beside him. "Of all the gall!" she
said. "Of all the slithering, dripping gall!"
Marc winced. "You're affecting my stomach," he said.
"And that's not all I'm going to affect before I'm through with you!
I'm going to affect you from end to end and border to border! You leave
me stumping it around in this air tunnel head of yours all these years,
and then dream me up just to throw me over!"
"Wait a second...!"
"Be quiet," Toffee snapped. "Wait till I'm through. This goes on for
some time." She gazed tragically into the distance and resumed in a
mellowed tone: "That's all I ever was to you, a plaything to be used
and cast aside when you've grown tired of me." Her voice broke with
emotion. "Now that I'm old and ugly, you're ashamed of me.... This is
even better with violins."
"Stop that," Marc said. "Don't be ridiculous. There's no need for
dramatics. You're far from old and ugly, and as for...."
But suddenly the girl had fastened herself to him for the second time.
"Then you really do think I'm a little sensational after all?" she
cried ecstatically. "Kiss me! I'm yours!"
"No!" Marc cried. "I didn't say that! I didn't even mention...!"
"Yes, you did," the girl breathed in his ear, and drew her mouth
quickly to his.
"Wait a minute!" Marc objected, forcing her from him. "This sort of
thing has got to stop!"
"Why, for heaven's sake? I think it's perfectly divine."
Marc stopped to consider her question. Actually, why did it have to
stop? There was a reason, a good reason, if only he could think of it.
And then something stirred in the far reaches of his mind and drifted
slowly forward.
_Julie!_
"Holy smoke!" Marc cried. "Julie. I have a wife!"
"Of course," the girl said. "But what difference does that make? I
don't mind in the least. I'm terribly broad-minded. Besides, it happens
that your wife isn't in this dream. Why drag her into it and spoil
everything?"
"No!" Marc said excitedly. "No. You don't understand. I just
remembered. There was an explosion. Julie was in the house--and a lot
of her friends. Heaven only knows what happened. Oh, my gosh!" He drew
away from the girl and glanced desperately around. "I've got to get out
of here!"
But even as he spoke another matter rose for his immediate attention.
All of a sudden the little valley had been seized with a shuddering
convulsion. The greenness underfoot began to tremble violently. As Marc
looked frightenedly about, the trees on the knoll commenced a weird
seesawing, weaving back and forth in mad counter rhythm. Then, with a
great roar of agony, the quiet valley began to crumble apart beneath
their very feet. Everything dropped away into blackness....
Falling, Marc was only incidentally aware of the tightening pressure
of the girl's arms about his neck. And then the frightened words came
breathlessly, close to his ear: "Marc! Marc! Don't leave!"
* * * * *
"Please, Marc! Open your eyes!"
The imperative note of command sang hollowly in the depths of his
subconscious, echoed back in some small chamber of his awareness. He
stirred.
"Open your eyes, darling. Look at me."
Marc clawed at the edge of darkness, caught hold, and pulled himself
upward toward the lighter region of consciousness. He struggled to the
brink, caught a measure of leverage, and opened his eyes....
Julie's face peered down at him duskily, her blue eyes bright with
fear even in the dim moonlight. A whisp of blonde hair had gone astray
across her forehead.
"Marc!" she cried. "Marc!"
Marc tried his reflexes and sat up. "Julie," he murmured. "What
happened?"
"Never mind, dear," Julie said. "Are you all right?"
Marc considered the matter of his all-rightness. He let his enfeebled
concentration travel the circuit of his body. There were no sharp pains
or ominous numbnesses.
"I think so," he said. "I think I'm all right. I had a dream...."
"Here," Julie said, with a sigh of relief. "Let me help you up." On
his feet, Marc tested the working parts of his rangey anatomy and
found them all in an operative condition. He glanced around and for
the first time since his awakening realized that he was still in the
basement laboratory. In the dim moonlight that filtered through the
hole in the wall, it was evident that the place had been ruined. The
upper end, however, leading away into the wine bins had apparently been
spared. The explosion rose and happened again in his memory.
"Well," he sighed, turning to Julie, "it turned out a real bust, didn't
it?"
Julie gazed at him for a long moment and suffered a nasty
transformation. Her eyes no longer reflected concern, solicitude
or even slight affection. To the contrary, they expressed extreme
annoyance. Evidently, now that she was certain he was all right, she
was prepared to blame him for all the foul acts of man since the first
dawn of time.
"Just what went on down here?" she inquired with tense hostility. "Do
you realize, Marconi, that you nearly blew the Daughters of the Golden
Gardenia right out the front door?"
Marc's thoughts turned to a picture of the Daughters of the Golden
Gardenia being blown out his front door, and he experienced a sudden
glow of inner warmth.
"And what were the old hens banded together on the same roost for this
time?" he asked acidly. "Getting up funds to lay linoleum in the huts
of African bushwhackers?"
Julie's blue eyes grew wide with surprise. That Marc had any feeling
except awe for her club ladies had not occurred to her. "Marc
Pillsworth!" she exclaimed. "The coffee urn upset on Mrs. Beemer and
ruined her dress!"
"The old trull's figure did more to ruin that dress than any dozen
coffee urns ever could," Marc said levelly. "As a matter of fact, I'm
enormously pleased it happened. It's my fondest dream come true. I've
been longing to hit Mrs. Beemer with a coffee urn ever since I first
set eyes on her. Right now I'm going upstairs to bed and I don't want
to hear any more about it. My head hurts."
For a moment Julie stood still before him, transfixed with
astonishment. Then suddenly, drawing her hand tremblingly to her mouth,
she made a small whimpering sound, turned, and fled up the steps.
Marc remained where he was, listening to her hurried footsteps as they
sounded through the upper hallway, and on the stairs leading to the
second floor. There was a moment of silence, then the slam of a door.
Marc shrugged.
He glanced at the ruins. The floor was littered heavily with rubble.
None of the equipment had survived, that was obvious even in the dark.
Well, he'd have to start all over again. He turned and started toward
the steps. Then he stopped short and glanced sharply in the direction
of the wine bins.
He could have sworn he'd caught a flash of movement there from the
corner of his eye. He waited, peering into the darkness, but there was
nothing. He smiled wryly and turned back again to the steps.
"Just nerves," he murmured to himself. And then his thoughts reverted
momentarily to the Daughters of the Golden Gardenia. "Wish I'd blown
the old dragons out the front door and into the gates of Hell," he said.
With that warm thought he drew a deep breath and started up the
stairs. Curiously, the explosion had left him with a great sense of
exhilaration....
CHAPTER II
Marc awoke.
A drift of silver moonlight spilled through the window to the carpet
and across the foot of the bed. Marc lay still and let his thoughts
shift effortlessly with the warm breeze that riffled the curtains. He
was curiously alert to the night, its mood and quality. There was a
strange clarity here, and he had a feeling he'd been awakened to it for
a definite purpose, though he couldn't imagine at the moment what that
purpose might be. He listened for a sound from Julie's room across the
hall, but there was none.
He pondered his exuberance at having spoken harshly to Julie after the
accident. After all, he didn't really want to hurt her. They did love
each other, he and Julie, and that was the plain fact of the matter.
But now that he thought of it, perhaps that was just the trouble;
perhaps the fact was so terribly plain that it wasn't even of interest
any more.
Certainly, it had never occurred to Marc to be jealous of Julie. Never
once had he been distressed at the thought that she might be flirting a
hip at the stable boy while he was away at his office in town. Indeed,
if the idea had occurred to him at all, he'd have laughed at it. It was
true that there was a certain amount of comfort in this, but not one
iota of excitement.
Most depressing, though, was the thought that Julie, in her turn, was
not jealous of him. It didn't seem to distress her in the least that,
as owner and head of one of the most successful advertising agencies
in the nation, he was daily in close contact with the most deadly and
devastating models in the business.
Of course Julie had every reason to take confidence in her own
cool blonde beauty, but on the other hand there was the thoroughly
distressing thought that perhaps she felt Marc could be trusted with
these gilt-edged females simply because they could be trusted with him.
No man likes to feel that his wife is sure of him not because of his
own sterling qualities, but because no other woman could conceivably
be so desperate as to find him attractive. Julie's bland confidence in
his fidelity, Marc felt, tended to make things terribly dull in the
neighborhood of the parlor, bedroom and bath.
Marc looked to himself for the cause of his unhappy state of affairs.
The decision was neither for nor against. Perhaps he wasn't handsome,
but then he wasn't hideous either. His face actually had a rather nice
angular plainness about it, and his grey eyes were undeniably kind and
could, on occasion, be extremely humorous.
He was a bit too thin for so tall a man, but there was a suggestion, at
thirty-three, of a litheness and youth about his figure that was not
unattractive. His sandy hair at least had the virtue of unobtrusiveness
without any such vulgar ostentations as polished slickness or gleaming
ringlets. On careful and unprejudiced analysis, Marc felt that as an
example of his sex he was neither such a one as to send a woman wilting
to the carpet with palpitations or screaming to the medicine chest for
the salts. The clue to the rising becalmment of his marriage, then,
had to lie in another quarter. But Marc was at a loss to determine its
direction. What he did not realize was that, from the outset, he had
allowed Julie the exclusive management of their life together without
reserving for himself even the right to veto.
* * * * *
The truth was that Marc was shy with women to the point of reticence.
Too busy and too earnest in the struggle to establish the agency in
the early, salty days of his youth, he had simply missed all of the
ordinary experiences, the fretful trials and errors, due the average
young man bent on gaining a solid footing in life's more fundamental
departments. In effect, Marc had never taken the time to brace himself
against the Indian hand wrestle that sex can often become in this
civilized world. He could never be a rake, either at home or abroad,
simply because he hadn't had time to practice.
Not that Marc didn't have the impulse for rakishness. It had merely
come too late. He had always suspected that there was a more
satisfactory and satisfying way of life than his, but only vaguely.
There were even moments when he yearned for it desperately, without
ever rightly knowing precisely what it was he yearned for.
At the time when he asked Julie to be his wife, he believed that he
was at last making the proper step towards a new kind of life. After
all, in spite of all the tons of fiction to the contrary, it is still
not considered entirely orthodox for a business executive to marry his
secretary. Marriage with Julie had seemed, to Marc, to offer the sort
of life he coveted. Then, she had been as casual and convention-free a
girl as any man would care to split a pint of gin with in a butler's
pantry. Not that Marc ever had, however.
Even then, though, had Marc been better schooled in matters of maids,
mates and matrimony, he might have recognized in the cool blue of
Julie's eyes, in the precise way she carried her statuesque body, the
seeds of wedded woodenness. As it was, the revelation did not occur
until after that fatal moment at the altar.
The wedding ceremony had worked a magic in Julie that, to Marc's mind,
was as black as pure onyx. Instantly, she had become a rigid suburban
matron, corseted tightly in all the whale-boned dictates of suburban
respectability. Under Julie's efficient supervision Marc had found
himself settled down with a thud that was almost audible.
Julie took up club work with a fire and fervor that was truly
frightening. She ran for election to committees and officerships
with a wind and stamina that would have been admirable in an Olympic
torchbearer. She sat on more boards than a lumber mill laborer at lunch
time. Every book of etiquette written by man, woman or child found its
way into her library, and she stuck to the rules with all the tenacity
of an umpire on a World Series game. Worst of all, though, she took to
brewing weak tea and making watercress sandwiches. Briefly, Julie had
become that odious thing: the perfectly terrible perfect wife.
If Marc grew sallow and sullen under this regime, Julie's smiling and
well-modulated suggestion was that he take up a hobby and turn his mind
to something constructive. To her own purposes, as well as everyone
else's, she might have done better to keep her pretty mouth shut. It
was this suggestion that gave birth to the basement laboratory and the
madness that followed....
It is difficult to believe that any man of so steady a nature as Marc
Pillsworth would seriously conceive the idea of chemically treating
metals and other weighted materials in such a way as to make them
lighter than air. Yet, that precisely is the madness that wormed its
way into Marc's mind.
The idea had developed slowly. For almost a month, from his office
window, Marc had watched the construction of the building across the
street. The main difficulty, as the building stretched lazily upward,
obviously was the transportation of the heavier materials. That was the
thing that made the work so slow.
* * * * *
A bit at a time, the idea took hold of Marc that the job could be
immensely facilitated if only the steel girders, the sections of
concrete, could be made buoyant ... at least temporarily ... so that
they might be floated into position rather than lifted. Eventually
came the time when the idea had lain long enough in Marc's mind that
it seemed to make sense. Of course it was a fantastic idea, but the
really fantastic thing about it was that no little men in white jackets
arrived on the scene to carry its originator gently but firmly away to
some quiet institution.
And yet time proved Marc to be not quite so mad as he seemed.
Subsequent experiments testified to his rather extraordinary if
distorted vision. In a year's time, hit and miss, he had managed to
reduce the weight of scraps of iron and steel by actual test ...
and this without diminishing their bulk by so much as a fraction of
an inch. Of course, Marc had to admit, both of these materials had
clung doggedly to a nasty disinclination to actually defy the laws of
gravity, but he was convinced that he was well on the way to breaking
their will in the matter.
Months of paper work followed, tedious calculations, corrected formula.
At last he was ready to prepare what he was positive would be his
final and conclusive experiment. Ingredients were carefully distilled
and combined, in exact amounts and weights. And then, on the very
night that Julie had manoeuvered the exclusive Daughters of the Golden
Gardenia into her living room with an eye to arranging a society
bazaar, Marc retired to his basement sanctuary, carefully closed the
door, added the final chemical to the growing mixture, and blew the
bejesus out of everything. If the laws of gravity had finally been
broken it was only by virtue of rude detonation. The experiment, in its
major aspect, was a dud.
All these things passed fluidly through Marc's mind as he lay awake
gazing into the silver clarity of the night. He wondered at his own
serenity in the face of so much disappointment and could not account
for it. A strange faith in the future, unnourished by tangible fact,
had begun to grow within him, a definite, thriving growth sustained by
the night and the moonlight.
How could he know it was the weed growth of violence?
Then Marc stirred and turned his head at a listening angle. The night
was no longer silent; the stillness had been broken by a strand of
distant melody. Faintly, a voice had begun to sing, weaving a curious,
indistinct thread of song into the illusive fabric of the night. For a
moment Marc wondered if he only imagined it, but when he covered his
ears with his hands, the melody stopped. He listened again. Slowly, the
song grew louder, more distinct.
Marc sat bolt upright in bed. "Well, I'll be damned!" he said.
He was sure of it; the singing was actually coming from somewhere
inside the house. And if the voice had a strange, illusive quality it
was only because it was patently alcoholic. Obviously some drunken
woman was lurching about below stairs singing her vaporish head off.
Marc threw back the covers and swung out of bed. What if his harshness
had driven Julie to drink!
In the hallway outside his room, Marc paused to listen. The voice
was gaining wind and growing louder by the second. Marc started
indignantly; the song, if he wasn't mistaken, was at least badly
soiled if not downright filthy. It had something to do with the lurid
misadventures of a loose moraled sturgeon named Gussie during the
spawning season. At least it couldn't be Julie. Fumbling with the sash
of his robe, Marc went to the stairs and marched determinedly downward.
In the lower hall he paused by the door to the living room to take a
sounding. Sighting on a distant burp, he started toward the rear of the
house. He had just passed the study when the singing suddenly stopped.
Marc stopped also, waiting for the voice to continue. He moved slowly
in the direction of the kitchen, careful that his own footfall did
not disturb the silence. The kitchen, brilliant with moonlight, was
uninhabited. Marc slipped back to the hallways and waited. Suddenly
a new series of sounds were unleashed on the night; the clinking of
bottles, a light giggle and a subdued hiccough.
* * * * *
Marc, certain now of his destination, whirled about, went to the
basement door and threw it open. No longer cautious, he stepped into
the darkness and started down the steps with a tread that bespoke his
outrage.
There was no question in his mind; some neighborhood swain, in an
amorous mood, had enticed the giggling and subnormal object of his
sordid affections to the wine cellar. No doubt the pair were fairly
wallowing in depravity amongst the bins at this very moment. The cheek
of the young devil! And the girl! Getting drunk on wine that was not
hers and singing about it! Certainly she was no better than she should
be, and probably so much worse as to be beyond conception.
Marc quitted the steps, picked his way over a heap of rubble and
presented himself solidly in the ragged patch of moonlight that
described the hole left in the wall by the explosion. He planted his
feet ominously apart and doubled his fists.
"All right, you two," he said in a level, distinct voice. "Show
yourselves. If you're in any condition."
The silence filled in quickly in the wake of his voice. Marc pursed his
lips and peered into the deep shadows of the wine cellar.
"If you don't come out," he said, "I'll damn well come in here and drag
you out. How would you like that?"
Then he started as his question was answered with a muffled giggle.
Marc bristled. "Very well," he announced, "here I come!"
He strode to the wine cellar and presented himself firmly in the
doorway. "One last chance," he said. "Are you coming out?"
He waited in the ensuing silence, suddenly assailed by a strange
feeling of indecision. Then he cried out with dismay as a slender arm
suddenly darted out into the moonlight and coiled gracefully about his
neck.
"Now, just a minute!" Marc gasped.
But the arm did not hesitate. Tightening about his neck, it drew him
toward the darkness. Instantly, a pair of warm lips pressed down on his
own.
Marc struggled to free himself, but the mouth was extraordinarily
tenacious. And another arm had joined the other about his neck. Then
Marc freed his mouth and sputtered with objections.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
A winey breath impressed itself on Marc's nostrils. "Don't you know?" a
voice murmured softly. "You should."
"Let go of me," Marc said stiffly.
"Not in a million years," the voice replied huskily. "I'm going to
stick to you like skin. Forever and ever and ever and...."
"We'll see about that," Marc grated. "Whoever you are, you're
trespassing. In more ways than one."
Reaching up he grasped the arms about his neck and attempted to
disentangle them. They only tightened their hold. He tried to duck
under the arms, but they moved downward as he did. For a moment Marc
and his amorous captor crouched together in the dark, literally cheek
by jowl. The other giggled.
"I'll bet we look terribly funny," she said.
"Stop that damned giggling," Marc fumed. "Things are bad enough without
that."
He had decided on a strategy to free himself. In one quick movement he
straightened up and stepped backwards. It might have worked perfectly
if he hadn't stumbled over a piece of wreckage. As it was he suddenly
sprawled backwards and fell to the floor in the exact center of
the patch of moonlight. His winey companion, true to her promise,
accompanied him in his downward plunge with skin-like precision. She
landed against Marc's chest with a sigh of satisfaction.
"May I take this as capitulation?" she asked. "Or was it only an
accident?"
"Don't be so disgusting," Marc said. Then, gazing upward, he suddenly
blanched. His mouth fell slack. The girl had loosened her hold on his
neck and was sitting up, gazing down at him. In his confusion Marc
didn't even notice that the thing she was sitting on was his stomach.
The girl was the same one in the dream. The girl was Toffee!
"Oh, Lord!" he moaned. "You're...!"
"Of course," Toffee said brightly. "I made it. I'm here."
"Then this is really a dream," Marc said dazedly. "I'm still in bed
asleep. I only dreamed I woke up and came down here."
"Wrong, son," Toffee said briefly. "This is no dream. This is for real."
* * * * *
Marc stared at her in disbelief. "Wait a minute ..." he breathed. Then
he reached out a hand, touched her, and quickly drew it away.
"That's the general idea," Toffee said.
Marc drew back with a gasp. "You're really here!"
"I have other ways of proving it," Toffee said. She leaned toward him.
"No!" Marc cried. "But ... but ... how...!"
Toffee smiled. "It's very simple. You've projected me through your
awareness. I guess I must have made quite an impression on you in that
dream. Heavens knows I tried, but I didn't think I was really getting
any psychic cooperation. Anyway, I managed to stick to the conscious
part of your mind instead of the subconscious, and you projected me
into reality."
"Oh, no!" Marc gasped. "No! This can't happen! I didn't mean it! You've
got to go back!"
"Too late now," Toffee said. She removed herself from Marc's middle and
plumped herself down beside him. "There's no use fighting it. You can't
control it. Of course I'll disappear and return to your mind whenever
you go to sleep. You'll stop projecting me then. But I'll be right back
again the moment you wake up." She sighed happily. "I'm so tickled I
could pop."
"Don't!" Marc cried. Anything was easily within the realm of
possibility now. "What am I going to do with you?"
Toffee cast him a sidelong glance. "I could make a list of
suggestions," she murmured, "and we could run through them in the order
named. And if there are any terms you don't understand I'll explain
them."
"Holy smoke!" Marc said, staring at her. "Haven't you any sense of
decency at all?"
"None worth mentioning," Toffee answered. "Should I have?"
"No one ever needed anything worse," Marc said emphatically.
Toffee glanced curiously about her. "This place is a mess," she
commented. "Is your whole world as shabby as this?"
Marc shook his head, explained briefly about the explosion.
"I don't understand about human beings," Toffee said. "The minute they
get their hands on anything they have to start changing it so that it
serves a purpose exactly opposite what it was intended for. What goes
up must come down, what goes down must come up. You're all perfectly
mad, all of you. Are you happy that you've managed to make heavy things
light?"
"What?" Marc asked absently.
"I asked you if you were happy now that you've managed to make all that
stuff behave contrary to its nature, rather indecently I might add."
"What are you talking about?" Marc asked.
"All that stuff floating around on the ceiling," Toffee said. She
pointed.
Marc whirled about to gaze in the direction she indicated. Then he
sucked in his breath with a sharp gasp. Toffee had spoken the truth.
Slowly, the rubble was rising from the floor of the basement to the
ceiling. Some of it had already described the full journey and was
hovering about the ceiling. Chairs, pieces of desk, desk drawers,
fragments of equipment, scraps of metal were bobbing about next to the
ceiling like apples in a washtub on Hallowe'en. Marc suddenly felt very
lightheaded. In a matter of minutes the world had become an unfamiliar
place; reality quickly slipped away from him and he was caught for a
moment in a spell of moon-splashed madness.
"My God!" he whispered. "I did it!"
"You certainly did," Toffee said. "Now how are you going to get all
that stuff down again?"
* * * * *
Unexpectedly, Marc jumped to his feet, made a quick lunge toward a
small black book that was rising rapidly toward the ceiling. But he was
too late; it moved beyond his reach and came to a solid rest against
the ceiling.
"Damn!" Marc said.
"What is it?" Toffee asked.
"The book that I recorded my formulas in," Marc said. "I have to have
it. When this gets out...."
Toffee rose to his side and placed her arms around his neck.
"For heaven's sake!" Marc said. "Can't you think of anything else?"
"It's difficult," Toffee said. "But at the moment I'm trying to help
you. Lift me up and I'll reach the book for you."
"Oh," Marc said. He held his hands down for her to step into, then
boosted her up. As she rose above him he was surprised at how light she
was. He glanced up. One hand on his shoulder, Toffee was stretching the
other toward the wayward book. She didn't quite make it. She glanced
down at Marc.
"Hold steady," she said. Then she let go of his shoulder and stood
upright, depending entirely on his hands for support. She reached out,
caught hold of the book, and smiled down at him. It was just as she was
bending down again that she lost her balance.
In the next instant Marc's head and shoulders became the center of what
seemed to be a dozen flailing arms and legs.
In an effort to save the situation, Marc stepped back and held out
his arms, just in time for Toffee to strike him solidly on the chest.
In the tangle that followed they both tumbled to the floor. When Marc
looked up Toffee was once more seated comfortably and safely on his
stomach. She looked down at him and laughed.
"Does it strike you that a certain monotony has come into our
relationship?" she asked.
"It strikes me that a certain pain has come into my stomach," Marc
wheezed. "Would you be kind enough, I wonder, to take a seat elsewhere
for a change? Or am I going to have to wear you like a watch fob from
now on?"
Toffee eyed his mid-section with scorn. "If you think that shriveled
bladder of yours is so comfortable, you just ought to try sitting on it
sometime."
"That would make an interesting spectacle," Marc commented acidly. "If
I'm not comfortable to sit on it's probably because you landed on me
so hard you're on my spine. Get off."
"A pleasure," Toffee said and slid to the floor beside him. "Here's
that silly book of yours." Without thinking, except to express her
contempt for Marc's central region as a seating arrangement, she tossed
the book in his direction. The book described a small arc toward Marc,
then promptly swooped upward in rapid ascent.
"Oh, my gosh!" Marc said. He sat up and grabbed just in time. "Let's
not...!"
Suddenly he stopped as a series of footsteps sounded on the floor above.
"Julie!" he hissed in a stage whisper. "My wife!"
"Marc!" Julie's voice called distinctly. "Marc! Where are you? What was
all that noise?"
Marc turned to Toffee. "Go!" he said. "Vanish!"
Toffee gazed blandly on his distress. "I can't," she said, "unless you
go to sleep, of course. I couldn't if I wanted to. Which I don't."
"Oh, Lord!" Marc groaned. He stood for a moment, torn.
"Marc!"
Julie was approaching the basement doorway now.
"I've got to go," Marc rasped. "You stay here. Promise?"
Toffee smiled and nodded. "Sure," she said. "But you'll come back,
won't you? Because if you don't I'll stir up enough hell down here to
raise the dead."
"I'll come back," Marc promised desperately, and started rapidly toward
the steps.
"Just a minute," Toffee said. She held her arms out to him. "Kiss me
goodbye."
"No," Marc said.
"I'll scream," Toffee said coolly. "I'll yowl like a banshee."
Marc went quickly back to her. "It's not as though I won't be right
back. Just a little while...."
"That's all right," Toffee murmured. She slid her arms smoothly around
his neck. "This is just so you won't forget."
"Marc!" Julie called from upstairs. "Where are you? What are you doing?
Answer me!"