Seconds (2 page)

“Mr. Wilson, sir—”

“Eh?”

“We're here, sir.”

The bald man was peering inside. The rear doors were open again, and light was flowing in. Wilson rubbed his face and yawned, stretching himself awake from his brief nap.

The truck was parked in a narrow alley between towering buildings. There was nothing to distinguish this passage from a thousand others like it, and if indeed there had been some identifying marks, Wilson would not have had time to notice them, since his guide quickly but politely maneuvered him through an open doorway marked “Delivery.”

“Very good, Mr. Wilson. We've done it.” The guide seemed greatly relieved. “Now, sir, if you'll just follow the hall . . .”

The hallway ended in a circular room furnished in the manner of a physician's waiting room, with a sofa, a few chairs, and a table in the center where magazines were laid out. There were two doors side by side in the wall opposite the hallway entrance; one was marked “Staff Only.” In a moment, a plain-faced young woman in a white uniform entered through this door, bearing a tray on which rested a cup and saucer and a sandwich on a plate.

“Mr. Wilson? There will be a short wait, I'm afraid. Perhaps you would like to have some refreshment.”

She set the tray on top of the magazines.

“Yes, thank you,” said Wilson. He glanced around for the guide, but the man had evidently completed his function, and his heavy figure was retreating down the hallway. However, Wilson was more interested in the contents of the tray, for he was accustomed to having had his lunch by this time, and so as soon as the young woman had withdrawn, he went to the table and ate the sandwich in quick bites, standing up. There was tea in the cup. He was mildly irked that the young woman had not supplied cream and sugar, but since she had gone and he was thirsty, he sipped it anyway. It was not too strong, although its aroma was strangely sour. Still, he imagined that it would revive him from his sleepiness, so he drank it down to the bottom.

Then he realized that he was still wearing the coverall. That was no longer necessary, surely. He unzipped it, pulled his arms and legs free of its encumbering folds, and, having retrieved his Homburg from the sofa, where the guide had deposited it, felt much more himself again, although he knew that his face would still be dusty.

He frowned at his wristwatch. It was nearly a quarter to two. By the time he had met whoever it was that would represent this firm, and had had an opportunity to find out something about the operations involved in the business, it would be much too late to return to the office. He would need to call in, however. He glanced about. There was no telephone in sight, not even a receptionist, nothing but the two doors, which he had better not go wandering through, for fear of being absent when they called for him.

No matter. He selected a magazine and sat down on the sofa to wait. Oddly enough, the tea had not perked him up at all, for he felt drowsier than ever, and fell to yawning almost uncontrollably. For a few moments he resisted what was rapidly becoming an overwhelming urge to sleep, and then he slumped back to accept what seemed to be the inevitable demands of weariness.

There followed the most remarkable experience of his life. At the time, and immediately thereafter, it seemed to be a dream, but a dream of the utmost clarity, and with disturbing physical sensations of reality. His head ached with a steady pain, and his vision was peculiarly affected, for although he witnessed the events which took place, everything appeared to occur in a milky vapor, as if his eyes were literally clouded.

First, unseen persons helped him to his feet and ushered him out of the waiting room into what seemed to be a boudoir, dominated by a massive four-poster bed. He could not see the entire room, for he felt unable to turn his head, but he did not think there was a window, which seemed to him as odd as the fact that a bedroom would adjoin the waiting room.

As he stood surveying what lay before him, lights began to blink at him and he heard the murmur of voices nearby, although he could see no one, and despite his preoccupation with his headache he thought he detected fingers plucking at his clothing, and hands jostling him slightly this way and that. Even so, he not only was powerless to move of his own accord, but also was without the desire to do so, and blankly accepted the fingers, hands, voices, and lights as further properties of what he imagined to be a dream.

The bed drew closer. He seemed to be at its very edge. He perceived that it was not empty, but was in fact 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.

“Do 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.

“I 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.

“You 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 begin?”

“I suppose so.”

Wilson reflected that he should commence questioning this gentleman rather sharply about the events of the afternoon. He took a deep breath, to test the functioning of his respiration, and finding it satisfactory, lowered his feet to the floor and sat up.

The office was one of those somewhat overmodernized establishments common to advertising agencies and similar enterprises whose executives must be prepared to make an impression of dash and efficiency on visiting clients. The desk was edged with two miniature dictaphones, an interoffice communications box, and a tiny file cabinet marked in gold letters: “Reddi-Ref.” The cream-colored walls were bare, except for a pair of prints of English hunting scenes so small that they added to the atmosphere of efficiency, inasmuch as they clearly were not intended to attract the eye.

“My name is Joliffe,” said Wilson's host, who was now leaning informally against the desk, swinging his spectacles in his hand. He touched a button on the desk. “What we say from now on will be recorded. I hope you don't mind.”

“No, not at all,” said Wilson. He thought for a moment and added: “I feel I should mind, but I don't.” He glanced up, as if seeking some explanation for his remark.

Joliffe nodded, approvingly. “Right. Now, to start us off, I wonder if you would mind describing, to the best of your ability, your present state of mind. How do you feel at this moment, Mr. Wilson? Physically and mentally and emotionally?”

The question struck Wilson as being most appropriate, for he had been in the process of answering it, in his own mind, ever since he had awakened.

“I feel, um, rather convalescent,” he began, concentrating deliberately, his brow wrinkled and his lips pursed. “I feel as if I'd recovered from some bender—though I rarely drink to excess—and everything seems . . . impersonal, unconnected with my usual habits of . . .” He hesitated, searching for the right words. Joliffe encouraged him with a patient and understanding nod. “My usual habits of thought and feeling,” Wilson concluded.

“For example?”

“Well, for example, I should be quite anxious about the time. I realize that it's the end of the day, you see, and that I have been absent from the office without explanation, and that moreover my train is due to leave—” he regarded his watch “—in twenty minutes, but these facts seem to be unimportant. I know that I should call my superior at his home this evening without fail, to tell him why I did not return from lunch, and also I should telephone my wife to tell her that I will probably be arriving on a late train, or even that I plan to spend the night in town at a hotel, which I occasionally do . . .”

“Yes?”

“But I'm not at all sure that I will actually make these calls. I probably will—that is, I think I probably will—but at the same time there is a doubt in my mind.” Wilson rubbed his hands together and examined them thoughtfully. “Part of me, you see, seems to recognize these calls as being very necessary and urgent, but there is another part of me which evidently regards the matter in a different light. That is, as being relatively inconsequential. I simply can't explain it any better than that.”

Joliffe again nodded with understanding. “You aren't hungry, are you, Mr. Wilson?”

“Oh, no.”

“If you are, I can send for something.”

“Thank you, no.” Wilson felt no particular inclination to do anything. “Do you want me to go on?”

“Please.”

“Another thing occurs to me. This afternoon, by various rather remarkable means, I undertook to come, voluntarily, to your firm, to discuss a certain service which I understand you are ready to provide. Am I correct so far?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I have the feeling that my attitude toward you now should be somewhat testy and demanding. I have experienced certain indignities. For instance, I was required to smear dust on my face. I suppose it's still there. Is it?”

“A trifle.”

Wilson touched his cheeks doubtfully. “I'm afraid I've forgotten my point.”

“You were saying you ought to be rather angry.”

“Yes. But I'm not, you see. And that's not all. I had a remarkable dream, or what seemed to be a dream. In any case, I have the distinct impression that I have been subjected to a humiliation and obscene exposure, possibly under the influence of drugs, added to the various other unpleasant experiences of the afternoon, and although as I say, I should be very snappish with you on this score, I am not even curious about it.”

Joliffe seemed satisfied. “Very good, Mr. Wilson. That's a first-rate description.” He tapped his spectacles against his knee, ordering his thoughts. “Now we can begin with the questions from the beginning. Please answer carefully. Give no names or other specific details which might identify you beyond doubt, but try to sum up, briefly, your career, including educational background.”

“All right. Um, I was born in—”

“No dates, please.”

“—in Chicago. I was educated at an Eastern preparatory school, where I excelled in tennis, and at Harvard, where I helped manage the tennis team, having failed to become a member of it. Strange how that comes back to me. I suppose I went to classes and so forth, but all I remember is the little black valise in which I carried train tickets and cans of new balls when the team made trips. I used to give practice workouts to the singles champion, and once I nearly beat him.”

“More succinct, Mr. Wilson, if you please.”

“Of course. Well, I went to business school—graduate school, you know—and then I went into banking, which was still respectable in spite of Roosevelt, and I managed to marry a debutante from the very top drawer. Emily was quite a pretty girl then, but I had the suspicion that eventually she would grow fat, which proved to be the case—”