Galactic Dreams

THE PAD — A STORY OF THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

In the expansive, expensive atmosphere of Sardi’s Topside, two hundred stories above the city, a pretty girl was no novelty, nor a beautiful one either for that matter. So the redhead in the green suit, who would certainly have drawn stares, turned heads, on the lower levels, received no attention here at all until she stopped at Ron Lowell-Stein’s table and slapped him. A good, roundhouse smack right across the kisser.

His bodyguards, who now made up for their earlier inattention with an exaggerated display of muscle, grabbed her and squeezed her, and one even went so far as to push a gun against the base of her spine.

“Go ahead and have them kill me,” she said, shaking her lovely, shoulder-length hair while an angry flush suffused the whiteness of her skin. “Add murder to your list of other crimes.”

Ron, who rose at once because he was always polite to women, dismissed the bodyguards with a tilt of his head and said, “Would you care to sit down and tell me to which crimes you are referring?”

“Don’t play the hypocrite with me, you juvenile Don Juan. I’m talking about my friend, Dolores, the girl whom you ruined.”

“Is she ruined? I frankly thought she would be good for many years to come.”

This time he caught her wrist before she could connect, proof that the years of polo, copter-hockey, and skeet shooting had toned his muscles and reflexes well. “It seems rather foolish to stand here like this. Can we not sit and fight in undertones like civilized people? I’ll order us Black Velvet, that is champagne and stout if you have never tried it, which is a great soother and nerve settler.”

“I’ll not sit with a man like you,” she said as she sat down, firmly pressed into place by the strength of that polo-playing wrist.

“I am Ron Lowell-Stein, the man you hate, but you have not introduced yourself …?”

“It’s none of your damn business.”

“Women should leave swearing to men, who do it so much better.”

He looked up as one of his bodyguards pulled a printed sheet from his pocketfax and handed it over. “Beatrice Carfax,” he read. “I’ll call you Bea since I have no liking for these classic names. Father … Mother … born … why you sweet thing, you are only twenty-two. Blood type O; occupation, dancer.”

His eyes jumped across to her, moved slowly down her torso. “I like that,” he said, barely audibly. “Dancers have such beautifully muscled bodies.”

She blushed again at the obviousness and pushed away the crystal beaker of dark and bubbling liquid that had been set before her, but he firmly slid it back.

“I do not feel that I have ruined your friend Dolores,” he said. “In fact, I thought I was doing her a favor. However, because you are so attractive and forthright I shall give her fifty thousand dollars, a dowry that I know will unruin her in the eyes of any prospective husband.”

Beatrice gasped at the sum. “You can’t mean this.”

“But I do. There is only one condition attached. That you have dinner with me tonight. After which we shall see a performance of the Yugoslavian State Ballet.”

“Do you think that you can work your will upon me?” she said hotly.

“Oh, goodness me,” he said, touching his pristine handkerchief to the corners of his eyes. “I do not mean to laugh but I have not heard that phrase in, well, I have never heard it spoken aloud, to be exact. I like you, my Bea. You are one of nature’s blessings with your sincere naivete and round little bottom and my chauffeur will pick you up at seven. And, in answer to your question, I shall be frank with you, franker than with most girls who seem to expect some aura of romanticism, yes, I do expect to work my will upon you.”

“You cannot!”

“Fine, then you have nothing to fear. Please wear your gold sequin dress; I’m looking forward greatly to seeing you in it.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t own a gold dress.”

“You do now. It will be delivered before you reach home.”

Before she could protest the headwaiter appeared and said, “Scusi mille, Mr. Lowell-Stein, but your luncheon guests are here.”

Two balding and rounded businessmen came up, Brazilians from the look of them. As the men shook hands, the bodyguards helped Bea to her feet and, with subtle pressures, moved her toward the exit. Preserving her dignity with an effort she shrugged away from them and made her own way out of the door. Once on the walkway, in a state of considerable confusion, she automatically took the turnings and changes that brought her home, to the apartment she shared with her ruined friend, Dolores.

“Oh, my sainted mother,” Dolores squealed when Beatrice came in, “will you just look at this!”

This was a dress that Dolores held out, fresh from its tissue wrappings, a garment of artistic cut and impeccable design that shimmered and reflected the lights with an infinite number of golden mirrors, that in the luxury of its appearance seemed to be spun from real gold. In fact it was pure eighteen-karat gold, though neither girl knew it.

“It’s from him,” Beatrice said as coldly as she could, turning away, though not without an effort, from the seductive garment. Then she explained what had happened, and when she had finished Dolores stroked the dress and smiled, and spoke.

“Then you’re going to date him,” she said. “Not for my sake, of course, what’s fifty thousand, I mean, you know. Go out for your own sake enjoy, enjoy.”

Beatrice gave a little gasp. “Do you mean you wish me to go out with him? After what he did to you?”

“Well, it’s done, and maybe we should at least profit from it. I’ll go halfies with you on the loot. And you’ll get a good meal out of it. But take the advice of one who knows — stay out of that backseat of his car.”

“You never told me the details ….”

“Don’t sound so stuffy. It’s not so sordid, not like in the grubby back of some college kid’s car. It was after the theater; I was waiting for a cab when this big car pulls up and he offers to drive me home. What’s the harm? What with a driver and two mugs in the front seat. But who was to know the windows could turn dark, that the lights would fade, while the whole damn back of the car got turned into a bed with silk sheets, soft music, drinks. To be truthful, honey, it happened so sudden and unreal, like in a dream, I didn’t even know that it was happening until it was over and I was getting out of the car. At least you’ll get a meal. All I got was a run in my stocking plus I saved the cab fare.”

Beatrice thought about this, then looked shocked. “You are not suggesting for a moment that — you know what will happen to me too? I’m not that kind of girl!”

“Neither was I. But I never stood a chance.”

“Well I do!”; Spoken firmly with her sweet jaw pushed forward stubbornly, the lift of righteous wrath in her gray-green eyes. “No man can force me to … do anything against my will.”

“You show ‘em, honey,” Dolores said, caressing the dress. “And enjoy your dinner.”

At six a liveried footman brought perfume. Aperge. And in a quart bottle, too.

At six-thirty another uniformed footman brought a mutation smoke-gray mink stole and a note, which read, “To keep your precious shoulders warm.”

The golden dress was sleeveless and strapless, and the stole did go with it, and the effect in the mirror was stunning. At seven, when the door annunciator hummed again, she was ready and she stalked out, head high and proud. She would show him.

The footman who escorted her said, “Mr. Lowell-Stein has sent his personal copter instead of his car and has said …”

He touched a button on his jacket and Ron’s melodious voice spoke, saying, “The hastier the transport, the sooner you will be with me, my darling.”

“Lead the way,” she said sharply-though secretly she was glad not to be traveling in his automotive automated bedroom. Though there was always the possibility that the copter might hold its secrets as well.

If it did, it did not reveal them to her. Instead it carried her swiftly and surely to a marble balcony high on the glossy flank of Lowell-Stein House: that remarkable structure, office building and home, that was the seat of power of the Lowell-Stein World Industries. Its master handed her down himself.

“You are lovely, charming, welcome to my home,” he said, tanned, handsome, and respectable, the perfect host. Beatrice decided on the bold course, hoping to gain the emotional upper hand.

“This is a very nice copter,” she said, as coldly as she could. “Particularly since it doesn’t turn into a flying bagnio at the touch of a button.”

“But it does, though that is not for you. For you, dinner and the theater first.”

“How dare you!”

“I dare nothing. You dare by coming here; you told me that. Now step inside” — the glass wall rose as they approached then sank behind them — “and have a cocktail. I am old-fashioned so we shall have a traditional drink. A Martini. Vodka or gin, which do you prefer?”

Ron pointed to Goya’s Maja Desnuda, the original, of course, which whisked from sight disclosing a window behind which moved, in an apparently endless stream, bottle after bottle of every brand of vodka and gin ever manufactured since the world was young. Beatrice concealed her ignorance, quite well she thought, not only of the preferred brand but of the very nature of the Martini itself, by waving gently and saying, “You’re the host, why don’t you choose for both of us?”

“Capital. We shall have Bombay gin and essence of Noilly Prat, at a ratio of a thousand to one — the way it should be served.”

The automated bar heard him and the bottles whizzed by the window and stopped and Queen Victoria frowned down upon them. The glass fell away and a chrome arm plucked out the bottle, opened it, tilted it, poured its contents into the air.

“Oh,” Beatrice gasped as the liquid fell toward the rug in a transparent stream.

“A bit showy,” he said, “but I like things that are done with style,” as, at the last instant, a goblet popped out from a hidden niche and caught the drink, every drop.

It was charming to watch, a functional mobile that entertained with its sprightly motions, concluded by producing the desired drink. The silver band on the goblet was caught by a magnetic field and lifted to eye level, floating freely in the air before them. A chime sounded and an atomizer of vermouth essence sprang out on the end of a cunningly jointed arm and poised itself above the container. Ron reached out a casual finger and touched the bulb, which sent a delicate spray across the surface of the gin.

“I like the personal touch,” he said. “I feel that it makes the drink.”

Then — one, two, three — a cryogenic tube of liquid helium dipped and spun and lifted away, chilling the drink exactly to within a thousandth of the required degree, and a tray, with two glasses cooled to the same temperature as the liquid, appeared on the end of a telescoping gilded arm to the accompaniment of another chime and Ron asked, “Onion or lemon peel?”

“Whichever you suggest,” she laughed, enchanted by the device.

“Both,” he smiled. “Let us be sybarites tonight.”

A tube delivered the onions, forked fingers the slices of lemon, and he handed her her glass.

“A toast,” he said, “to our love.”

“Don’t be rude,” she told him, sipping. “I think this is quite good.”

“To know it is to love it. I was not rude. I was just reminding you that before the night is gone you will have enjoyed ecstasy.”

“Nothing of the sort.” She put the drink down, and her foot as well. “I am hungry and I wish to go out and eat.”

“Forgive me for not telling you, but we are dining at home. I know you will enjoy the meal, it’s ristaffel, your favorite, since I know how wild you are about Indonesian food.”

As he spoke he touched her elbow and led her toward the dining room. “We shall begin with loempia, then on to nasi-goreng sambal olek, and for the wine — the wine! — I have discovered the perfect wine to accompany this exotic meal.”

Music swelled as the gamelan orchestra began to play and the temple dancers glided forth. The table was already set and the first course served and steaming, the tiers of cups of spices and sauces rotating slowly. Beatrice knew that the rice would be perfect and fluffy. She did love this food, but he took too much for granted. She would be firm, even embarrass him.

“I used to like this,” she said, trying to look bored-while saliva rose unbidden, brought forth by the delightful odors, “but no more. What I prefer is …”

What? She tried to think of something exotic. “I really prefer … Danish food, those delightful open sandwiches.”

“To think of the terrible mistake I almost made,” Ron said. “Remove this meal.”

Beatrice recoiled as the floor opened and the food dishes, table, chairs, dropped through the yawning gap. An instant before the floor closed again she heard the beginning of a terrible crash. Good God, he had thrown it all away, silverware, crystal, the lot. The orchestra and dancers were whisked from their podium and for a dreadful moment she was afraid they were bound for the incinerator as well.

“Do you like Rembrandt?” he asked, pointing to an immense painting that covered the rear wall. She turned to look. “`The Night Watch,’ one of my favorites.”

“I thought it was in Holland …” she began, then turned her head at a sound behind her and could not finish.

A long, oaken table with two matching refectory chairs had appeared and was laden with tier upon tier of food.

“Smorrebrod,” Ron said, “to be correct, since they are not really sandwiches. There are five hundred here, so I’m sure you will find your favorites. And beer, Tuborg F. F., of course. This is the only fine food that is to be eaten with beer, and akvavit, the sly Danish snaps, served frozen in a block of ice. There are rules, you know.”

She had not known, but she was learning. She served herself and ate, and her thoughts flickered like the candles before her. Before she was through eating she was stern and firm again, because she knew full well what was happening.

“You think you can buy me with your money,” she told him, as she spooned up the last mouthful of rode grod med flode. I am supposed to be impressed, grateful for all this, so grateful that I will let you do … what you want to do.”

“Not at all.”

He smiled, and his smile was sincerely charming. “I will not deny that there are girls that can be bought with trinkets and meals, but not you. All this, as you so charmingly put it, is here merely for our pleasure while I am determining what your excuse will be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. In simpler cultures lovers clasp to one another in mutual agreement, no aggressor, no loser. We have lost this simplicity and substituted for it a ritualized game. It is called seduction. Women are seduced by men, therefore remain pure. When in reality they have both enjoyed the union of love, mankind’s greatest glory and pleasure, and the word seduction is just the excuse the women use to permit it. Every woman has some hidden excuse that she calls seduction, and the artifice of man is in finding that excuse.”

“Not I!”

“Yes, you. Yours is not one of the common ones. You will not seek the simple excuse of excessive drink, rough force, simple gratitude or anything so plebeian. But we shall find it; before dawn we will know.”

“I’ll hear no more,” she said, dropping her spoon and standing. “I wish to leave for the theater now.”

Once out of this place she knew she would be safe; she would not return.

“By all means, permit me,” he held out his arm and she took it. They walked toward the far wall, which lifted silently to reveal a theater within which there were just two seats. “I have hired the entire Yugoslavian company for the evening; they are waiting to begin.

Speechless she sat, and by the end of the performance her mind was still as unsettled as when she had come in. As they applauded she waited, tensely, for him to make his move, so tightly wound that she started visibly when he took her hand.

“You must not,” he said, “be afraid of me or of violence. That is not for you, my darling. For you, for us now there is a glass of simple cognac while we discuss the delightful Serbo-Croatian performance that we have just seen.”

They exited through the only door, which led now to a brocaded room where a Hungarian violinist played gypsy airs. As they seated themselves at the table a tailcoated waiter appeared carrying a bottle on a plush cushion. He placed it, with immense care, upon the center of the table.

“I trust no one but myself to open a bottle like this: the corks are fragile as dust,” Ron said, then added, “I imagine that you have never tasted Napoleon brandy before?”

“If it’s from California I have,” she told him, with all sincerity. He closed his eyes.

“No,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “it is not from the State of California, but comes from France, the land of the mother of wines. Distilled, bottled and laid gently down during the short but glorious reign of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte…”

“But that must be hundreds and hundreds of years ago?”

“Precisely. Each year this emperor of cognacs grows a little, grows more scarce as well. I have men working for me whose only occupation is to scour the world for more, to pay any price. I will not profane a conversation about beauty by mentioning what was paid for this one. You must judge for yourself if it was worth it.”

As he talked he had been working delicately and skillfully to remove the cork without damaging it. With a faint gasping sound it at last slid free and was placed reverently on a napkin. Into each round-bellied snifter he then poured but a golden half inch and gave one to her.

“Breathe in the bouquet first, before you take the smallest sip,” he told her, and she obeyed.

A hush fell on the room as they touched the glasses to their lips and she raised her face in awe, tears in eyes, saying, “Why … it’s, it’s ….”

“I know,” he said with a whisper, and as he leaned forward the dim lights darkened even more and the fiddler slipped from sight. His lips brushed the white, bare flesh of her shoulder, kissed it, then moved to her throat.

“Ohh,” she gasped, and raised her hand to caress his head. “No!” she said even louder, and pulled away.

“Very close,” he smiled, leaning back in his chair. “Very close indeed. You are a creature of ardent passions; we have but to find the key.”

“Never,” she said finally, and he laughed.

As they finished their brandy the lights grew brighter and, unnoticed, a silvery blade flashed from the leg of her chair, nicked the hem of her skirt, then vanished. Ron took her hand, and when she rose the dress began to unravel and a rain of golden particles fell to the floor.

“My dress,” she gasped as she clutched at the disintegrating edge. “What’s happening to it?”

“It is going,” he said, then seated himself again so he could look on in comfort.

Faster and faster the process went and she could not stop it until, within moments, the dress was gone and, like heaped bullion, a golden mound rested about her feet.

“Black lace against white flesh,’ he said, smiling approval. “You did that just for me. With sweet pink ribbons for your stockings.”

“This is crude and rude of you and I hate you. Give me back my clothes,” she said fiercely, fists clenched at her sides, too proud to attempt to cover her wispy undergarments with her hands.

“Bravo. You are a redhead of temperament and I have to admire you. Through that door you will find a dressing room and bathing costume, for we shall swim.”

“I don’t want …” she said, but to no avail for the floor moved and carried her through the door into a discreet and elegant boudoir where a black-and-white-garbed French maid was waiting. The maid had an elegantly simple, one-piece white bathing suit on her arm, and she smiled as padded arms gripped Beatrice and flashing devices stripped her remaining clothes from her in an instant.

“Do not fret zee pretty head, mademoiselle,” the maid said, holding out the suit. “They were of no value and zee replacements you shall treasure for years, if you please.”

“I’ve been rushed, but I have no choice. None of this will do him any good,” Beatrice said, then tried to pull away as sudden clamps seized her again and something small and cold and solid was inserted into each of her delicate nostrils.

“How wonderful is the modern science,” the maid said as she patted away the last wrinkle on the skintight suit, which fitted to perfection. “Remember to breathe only through your nose and it will be like fresh breezes. Au revoir-et bonne chance.”

Before Beatrice could protest or her raised hand could touch her nose the floor opened and she fell through into the water. She kept her mouth closed and sank under its luminescent surface and found she could breathe as easily as she had always done. The sensation was wonderful, or novel to say the least. There was music, carried to her ears clearly by the conducting water, white sand glinting below. She dived and turned and would have laughed aloud, if she were able, her lovely red hair streaming behind her.

Ron swam up, handsome and tanned in a pair of white trunks to match her suit, and smiled charmingly — then twisted under and tickled her foot. She turned, smiling too, and darted away, but he followed and they did a breathless dance of three dimensions through the crystal water, around and about, free, unhampered, happy.

Deliciously tired, she floated, suspended, her eyes closed, and felt his arms against her back and the entire strong length of his body against hers and his lips on hers and hers answering ….

“No …” she said aloud, and a great bubble arose from her mouth. Her fingers tore at her nostrils and there was a sudden, brief pain as the devices were pulled free and fell, twinkling down from her hand. “I would rather die first,” she said with the last of her air.

With a gurgling woosh the pool emptied and they sat on the damp sand below. “Woman of will,” Ron said, handing her an acre-sized white towel, “I do love you. Now we shall dance, a gavotte; you will enjoy that. There is a string quartet and we will wear the costume of the proper time, you gorgeous in high white wig and low, wide decolletage ….”

“No. I’m going home.” She shivered and wrapped the towel tighter about her body.

“Of course. Dancing would be too commonplace for you. Instead we will ….”

“No. My clothes. I’m going. You cannot stop me.”

He bowed, graceful as always, and gestured her toward a door that had opened in the wall. “Dress yourself; I said violence was not for you. Violence is not your excuse.”

“I h-have no excuse,” she said through chattering teeth, and wondered why she shivered since she was so warm.

The little maid was waiting and stripped her down and dried her while a miraculous machine did her hair in seconds, though, in all truth, Beatrice was not aware of this, or even aware of being unaware, as her thoughts darted and spun like maddened butterflies. Only when the maid offered her a dress did she order her thoughts, push it away, push aside the closets of awe-inspiring garments, all her size, to find a simple black suit buried in the back. It had a curve-hugging and breathless simplicity, but it was the best she could do. Powdered, manicured, made up, she had no awareness of it or of the passing of time until, born anew, she stood before him in a chaste and oak-paneled room.

“A last drink,” he said, nodding at the Napoleon brandy on the table.

“I’m going,” she shouted, because for some reason she wanted to stay. Hurling herself past him she tore open the door on the far wall and slammed it behind her. A stairway stretched up and down and she ran down it, flight after flight, gasping for breath, until she could run no more. For a moment she rested against the wall, then straightened and touched her hair, opened the door and stepped through into the same room she had left high above.

“A last drink,” he said, lifting the bottle.

Speechless this time, she ran, closed the door, climbed upwards, higher, until her strength was gone and the stairs ended with a dusty fire door leading to the roof. Opening it she threw herself through into the same room she had left far below.

“A last drink,” he said, decanting the golden drops, then glancing up to notice how her eyes flew to the other doors around the room. “All doors, all halls, all stairs, lead back here,” he said, not unkindly. “You must have this drink. Sit. Rest. Drink. A toast. Here’s to love, my darling.”

Exhausted, she held the glass in both hands, warming it with the heat of her body, then drank. It was heavenly and his face was close beside hers and his lips were whistling in her ear.

“Would you believe,” the hushed sibilants sounded, “would you believe that this brandy contains a drug that destroys your will to say no? Resistance is useless, you are mine.”

“No, no …” her lips said, while her arms said yes, yes, and pulled her to him. No, no, never, never, and darkness descended.

“Drugs, mind-destroying drugs,” she said later, in the warm darkness, their fingertips just touching, cool sheets against her back, her voice a little smug and satisfied. “There was no other way, drugs against my will.”

“Do you believe,” his shocked voice answered, “that I would put anything at all in that brandy? Of course not, my darling. We have just found your excuse, that is all.”