Titans of Chaos

Well, perhaps I was more carefree than a woman of proper decorum dares to be, because if thegentleman in question becomes too forward or insistent, you can reach out into the fourthdimension, find his governing monad, and jar it to bring his mind-body duality momentarily out ofalignment. It might take only a moment for the human brain to recover from the dizziness,blindness, numbness, but in that moment, you can step half an inch sideways into a direction hecannot see.

You might laugh if I said I often had the sensation of being watched, since a nubile girl frolickingalong the beach wearing a mere wisp or two of skintight fabric, making eyes at the passing men,must surely expect to be watched. But this was different from the innocent hungers and lusts ofmortal men; I would imagine cold eyes staring at me, puzzled but patient.

It was a terrible life, the way I lived for that week, as lonely as my time chained in the jail hadbeen, despite that there were crowds around me. But it was not without certain compensations,certain gratifications. It was warm.

Warm days yield to warm nights, and you can shed your last scrap of clothing then, and spendlingering hours luxuriating in a near-to-scalding bathtub high in your private room, with all thehuge wide windows open to the scent and sound of the sea, the soft, eternal crash and murmur ofthe waves. The freezing rains and fogs of Southern Wales seem no more than unhappy dreams.

The bathroom in my suite was a palace in miniature: The tub was deep and wide, and the rim waspaved all around with a marble so brown that it seemed gold. The steam trickled and playedacross the mirrors and fixtures of the bathroom, and the shining expanse of the cut-glass doorsgleamed like a snowfield.

With those doors open, I could see, across what seemed an acre of carpet and polished wood, thebalcony doors of the suite, the wide windows, the moon and summer stars. Beneath the moon, thesands of the beach were as pale as ice; the sea was a shimmering tiger, striped with the reflectionsof harbor lights, and the noise of the sea waves from the dark waters was like its tiger-breathing,soft and huge.

And bubbles. Lots of scented bubbles. Bath oil. The water was warm enough to gather beads ofsweat across my nose and brow, and little breaths of steam from the waters tickled my neck, andmy toes (which were resting on the huge ivory knobs of the spigots).