He waited. They didn't take the hint. To them it was no hint at all. He knew they weren't going away. He knew that no matter what he said or did, they wouldn't go away. That was the thing he understood, incredible as it was, he knew now that no matter what he said or did, they wouldn't go away.

They only understood that he was somehow ill. He knew that too. They were right, so he was wrong. They thought they were doing what was best for him. That was obvious. It was all over their faces and actions. If they had any idea how he felt, they still considered his feelings only symptoms of some kind, and they seemed confident that Kane would soon be all right.

But his being all right had nothing to do with their going away.

Kane decided not to give way, not to scream or anything absurd like that. It wouldn't do any good. Calm, be calm and—well maybe just try pretending they're not there at all.

Then he remembered the bathroom and ran through several chairs, a table, and three people, and into the bathroom. He slammed the door and leaned against it and let out a long relieved breath.

He was taking off his shorts when the bathroom walls and the ceiling came alive.

What had been labeled "Boy's Room" down in the cocktail lounge was being projected into the bathroom of room 2004.

It wasn't false modesty that prompted Kane's moan. It wasn't any form of prudishness that moved Kane to clutch his undershorts to his body and leap into the shower stall.

It was a panicky realization of the absolutely involuntary nature of the way things were. Strangers, with friendly smiles, everywhere around him all the time, and he, Larry Kane, had nothing—absolutely nothing to say about it.

The shower stall with the pulled curtain was no refuge either. There was a superimposed sink in there on the wall with a phantom shape using an electric razor.

Phil and Ben were leaning through the shower curtain. They weren't there for anything specific. They were just there, chatting, smiling, bantering.

Others came in and out of the "Boy's Room" of the cocktail lounge. Everyone said hello, or directed some sort of friendly comment casually at Kane as though superimposed washrooms were the quintessence of social normalcy. And, Kane thought pushing hard at panic, they probably were.

 Prev. P 16/32 next