George blinked. The lovely creature was gone.
He had not been aware of the fact that the trolley had stopped. Now a
policeman stood in the aisle next to him.
"How'd you do it, pal? Come on, how'd you do it? I saw the girl and
she was naked as Lady Godiva. Just try to explain your way out of this
one...."
"It was utterly indecent," the buxom woman said. "I was going to visit
my little grandchildren, but how can I after that? How can I?"
"That," George told her acidly, "is your problem."
"A wise guy, too, eh?" The officer was belligerent.
"It's not too difficult to explain, officer. Something like hypnotism.
Something very much like it. It's called psychokinesis, I think."
"Psychokinesis, psychoshminesis. You just come on down with me and
explain it to the sergeant."
George went with him and he explained it to the sergeant, but it did
no good. The sergeant listened and then his face got very red. He had
a thick neck and his uniform collar was too tight for it, and his neck
got all red, too. He told George he could cool off his mental powers in
jail overnight and pay a twenty-five dollar fine.
... They gave George breakfast early in the morning. It wasn't very
good, but he was hungry and he ate all of it. Then he hurried out of
his cell and left the stationhouse. The whole cell was filled with
little red frogs, and he could hear the patrolmen bellowing as he
left, but he hurried down the stairs and flagged a taxi.
* * * * *
He tried to relax in the apartment, but it was no good. He thought of
the girl who had materialized in his lap, and he knew she was Narka. He
wished she would come back because he wanted to see what would happen
when she met Arl. And there were other reasons, too. He wondered if
she would be wearing clothing. And the next thought, of course, was a
logical one: what kind of clothing would a fourth dimensional queen
wear?
At ten the doorbell rang.
He opened the door, and Myra came in. Behind her was Arl, and George
had never seen anyone so frightened as Arl looked.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" George demanded.
"Nothing--yet. I just read in the newspaper about you and the naked
girl in your lap--mass hypnotism, the report said. But we both know it
wasn't. It was Narka. Where is she?"
George said not to worry because she had gone back to the world
of the red frogs, and then Myra grabbed his shoulder and spun him
around sharply. She often did that when she was angry and wanted his
attention, and George had never done anything about it. He didn't do
anything this time, either. He just looked at her, and she removed her
hand from his shoulder. Her face was very white when she spoke.
"What was she doing in your lap, George?"
"What do you think she was doing?"
"That's what I'm asking you. Please, George. I'm sorry about yesterday.
I don't know what got into me. I never should have tried to hit you. A
wife has no business trying to hit her husband."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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