<div class="floatleft">(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KyOmp4K99VY/TNmFHZlBjLI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/In9VLEoW5RY/s1600/pillar.jpg)</div><strong>MS. DEMALURE,</strong>you have also recently arrived from NEW YORK CITY and find yourself, once again, in jolly England.  The trip from the west had its unpleasantries.  It turns out that you are not well-suited for sea voyages, which was something you first discovered on your way to America.  Then, as a woman of your beauty and caliber, traveling alone came with its own complications.  Men of all walks of life had repeatedly accosted you throughout your voyage, wanting your attentions, wanting you. Travelers and crew members alike befouled themselves before you, at the very least staring at you for long moments, and at the very worst, exposing themselves to you.  At the very edge of your vision, you sometimes saw men stroking themselves, masturbating at the sight of you, sometimes beneath their clothes, sometimes with their turgid penises jutting out of their zippers.  You had lived this long with men wanting you, but the<em>Majestic,</em>despite its size, still felt like a cage from which you could not flee fast enough.<br/><br/>But, worst of all, were the nightmares.<br/><br/>The same nightmare, really.<br/><br/>Each night, as you fell asleep in your cabin, you awoke upon a fleshy island.  The island was no bigger than an English flat, and it was slippery and blubbery and awful.  You couldn't stand.  Each time you tried, you fell.  And each time you fell, you emerged from your fevered dreams to find that no time had passed.  You could only slither in your dream, like a worm.  Like a snake.  But there was nothing on this island except a lone onyx monolith at the very center.  In your dream, you wanted to move towards it, but you, the real you, knew that under no circumstances should you get near it.  You knew that this monolith, like the one that looms over ancient Egyptian squares, was dangerous.  But try as you might to sway your dream counterpart, you could not stop her from inching closer and closer, like a subservient eel, towards that giant monolith, which loomed like the erection over the stomach of a monster.<br/><br/>The touch of the monolith burned.<br/><br/>You had so little sleep throughout the last five days that sometimes you felt like you were dreaming when you were awake.  Reality had lost its cohesion.  You were sometimes surprised by your surroundings.  Just now, you found yourself standing at the inspection point, searching in your purse for your passport.  Where was it?  Panic set in.  But you didn't have to panic, because the passport was in your hand.<br/><br/>"... Is everything all right?" the inspector inquired, his eyes filled with concern.  But it wasn't really concern.  When it came to you, men only cared about one thing, really.<br/><br/>Dr. Brockman is standing nearby.  Of course, you do not know his name.  Or rather, if you did know his name, you cannot associate it with his face.  But he does seem familiar to you.  You seem to recall that you do know him somehow.  But from where and when?