Just when I was about to yield to my fears and retreat to the ground floor, the stairs ended. The apartment I was looking for was right across the hall from where I stood, so I had little choice but to proceed. Raising my hand, I knocked gently, afraid that anything more violent might trigger a catastrophic chain reaction.
“Come in! It’s open!”
Summoning my courage, I let myself in.
The place was both tiny and jammed with clutter. I had the impression one could reach out one’s arms and touch the opposing walls simultaneously. In fact, I had to fight against the impulse to do exactly that, as the walls and their contents appeared to be on the brink of caving in. I think it was then I discovered that I was mildly claustrophobic.
“So you’re a friend of that no-account Aahzmandius. I knew he’d come to no good, but I never dreamed he’d sink so low as to hang around with a Klahd.” This last was uttered by what had to be Aahz’s mother. . . it had to be because she was the only person in the room besides myself! My eye had passed over her at first, she was so much a part of the apartment, but once she drew my attention, she seemed to dominate the entire environ . . . if not the whole dimension.
Remember when I said that Pookie was one of two types of females I had noted on Perv? Well, Aahz’s mother was the other type. While Pookie was sleek and muscular in an almost serpentine way, the figure before me resembled nothing so much as a huge toad . . . a green, scaly, reptilian toad. (I have since had it pointed out to me that toads are amphibians and not reptiles, but at the time that’s what she made me think of.)