"They're skinny," Toffee said, thoughtfully taking stock, "and hairy. They look like a couple of twisted pipe cleaners ... dirty pipe cleaners. They also turn the stomach and wither the soul."
"That's enough!" Marc yelled reddening. "Hereafter, I'll thank you to leave my pipe clean ... my legs out of this. Just try to forget that I even have legs at all."
"Gladly," was the obliging reply. "I'll just pretend to myself that you're staggering about on hooks."
Blanching, Marc strove to restore his sense of dignity. He drew himself up to his full height, some six feet, two inches, and started regally up the stairs. With the gun still in his hand, he looked like a noble suicider. "I'll return," he said frigidly, "after I've put on some trousers." Then he stopped and regarded Toffee's transparent tunic with slow deliberation. "And while we're on the subject," he added quietly. "You might just try to do something about your own nakedness. It's revolting!"
Marc pulled on a discreetly colorful sport jacket and glanced at himself in the mirror. With the exception of a worried expression, everything he wore was in neat, conservative good taste. He sighed, left the room.
Downstairs, he crossed the reception hall, careful to give the closet a wide berth, and made his way into the darkened living room. He felt his way to a floor lamp and turned it on. Immediately, a bright circle of light spread over the thick carpet like ink through a blotter. Noting this common phenomenon without interest, he turned away, then stopped as the door at the opposite end of the room opened. Toffee, resplendent in a cunning arrangement of the dining room drapes, moved sinuously into the room with all the unconscious grace of a stalking panther.
The drapes, a bold flowery design on a background of white, had been fashioned into a bare midriff evening gown of truly provocative design. The two parts, obviously disdainful of each other, contrived to leave a maximum of midriff, while doing little or nothing toward covering their assigned portions. The skirt was widely split at one side, exposing an exquisite leg, like a diamond in a show case. Toffee's nod to decency had been most perfunctory indeed.
"Like it?" she asked, smiling radiantly. "You'd never dream that it used to cover windows, would you?"
"I'd never dream it ever covered anything," Marc replied amazedly. "And if it ever had any ambitions along those lines, they're certainly shot now."