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money, and took off on a trip around the world. I made it as far as Egypt.'
    Aaron raised his head and for the first time seemed to be aware that there were others in the room, that the voices he had been hearing were something other than the embodiment of his inner drama. He felt a peculiar lightheadedness, a combination of his strange reactions to the earlier fucking, and the food, and the odd emanations which were coming from the circle he sat in. Conrad hit the first full rush of energy released from the mescaline, and his body tingled as though he had just plunged into an icy pool after a long steam bath. He was able to continue the conversation, but he felt that he and Aaron were two jet pilots in parallel planes talking to one another as they hurtled forward, faster than the speed of sound. Cynthia, for the first time, saw that she would very much like to have both of them in bed at the same time.
    'I went to see the Sphinx/ Aaron continued. As he spoke he went inward again, and Conrad shifted his gaze to Cynthia, who caught the full blow of his glance. They locked in on one another, and stared at the perfect nakedness of one another's being. It was an astral fucking, a revelation on the most exalted plane. The words that Aaron spoke fell into the space they all shared, and provided the framework within which all the other changes took place.
    It transfixed me. I had been doing things like whisking through the Parthenon in forty-five minutes, and the Sistine Chapel in fifteen. But for the first time, when I saw that sculpture, I stopped. I stayed for eight days and nights, not changing my clothes, not shaving, barely remembering to eat. In the day I was baked by the sun, and at night chilled by the stars. And that statue came to life! I could see it dancing and flying. I could see it being built, and was transported back in time to when the Pharaohs ruled. I remember wondering whether I might die and be buried right there at the foot of the Sphinx. It seemed to me then the most beautiful thing that could happen to me. I guess I was mad. I had lost all touch with the twentieth century, or rather, I realised that time was not relevant to what I was.' He frowned, struggling for the proper expression. T mean, I saw that all time was the same thing, no matter what shape it took. It was just time. And then there was eternity. And for a while I was exhilarated by what I took to be a great truth. I sat in the hot sand and glowed for it seemed to me that somehow I had solved all the problems that man has ever faced. And a peddler came up to me, and scrutinised me until I was forced to look him in the eyes, and he smiled, the most knowing insinuating smile I had ever seen, and I was forced to drop my gaze before him. And in a wheedling voice which for the first time I understand as sopping with mockery, he said, "Perhaps the good sir would like some fruit while he sits thinking about the nature of the world." And upon his saying it, my mouth began to water. I had to have some fruit. When he charged me an exorbitant price, I didn't care. I pressed money into his unwilling hands. I heard what sounded like a great whistling wind and when I looked up, the Sphinx was laughing, in great sand-sweeping gusts. "There may be a storm," he said. But when I looked past him, everyone else in the area was walking about at their usual pace, and the day was absolutely still. The man next to me stood up abruptly and walked off behind me without a word. And the next day I collapsed. I woke up in a small American hospital, was treated for exhaustion and dehydration, and dismissed. When I told the doctor about my experiences, he explained it quite simply as a period of prolonged psychotic hallucination brought about by my debilitated condition.'
    'What a load of shit,' Conrad said.
    'Well, how would you explain it?' Aaron asked.
    'Fuck explaining it,' Conrad replied. 'The real question is, did you learn anything from it? Did it expand your