She was bare naked, standing in front of the full-length mirror, angled so that I could see part of her for real and the rest of her as a reflection. I stood there without a sound, paralyzed, looking at those two rose-colored Bernadette's and wondering if it was all just a crazy dream. Only it wasn't, of course, and I didn't have to pinch myself to remember lying in bed and waiting for my father to fall asleep and start snoring. Besides, what dream could present such a strange sight, what kind of dream could make my eyes bulge like this?

I saw her big bare bottom and her big bare breasts, round and swollen and sexier than any picture in a book. It turned me all warm and shaky inside, that nice itchy-quivery feeling, and I had an urge to touch myself, to scratch the itch, the deep-down-inside place where it itched the most. And then her hands moved a little and I saw what she was doing with them – just a little, not much, just enough to prod my mind wide-awake and bring back memories of both books. It came in bits and pieces, the words, the pictures, all that storybook stuff; could it really be real?

Even my schoolbooks weren't about real life. Geography books were full of faraway names and places, never Springfield or Chelsea Hill or Oakwood Street. Never anyplace deep down inside. The same went for history books, all about things that happened long ago and far away. Like a lady named Betsy Ross who sewed the American flag. Never about old Mrs. Yates, the lady who sold dresses and did alterations in her shop next to the supermarket. And as for storybooks, well, Dick and Jane and their dog Spot weren't any more real than Hansel and Gretel and the wicked old witch running a gingerbread bakery in the middle of the forest. And now all of a sudden I was seeing storybook stuff come alive! I was even an important part of it – me, little Loi Morlock – standing there and watching our maid Bernadette frig herself…