As his vision dimmed, he looked down again at the scene on his bed. Was is it only the confusion of his consciousness as it flickered and disappeared, or had the woman changed? He felt stupid and sleepy, like a child woken after a long trip, but it seemed that she was laughing rather than weeping, grinning rather than grimacing, beating his chest in triumph rather than desperation. He could no longer trust his vision, but she appeared no longer to be the young and beautiful woman he had slept with.
She was now ugly and old, her body withered and parched. In these final moments, she seemed to look up at him. Her sunken eyes were red, her cheeks were sagging hollows, her mouth was a gaping hole, her long teeth were yellow streaked with black. What sort of hellish creature had he taken to be
