Cryptonomicon

So I went straight down to my local Gomer Bolstrood Home Gallery. I had heard people talk about Gomer Bolstrood furniture. Women, in particular, seemed to speak of it in hushed, religious tones. Their factory was said to be up in some New England town where they had been based for the last three hundred years. It was said that loose curls of walnut and oak from Gomer Bolstroods block plane had been used as tinder beneath the pyres of convicted witches. Gomer Bolstrood was the answer to a question I'd been ruminating over ever since Granny's funeral, namely: where does all of this high-quality grandma furniture come from? In every family, young people go to grandma's house for Thanksgiving, or other obligatory visits, and lust over the nice antique furniture, wondering which pieces they will take home when the old lady kicks the bucket. Some people lose patience and go to estate sales or antique stores and buy the stuff.

But if the supply of old, high-grade, heirloom-quality furniture is fixed, then where will the grannys of the future come from? I could see a situation, half a century in the future, when Virginia's and my descendants would all be squabbling over that one black walnut dresser, while bringing in Ryder trucks to haul the rest of our stuff straight to the dump. As the population grows, and the supply of old furniture remains constant, this kind of thing is inevitable. There must be a source for new granny-grade furniture, or else the Americans of tomorrow will all end up sitting in vinyl beanbag chairs, leaking little foam beads all over the floor.

The answer is Gomer Bolstrood, and the price is high. Each Gomer Bolstrood chair and table really ought to come in a little felt-lined box, like a piece of jewelry. But at the time, I was rich and impatient. So I drove to Gomer Bolstrood and stormed through the door, only to be brought up short by a receptionist.I felt tacky in my white tennis shoes and jeans. She had probably seen a lot of high-tech millionaires come through those doors, and took it pretty calmly. Before I knew it a middle-aged woman had emerged from the back of the store and appointed herself my personal design consultant. Her name was Margaret. "Where are the beds?" I asked. She stiffened and informed me that this not the kind of place where you could walk into a Bed Room and see a row of beds lined up like pig's feet at a butcher shop. A Gomer Bolstrood Home Design Gallery consists of a series of exquisitely decorated rooms, some of which happen to be bedrooms and to contain beds. Once we had that all straightened out. Margaret showed me the bedrooms. As she led me from one room to the next. I couldn't help noticing that she was wearing black stockings with seams up the back--perfectly straight seams.

My erotic feelings for Margaret made me uncomfortable. For a while, I had to restrain the impulse to say "just sell me the biggest, most expensive bed you have." Margaret showed me beds in different styles. The names of the styles meant nothing to me. Some looked modern and some looked old-fashioned. I pointed to a very large, high four-poster that looked like granny furniture and said. "I'll take one of those."

There was a three-month delay while the bed was hand-carved by New England craftsmen working at the same wage as plumbers or psychotherapists. Then it showed up at our house and was assembled by technicians in white coveralls, like the guys who work in semiconductor chip fabrication plants. Virginia came home from work. She was wearing a denim skirt, heavy wool socks, and Birkenstocks. The kids were still at school. We had sex on the bed. I performed dutifully enough, I suppose. I could not really sustain an erection and ended up with my head stuck between her bristly thighs. Even with my ears blocked by her quadriceps. I could hear her moaning and screaming. She went into erotic convulsions near the end, and almost snapped my neck. Her climax must have lasted for two or three full minutes. This was the moment when I first came to terms with the fact that Virginia could not achieve orgasm unless she was in close proximity to--preferably on top of--a piece of heirloom-grade furniture that she owned.

The window containing the image of Tom Howard's desktop vanishes. Pekka has clicked it into oblivion.

"I could not stand it any more," he says, in his electronically generated deadpan.

"I predict a ménageà trois--Tom,his wife, and Margaret doing it on a bed at the furniture store, after hours," Cantrell says ruminatively.

"Is it Tom? Or a fictional character of Tom's?" Pekka asks.

"Does this mean you win the bet?" Randy asks.

"If only I can figure out how to collect on it," Cantrell says.

Chapter 42 AFLOAT