"...Hawk, I am suddenly catapulted into a paranoid world where the walls not only have ears, but probably eyes and long, claw-tipped fingers. Anyone about me--yea, even very you--could turn out to be a spy. I suspect every sewer grating and second-story window conceals binoculars, a tommy gun, or worse. What I just can't figure out is how these insidious forces, ubiquitous and omnipresent though they be, induced you to lure me into this intricate and diabolical--"
-Samuel Delany, from Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (in Aye, and Gomorrah and Other Stories, p 239)

Fun story, with one of the best titles ever (almost as good as We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line).