Great Apes Read Online Free

subtlety; others propositioned her with chutzpah, their suit as obvious as a schlong slammed down on the zinc counter. Some men’s propositioning was so slight as to be peripheral, a seductive play of the minor parts, an invitation to touch cuticles, rub corns, hang nails. Other men’s propositioning was a Bayreuth production, complete with mechanical effects; great flats descending, garishly depicting their Taste, their Intellect, their Status. The men were like apes – she thought – attempting to impress her by waving and kicking things about in a display of mock potency.
    She sat, a small blonde eye to this storm of impersonality. A young woman who believed, when it suited her, in defying expectation. This evening she was dressed in a little black suit, little black toque, little black veil, black heels, black tights, cream silk blouse with long pointed collar. She shifted a little and sensed silken surfaces move around her, accommodating her in a sheeny embrasure. She felt very much present on the barstool. Beamed down to it, the molecules of her still fizzing, delighted to play a part in assuming her form.
    Perhaps, Sarah thought, it’s this that really whistles up the men, this call of the urbane. But she knew that more likely it was the feline physicality, the blonde kittenishness of her. Nose, fine-bridged, tipped up at the end to expose nostrils pink and veined, advertisements for less random access. Mouth narrow, but full-lipped, especially the bottom which would be described as pouting in a more flippant face. The chin vulpine, sharp, a chin for delving with. The eyes, violet, truly so, a startling colour for eyes to be, their points ofpale fire lustrous above cheekbones with a point. These features introduced a mineral cast to what would otherwise be an animal face. A mineral hint that would become an adamant certainty if she would only remove the toque, show the way her narrow forehead mounted to a widow’s peak.
    Women’s faces are all too often described as heart-shaped, but Sarah’s face wasn’t heartshaped, it was diamond-shaped, top triangle formed by peak and cheek, bottom by chin and cheek. And like a real diamond it was a face that contained faces, subsidiary countenances, depending on who was observing it.
    The choppy, force-six sociability of the Sealink Club whirled around the stool this jewel sat on and crashed against the bar itself, allowing time in the undertow between waves for Sarah to sip her cocktail, light her Camel Filter, swap remarks with Julius the barman, watch herself multiplied and bisected in the facets of the mirror-backed shelves.
    â€œSimon coming in?” asked Julius, pirouetting with a shaker, rattling the chunked concoction, pouring off the essence in a spiritous stream.
    â€œYeah, he’s been at some opening … I expect he’ll be here soon –” She broke off, a handsome young man was approaching the bar. He stared at Sarah, raked her pillbox hat with his gaze, and said to Julius, “Um.”
    â€œUm what? Umbongo?” the barman replied.
    â€œUm … err …” He was definitely flustered. Flustered in canvas trousers, something not quite right there, thought Sarah. Flustered and sweating under the high noon of his own good looks.
    â€œI’m not sure I know that one, sir, is it grenadine-based?” Before the young man could answer, Julius was gone, transporting his tall, lithe body to the other end of the bar in a kind of shuffle that made it appear as if he were atop a concealed conveyor belt.
    â€œHe’s … he’s very witty, isn’t he?” said the young man to Sarah. It was a proposition that for once wasn’t a proposition.
    â€œYes,” she sighed, “and wasted here, wasted. Wasting his life away, and he could have been a real contender, really, a contender.” She sighed again, shook her head dolefully, stirred her drink with her finger.
    â€œWhy’d