The Fan-Shaped Destiny of William Seabrook Read Online Free

babbling my obsessions and delaying initiation of my agenda for too long. I considered leaving, calculating the
     price of drinks involved in hanging around for nothing. Even before then, I had been familiar with the convenient fantasy
     of the improbable pickup—a choice rationale for continuing to drink in bars.
    ————————
    B UT I KEPT ON SITTING THERE, watching her as she rode up the first long flight of the escalator. She turned slightly and looked back down at the bar, but
     the black eye mask hid her expression. Moving slowly away from me, as someone on the deck of a departing ship recedes from
     a lonely watcher on the shore, she held her clasped fingers to her lips in an attitude that looked like, well, like
longing.
On the second flight, she turned away and folded her arms about her middle, head lowered. I watched her until she was out
     of sight.
    Man, I grieved after she’d disappeared, that’s so desperate, it’s pathetic! I knew nothing whatsoever about her, whose room
     she was going to, or anything at all about her situation. I ordered another Scotch and moped further.
    I didn’t think I looked too bad for a half century, enough thinning hair to presentably wear long, tied back in the fashion
     of the courthouse lawyers I dealt with. I’d arrived at an all-purpose costume, sport jacket with collarless shirt and boots,
     which served for most meetings and after hours as well. My welltrimmed beard could pass muster for business in informal South
     Texas, and I fancied myself interesting, inclusive of mixing with younger people.
    Reviewing my conversation, around the panel and afterward, I was satisfied that I had come off exquisitely boring. And face
     it. Unless that young a girl has a proclivity for older men to begin with, nothing is going to be enough. Unless it’s a money
     deal, a thing I never had to rely on when younger and refused to do now, even on the rare occasions that I had it to spend.
     I thought about the blond boy and just couldn’t find the probabilities to see this thing other than as a blow-off.
    But I couldn’t bear to murder hope when I was startled to recognize her coming back down. It took a second because she’d lost
     the black eye mask, and her makeup generally seemed more conventional. You could hardly say her appearance was muted, though.
     She’d changed into one of those two-piece suit-things with padded shoulders, otherwise closely molded to her alluring little
     shape. Her skirt was very short, and bare legs had deliciously come into fashion that summer.
    On her left thigh, like a garter, she wore some sort of dark band. Her half-open jacket suggested that the heavy-looking silver
     chain she had coiled around her neck draped across her breasts inside it. The chain had a barbaric look, which complemented
     her silver bracelets and contrasted with the modern suit. All that, crowned with the pyrotechnic hair now brushed out and
     spilling in waves over her shoulders, turned out stunning. Heads began to turn while she was still a story and a half above.
    Blond Muscles, who was still waiting, scurried for her as she reached floor level. He appeared to comment uncertainly on her
     outfit, sickening me as always with those of my gender who are so fearfully insecure as to actively resist a woman looking
     her best. Her back to my view, her shape was further accentuated as she planted her high heels apart and gestured, palm upward,
     clearly explaining herself.
Oh babe,
I thought,
any male who doesn’t like
that
is due no explanation.
    They were far too distant for me to hear anything, yet I was glued to the tableau, chiefly to the curves of her ass and the
     fierce cut of her leg muscles. The back of her other hand lay, elbow crooked, against her hip, fingers spread to accentuate
     still another odd pose. Her posture was reminiscent of something that eluded me, and I wondered at her eclectic combination
     of mannerisms.
    She ceased gesturing and laid her hand