Unknown - The ape girl

Blair shook her head in disbelief. Why did something this good have to come along just when she had to leave town. Fate had a funny way of screwing you up just when you least expected it.

"Fraid so," she said, patting Cathy's mass of messed up hair.

"Well, we'll see you when you get back," she smiled, "at least I will."

Harold reached for her hand and said something nice to her. But Blair didn't hear much of it. Her father's voice came from far down the hall.

She grabbed her bathrobe and threw it around her and walked toward the door.

Her father was calling her. At least it sounded like he was.

She raced to his bedroom and opened the door. He was lying there, in the light of his reading lamp with dozens of books and papers spread across the bed. His usual nocturnal activity.

"Blair," he said, "I forgot. Dr. Divers and Owen are coming for brunch tomorrow. I have to give him some of my papers and Owen has agreed to house sit for us."

"I thought Mrs. Peachum was house-sitting for us."

Cathy leaned against the door and managed to stay in shadow. For some reason, she thought she might give away the fact that she had just stepped out of the throes of a hot little sex scene if she came any closer to his line of vision. Or his line of smell, for that matter.

"Mrs. Peachum's sister is ill. She called tonight and she can't make it. She has to go to St. Louis."

"Oh," the girl sighed.

"So, perhaps you want to get some shut-eye tonight after all. If you want to prepare yourself for ten o'clock with Owen and Dr. Divers, that is."

"Sure," she said, turning to go, "thanks."

"Oh, you don't have to tell your friends to go," the man said, calmly, a slight smile crossing his lips. "They can stay as long as they like. There's the spare bedroom…" Blair shook her head and clucked her tongue a bit. How had he figured it out? He was nowhere near her room. The man was clever, that must be it. Clever like an animal.

"You weren't peeking, were you, Dad?" she said, sticking her hands in her bathrobe pockets and regarding the elderly man.

"I don't peek, Blair," the man said, closing his books and stacking some of his papers on the night table, "but I have good ears, you know that."

She did, too. She had seen him on various expeditions. He had a keen ear for all kinds of animal sounds.

And human ones. She knew that now, if she never guessed it before. The man knew more than he let on. Much more.

"Just how much did you hear?" she said, shifting her weight back a bit and eyeing him curiously.

"How far back do you want to go?" the man said, snuggling down into the bed and winking slyly. "To an hour ago, or back to the jungles of Ceylon. Back to the time when you were just twelve years old and curious as a baby monkey. You want to go back that far… to you and that Ceylonese lad, what was his name… Guji?"

"Nothing much to say for an ocean," the lady with the green and grey headscarf on her reddish hair said to Blair as she leaned over the deck railing, "except that it's wet."

"And that there's a lot of it," Blair said back to her.

Her eyes drifted off to the endless watery horizon as the cool ocean breeze blew her loose hair around. It was about the only thing so far on this trip that she really liked. And, she had to admit that she would be glad to get to Africa and the dense, thick jungle, closed-in spaces had always been more of a favorite to her than wide-open ones anyway.

She had always felt so protected and loved whenever she was surrounded with jungle growth. Even in the forests of North America, there had been that same peace and comfort… tranquillity.

That was it. The ocean unnerved her, made her edgy with apprehension. But the jungle soothed and calmed her, mellowed her out. There was just no place else like it.

She thought back to her last evening at home. It had been fun with Cathy and Harold. She wondered if they were still seeing each other. Probably they were.

If only there had been a man around like Harold, the voyage might pass more quickly. She looked around at the men strolling on deck. There weren't many of them. None at least that she found interesting. All so tame and white and clean and sterile looking. Maybe they were all doctors or dentists. Most of them looked like they could be.

"Hello, Miss Fortner," a pleasant voice sounded from behind her back.

She turned around to see the captain standing in front of her, his hands stuck dapperly in the pockets of his uniform jacket. "Captain Rigby," she said, looking at the tall, slender model of ocean-going official dignity. He was every inch a captain of an ocean vessel.

Probably the type to go down with the ship, Blair thought as he stood there smiling pleasantly at her.

"You look a mite bored with all this," the captain said, gesturing to the breeze.

"Oh, no," Blair lied, "I mean, yes, a little."

"Be glad to get into port, I take it," he said, nodding his captain's head.

"Can't wait," she said, leaning against the railing and sensing the chill in the air.

"Perhaps I could help amuse you for a bit," the dapper man said.

Blair smiled at him patiently. He wasn't exactly her type, but maybe he didn't have the same thing in mind she had just then.

"Ever seen the boiler room of a ship?" he said, "It's quite interesting. Perhaps you'd like to."

"Oh," Blair said, anxious to please the man, but finding the thought a bit dull. What the hell would anyone want to go below deck and watch a furnace burning for?

"That's where most of the real action takes place," the man said, bowing his head a bit and then staring up at her. "Everything up here is a bit dull by comparison I suppose. Whenever I feet a bit spaced out from all this ocean and sky stuff, I take a peek below myself. Care to join me now?"

Blair stepped up and locked arms with that tall, stately captain. He reminded her a touch of her father, who was busy with his books and papers just now. Had been since coming aboard actually.

"All right," she said, agreeably nodding her head and treading along the deck next to Captain Rigby.

"Watch your footing here," the man said as they descended the ladder leading below deck.

It was considerably darker below. And Blair could distinctly hear the hum of the engines. It was warm down there, too. Already, she liked the closed-in, comfy feeling down there better than the spacious, unending nothingness she felt above.

A red hot glow appeared in the darkness just ahead of where they stood.

"What's that?" Blair said, staring straight ahead.

"The furnace room," the captain said, "we're a coal-powered vessel. The men down here have a rough job."

"They feed the furnace?" Blair said as the two approached the boiler room.

"They shovel coal round the clock to keep this thing going forward," the captain said. "A whole crew of them do. They're called the black gang."

"Black gang?" Blair said, as the echo of their footsteps filled the dark chamber.

"An old term for furnace-stokers," Captain Rigby nodded, "these men do yeomen duty down here, and few passengers ever realize it."

"It's another world down here," Blair said, shading her eyes from the glaring overhead red light to peer into the dimly-lit furnace room.

"Hello, Mack," Captain Rigby said to one of the men shoveling coal.

Blair noticed him, too. Big, beefy, incredibly muscled. And with a dark, sooty covering on his face.

"Captain!" the man nodded, and then, he turned to fill his shovel once more.

As the captain exchanged shop talk with the gang members, Blair watched them work. Here were some men, indeed. Not those lily-white glasses of milk strolling above deck, but real men.

Hard working, brutally-strong and silent types. Her types. The kind of men she had always felt the most strongly drawn to. The fierce, brave look of determination showing on their faces in the firelighted glow. What a scene! She almost wished she were a photographer or an artist to capture it.