Obviously, gifted old crones, blind and arthritic, with only the magic in their fingers to keep them alive, had culled from worms at the peak of their evolutionary destiny the special silk to weave the dress, had caught her as she slipped from the womb in it, guided her through the growing years along a curriculum of culture and class, until she was exactly the right breathtaking figure to wear this impossibly perfect fitting dress, a dress impossible to merely don, off the shoulders, down her shape and hugging her like a skin, not a second skin but an original red black skin, slit up the thigh, oh my lord and all the angels that thigh, Mary Joseph and Saint Peter save me from that thigh, that thigh that drove men to fell nations and gnash their teeth and question how a merciful God could place before the eyes of his creation such ungraspable perfection, cruel tortuous perfection, that luscious succulent thigh.

Did I say shoulder? I beg your pardon, that shoulder, supporting a cascade of hair, a rich chocolate chocolate-fall of almost curly hair, like a warm breeze or a good reason to go on breathing, the kind of hair that smells like perfume and shampoo and cigarettes that smell good and chocolate and innocence and fire and safety and danger, falling over that shoulder, I do humbly beg your gracious pardon, that creamy white glowing perfect flawless chiseled from milk and marble the likes of which no lips can call themselves having fulfilled the destiny of their existence until they have kissed shoulder.

Eyes. Damn your soul to hell if you can defy God's infinite omnipotence and adequately describe those eyes.

Again, the dress: in this light it was red, the blood of passion, the color of lust, the red of rivers that Moses foretold would flood the streets of Egypt to defy the will of Pharaohs and thwart the sin of sinners, the color of stop lights, stop signs, harsh warnings of forbidden entry, the kind that men must defy to define themselves through deviance. And now in this light it was black, the depthless abyss of forever lost; the black of her dress stole all the light of the room and banished it until all eyes saw nothingness and despair in the effort of not gazing upon the beautiful she in that dress. Back and forth the dress shifted from red to black and red again as she moved, luxurious hips to negotiate the lifting of the brandy snifter, the lighting of the skinny cigarette, the tossing back of the hair, stopping all hearts in the room and starting them again and stopping them again and starting and stopping and. and.

The oak in the bar cost several billion dollars. The leather around it was cured by ancient masters and cost many billion dollars. The brandy snifters were hand blown and cut by the Gods and cost a large billion of dollars. The brandy was aged in the bellies of tigers and decanted from pure diamond and cost, per throat-caressing swallow, billions of billion of dollars. She stood at the bar perfectly.

Inevitably, inexorable, inescapably, a man approached. Handsome, witty, charming, abdominals rippling beneath cumberbun, chest hair sculpted beneath bow tie, Roman nose over nostrils flaring on face beneath thousand dollar haircut. An abomination on God's earth, a vile and evil and scum dripping imp. Chiseled chin, diamond rings on manly man hands, broad shoulders, tight buns. A disgusting harbinger of disease and all things scabby. Gorgeous man, beautiful man, heart-palpitating man. Dog, catamount, ogre.

"May I buy you a drink, miss.?" he said, voice melodious, tenor deep, diction engaging. Miscreant.

"Ogg." she said. Armies swooned. Planets fell from the sky. A thousand million trillion angels wept. She placed the skinny tip of her mile-long cigarette between those unutterably fantastic lips, the stuff of fantasy, inhaled a bosomful of smoke, and exhaled a delicious sweet Georgia tobacco and Arabian cloves cloud into the air, forming a sensuous light shaping halo about herself. "Kath; Ogg."

The man smiled. Perfect white teeth. Platonic, perfect, white, straight, strong, teeth. Foul incisors of Satan. He turned to the bartender. "A Tom Collins for the lady."

She turned to look at him, raising one eyebrow. Across the room a large person saw the arch. The large person was dressed in a white tuxedo. The large person swept aside cars, trains, battleships to cross the room. The large person peered down from a great height at the man. The large person's black skin was the deep milky brown of contented power and assured strength, the very color of strength. The large person spoke.

"Boy, you gonna die like Kenny."

The man blanched, and the large person picked him up with one hand, smashing him into a tiny ball with the other, and threw him into a nearby garbage can. Elephant's foot garbage can. One billion dollars.

Kath Ogg sipped brandy. The world went back to revolving around her. No one escaped.