Mark wasn't exactly thinking. In the autobiography running in his head, he thought, I just lost my temper. Like a chief executive who makes sure not to ask too many questions about the actions of the mercenaries he hired, Mark kept himself ignorant of the internal howl of how dare you?

Complex social calculations clicked through the brain of the sapiens. Mark was older, larger, more virile, higher-status than Mr. Grumbles. Mark was in a dangerous situation, and this hunched little weirdo was making it worse. Mr. Grumbles wasn't obeying. Disobedience required punishment.

The human shoulder is anatomically interesting. The ancestors of both Mark and Mr. Grumbles used their arms mostly for locomotion. A ball-and-socket joint with a wide range of motion allows an ape to swing itself like a pendulum, supported by its arm. When early hominins walked upright, this motion was turned upside down, with the body rocking back and forth atop the legs and the arms swinging to help balance.

A swinging arm turned out to be useful in other ways. A branch turned from a highway into a hammer, brought up and down with force by the hand. If let go at precisely the right point in the arc, a grasped object became a thrown object. A weapon.

Mark's phone bleeped as his fingers squeezed it.

Mark looked down at the hard little device in his hand. He wanted so much to hurl it at Mr. Grumbles. Instead, he reached up with his other hand and slapped his own face, as hard as he could. It wasn't as hard as he'd wanted to hit Mr. Grumbles, but it jerked his mind out of its rage.

Mr. Grumbles cried louder. Louder! Pictures flashed through Mark's imagination: putting his hands over the thing's mouth, around its throat. No, a pillow. He would say it tried to attack him. His face hurt.

The door blooped. Both creatures looked up, wild-eyed. Neither was capable of seeing the humor in the situation.

The door chimed again and Mark's upper lip rose to expose his canines. If someone knew what he'd done, he'd have to kill them. But what if the cameras had started working again? The little shit was still sniveling on the floor!

Mark reached up and gave himself another slap. His obedience training worked on himself, at least for now.

He dropped the end of the sheet, which flopped to the floor and slurped around the corner of the couch, and strode to the door. That must be Laura, back from her special dinner. Fine. Let her be special. Let her take care of this mess.

The door popped open, pushed by a slender, long-nailed hand.

"What," said Severo, "are you doing?"

Mark licked his lips and rubbed his hands down his stinging face.

She was wearing black yoga pants and another cashmere sweater. "Svelte" was the word that came to Mark. Like a cheetah. Tearing his eyes away from her hips, he finally noticed she was holding a can of whipped cream and a bowl. In the bowl was a small amount of crushed, white powder.

Mark breathed out, immediately suspicious. "What is that? Is that what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is? Cocaine? MSG? Enough crushed sleeping pills to kill a little man-ape? But how would I convince Dr. Kaliannan to give me so much? Think, Gato."

Mark rubbed his face again. What should he do? The answer should be obvious, but it kept not coming to him. Think, he commanded himself. Work for me you disgusting sack of meat! But how could he think Severo here and all that whining going on behind him?

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Mark looked around and saw Mr. Grumbles standing right behind him.

Both apes flinched from each other.

"Mr. Grumbles," said Severo, eyes half-lidded, smiling as if greeting an international spy.

"Ooh!" said Mr. Grumbles. "Huh huh." The steed shuddered and grinned and held out his hands to the woman, pleading.

Mark wanted to hit him again. Instead clenched his teeth, released them, and said, "You wouldn't do anything to put Mr. Grumbles in danger. Would you?"

"Of course the safety of our pet is my highest priority." She sashayed past him. "This is why I am here…"

Mark's eyes narrowed. Was she implying that Mr. Grumbles needed her protection from him? Because Mark was such a savage animal? His hands trembled with adrenaline reaction.

"…and this is why I have a brought a dose large enough only to put the creature to sleep until our friends come back from their party."

What do we do until then? The line almost escaped Mark's mouth before he frowned and stopped himself.

She gave him an amused look.

Mark fought for control. What was going on here? What was Severo's game?

"Oh, Mark! You're so frustrating! You're like…" She made rolling motions with her hands. The bowl and the can described small circles in the air. "What are you like? You're like a sad cat."

Mark blinked. "A what?"

"Yes. A sad cat. You torture mice but you don't even enjoy it."

Mr. Grumbles huddled in the shadow of his couch, wrapped in a stinking sheet. He was eating mashed Oreos off the floor, but he stopped and looked up as Severo approached. She blew him a kiss over the top of the can of whipped cream and he said "Huh?"

"Why not enjoy yourself?" Severo was still facing the erectus, but Mark decided she must be addressing him.

"This might be a game to you, but not me." His defenses had been given enough time to activate.

Severo smirked at him, hand pressed over her clavicles. "You missed my heart. Want to try again?"

Mark's face went red. If Severo was his enemy, she had to be neutralized immediately. Mark scrambled for weapons to use against her, but his brain utterly failed to deliver. What was her weakness? What?

"Mark," she said. "You take things too personally. Why? You should know better than anyone that everything is a lie. You lied to get here, and you lied to stay here. Now you lie in order to get out. At least you can stop lying to yourself."

Mark shook his head, frowning, and pointed upward, but Severo shook her finger at him.

"Don't hide behind the surveillance. If you don't mind the footage of you chasing a piss-stained stolen ape around your bedroom, you shouldn't care about the footage of you admitting that you are…" She lifted and spread her can of whipped cream and bowl of crushed sleeping pill. The gesture communicated ironic amusement, and also pulled her shirt tight across her chest. "…that you are politician? A man? You should admit these things to yourself."

Mark was reminded of mix Sty. Of dealing with any nonhuman. The difference was though that here with Severo, he wanted to lose. "Tell me why I should admit anything," he said. "Why should I, if everything is a lie and nothing matters?"

"Pft," she said. "That isn't what I want to hear. Don't try to wriggle out of this, Gato."

Mark's eyes darted. What did she want to hear? "I should enjoy myself?"

"I demand it." She stepped toward him. With iron will, Mark did not back up.

"You demand that I have fun."

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll try." He leaned forward.

She leaned back. "Try harder."

Mark reached for her wrists.