Rachel was lying,
stomach-down, on her bed feeling restless. “Sixth murder reported
this week,” declared the ominous voice on the news program. “The
lawlessness of the sunless district continues to spiral out of
control. Not to mention, some unprofitables in the warehouse
district were spotted blasting loud discordant music while cleaning
out the lower stories of the Galore and More factory, with the
loading doors wide open. Informants say they were unresponsive to
instructions to correct this. In the interests of public safety, all
listeners are requested to take extreme caution and avoid venturing
away from clean, well-lighted, sufficiently upscale areas. Tracy's
and other quality, customer-forward, businesses have assured us they
will be hiring extra security so you can continue to shop there with
confidence. And now for our rad sponsor.” Rachel groped for the
remote and managed to shut off the annoying drone just as the
blast-off noise, betraying the start of yet another General Rush
commercial, started up.
She wanted to
read badly but Alice had eagerly requested a full day of training
and, especially after the emotional event at the gardens, Rachel
didn't have the heart to deny her. Now it was too late, the library
would be closing soon, and she was too tired. She wished she had a
book to read here in the brothel. But the kind of books she wanted
probably couldn't be purchased on Luther's
extremely restricted internet plan, even if she had been able to deal
with the up close and personal interaction with a computer that
trying to order a book would require. She would have to ask Susan
about ordering books. After all she was kind of the expert on it.
Rachel frowned. Correction, she would have had to ask Susan
about it if they had still been on speaking terms. Now that Susan
had wound up being half right about Dave, though she was still
clearly wrong about him wanting Rachel, it was even more imperative
to avoid her since, in the world of Rachel the Demon, there was no
more unforgivable crime then being right at Rachel's expense. In a
surge of exasperated energy, she rolled onto her back and stared at
the ceiling. Come on, she probably wasn't missing much as Susan was
just an idiot who only knew about sensuality novels and who wanted to
read those?
Maybe she should
go get a cup of calming tea to sooth her nerves, but just walking
over to the wall dispenser to order it felt like too much effort, let
alone going all the way down to the kitchen. Surely, the machine in
her bedroom could still be relied on to get a simple cup of tea
right, unless it had gone even further down the tubes. She had
finally dragged herself out of bed and was on her way over to the
dispenser by the door when she heard Grace yelling from downstairs.
"What? You again? You bastard. How many times do I
have to tell you, you cannot come in here without booking.
What kind of brothel do you think we’re running?"
"Not so
harsh, Grace, he's a good customer," she could hear someone else
say. As the argument went on, Rachel slipped out of the room and
made her way to the top of the stairs to hear better. Any kind of
scandal or conflict in the brothel was riveting since it broke the
boredom. Besides, if it involved Grace being upset, that was even
better.
“Customer? I
don't remember him making any arrangement to pay us today. Besides,
if he doesn't call ahead, how does he know if Rachel is even
here...or fit to receive clients?” Grace added in a scornful
undertone. “And, since he won't see anyone besides Rachel, we'd
just lose out on the money if that happened.” Rachel gasped and
clutched at the corner of the wall to keep from pitching forward down
the stairs. Apparently, Dave had arrived uninvited a second time and
Rachel was disgusted at the way her heart leaped over and over at the
thought of seeing him again so soon. But, regardless of her
feelings, she would have to see him, before Grace went insane and
permanently damaged something. She tried not to think about the fact
that this line of reasoning conveniently gave her an excuse to do
exactly what her weak heart wanted. Fortunately, the need to defuse
the situation as quickly as possible forced her to change into
outside clothes too fast to think much about what she was putting on
so she had no chance to second guess what she wanted him to see her
in.
"I had to
come to see if you were all right," Dave said when Rachel came
into the entry hall and, as her eyes met his, her stomach clenched
into a hard knot and she felt she was very much not all right, but
nodded assent nonetheless. "I'm glad. That's one reason I
didn't call ahead. I was afraid they would put you back in that room
again. Here, I brought you something." He held out his hands
and, cupped between them was a black rock, laced with veins of
silver.
"It's
beautiful," said Rachel, doing her best to ignore Grace
signaling furiously for her to move out of the entryway. "But I
could never take such a beautiful thing away from you."
"There are
so few people who appreciate true beauty," said Dave. "I
feel it's important to share the beauty I have with them."
Rachel understood that as she felt the same way about wanting to
share Alice's music. So, she reached out and took the rock. But, in
doing so, their hands met, which made Rachel blush and her flesh
tingle. "Can we sit down?" said Dave.
"But I don't
want to stay here," said Rachel, suddenly desperate, glancing
back at the growing group of girls squeezed into the doorway. Grace
was fuming, Laura smirking, and Mary and Beth whispering to each
other. “I can't be around these people now. They're always
watching me. Remember how they kept trying to interrupt us last
time?"
"All right,
my transport's outside. Come on, I'll take you to a park."
"That would
be very kind," said Rachel, "and much preferable. But
people in parks stare at me too sometimes."
"I know the
perfect place to go. Follow me." He reached out towards her,
not quite putting his hand on her shoulder and gestured for her to
come with him but as Rachel hesitated the merest second, confused by
her feelings, Grace stepped up and began some long monologue about
how Rachel wasn't giving out free samples today. “You can calm
down,” said Dave shortly. “Of course I'm going to pay you. How
could I not when I know you would take it out on Rachel and make it
even harder for me to see her? So, let's get this over then, shall
we?” He pulled out his money card and handed it over stiffly.
Grace flashed
Dave's money card at the computer screen, too impatient to use the
decorative card reader swipe track, and the machine beeped as it
began processing his information. “How many hours?” she asked,
almost defiantly.
“The entire
night,” he shot back just as grimly. “I don't want you to have
to feel rushed about anything,” he said much more gently to Rachel
and she could see Grace swell up with affront, possibly to cover the
panic she was almost certainly feeling. It was usually considered
improper for the girl in question to be involved in payment
negotiations, especially in person, and for a high class brothel it
was considered especially shameful, though, like the money card
issue, this was officially for the protection of the man, so she
couldn't try to entice him into buying more hours or paying for
extras or something like that. Not that this really helped much
since girls could, and frequently did, ask for extras over the course
of their time together, which could be considered worse…at least
from the man’s perspective. Still, her non-participation in
negotiations was now expected convention and violating it could shock
people, even if it didn't counteract the original purpose of said
convention. Rachel felt an exhilarating, rushing feeling inside her
and had to stifle a giggle at the thought. But the sound still
leaked out, almost like a strangled snort and Grace turned a baleful
look on her as her face turned dark with rage. But even though this
was the reaction she wanted, she suddenly felt embarrassed and could
feel her own face grow hot so she was relieved indeed when the
transaction was completed and she was able to follow Dave outside to
his transport, though she quickly realized that being alone with him
was even more uncomfortable in its own way.
Fiercely, she told herself that she had now been paid for and was
only doing what she must. But there should be no “must” for the
Demon and she found herself caught now on the horns of a very nasty
dilemma: to submit either to convention or to her unauthorized
feelings, unauthorized by herself, which was the important thing.
Either way, she was not being the strong, defiant person she was
meant to be. Worse, because Susan and the others wanted her to
desire Dave and use that to make money, it all looped back around to
submitting to convention and the will of the brothel anyway, the last
thing she wanted to do. She grimaced with rage and discomfort then
quickly wiped it away with a smile as Dave turned back to her in the
now open door of his transport. She ducked under the top of the
door, liking and not liking how she had to squeeze past him on the
narrow threshold, then sank into the soft flocked cushions of the
seats inside, very glad that she was sitting down first so she
wouldn't have to agonize over how close to him to sit. Dave came in
after her, sliding the door shut behind him, and settled down just
within arm’s reach of her but keeping his hands carefully on his
knees. "Where are we going?" asked Rachel, partially to
cover the awkwardness, as they rose and went skimming along near the
tops of the buildings.
"To my
house. No one else lives there and I don't have any cleaning staff
or repair people scheduled, so you can be completely alone and no one
will stare at you."
"Thank you,
thank you," cried Rachel, completely overcome by the thought of
having real privacy for the first time since coming back to the
brothel. Then, other thoughts intruded on her happiness. It
occurred to her that the only reason she had ever gone to someone's
house was to go to a party or to have sex. She had never seen the
inside of a house except the rooms specifically designed for those
purposes. Not counting Esteban's house, of course, but most of the
rooms in it were either empty or looked like a badly kept warehouse,
full of dirty plaZtic tubs of electronic equipment for every game
system imaginable and some she couldn’t even imagine, not like a
place someone actually lived. So, she was curious about what the
rest of a house would look like. She’d had privacy at Esteban’s
house too, after a fashion, but she saw it more as isolation and
neglect than the right to be alone voluntarily. She was especially
interested because this would be Dave's house. She wanted to know
everything about him, somehow imagining seeing the private areas of
his home as a form of intimacy, like surrogate sex. At that thought,
she cringed but, fortunately, he made no response so she hoped he
hadn't noticed.
Stepping out onto
an upper balcony where his personal transport dock was located, they
walked into what appeared to be some kind of sitting room with a deep
carpet, a few comfortable chairs, and some decorative items. On the
opposite wall was an image of a naked woman with a bird beside her,
which looked a lot like the mechanical ducks in the park, except it
was white and had a long neck. On the floor, below the picture, was
a large vase, black with narrow designs on it in red, that got wider
from the ground up, then, at the top, it curved back in so the
opening was actually quite small. As she leaned in for a closer
look, she heard a faint whir, just on the edge of hearing, as the
transport's wait mode expired and it rose into the air to go place
itself in the storage area.
"Please
excuse those art objects," said Dave when he noticed what she
was looking at. "They came with the house and I've always been
too lazy to get rid of them or even move them. They really don't
match at all. That I did buy." He pointed at an object
in the corner. Rachel looked, then looked again. What she was
seeing was so unbelievable that it took a moment for her brain to
register the sight but, when it did, she gasped and ran to where he
pointed. On the floor sat a plain round pot filled with something
moist and black, and from out of this emerged...oh,
beautiful...delicate green fronds, just like the ones on plasticite
fern plants. But these were alive. Alive. Their edges were softer
and more delicately shaped, the green was more vibrant in a subtle
way. She had very occasionally seen real plants before, on display
in rich men's homes, but never at close range or for an extended
period of time. Often they were set up in an entryway through which
she was quickly hustled or, if they were in the main party space,
they were usually situated in a place where people were unable to get
too close, of course without looking like they were
deliberately being kept away, to make sure that guests did not,
intentionally or by accident, damage such a valuable object. In any
case, she was always working in such situations and so was expected
to give her full attention to her clients and not squander any on her
personal enjoyment of the plant. Though the elite plaz plants had
always looked good enough to Rachel before, and her main interest in
real plants had been the social prestige they conveyed, she now
realized the most beautiful and elaborate of fake plants would
somehow look drab beside this one. She could not speak and just sat
down on the floor, staring up into the leaves of the plant, that were
waving softly from side to side in the breeze of her movement. When
Dave saw this, he retreated to the other side of the room so Rachel
could be alone with her admiration for the plant. He ordered himself
a drink and got one for Rachel too, so that it would be ready for her
when she emerged from her reverie.
"Is this
another way of sharing the beauty so few can see?" asked Rachel,
her voice still subdued from awe. He nodded and they were very quiet
for a couple minutes. Rachel looked at his face and felt her heart
pound then, quickly, looked away so he wouldn't notice her staring at
him.
"Let me show
you some of the stuff I've done on the computer," he said and
she breathed deeply, relieved the awkward silence had ended. It
wasn't until she thought back on it later, that she realized she had
been so focused on his presence that she hadn't even been stung by
the word computer. Now, she followed him into another room where the
walls, ceiling, and floor were each a giant screen. Esteban would
have been jealous, of the fancy set up that is, not her presence or
desire, and he would not have used it for any such
intellectual or creative endeavors. "This is where I work on my
projects," Dave said. "It's kind of cheating though
because I use these screens to make the details really big so that
it's easy to work on them." He showed her a whole file of
images he had created and she found them all beautiful, but her
favorite was what appeared to be a model of the plant she had seen in
the other room but altered so it looked like it was made of
translucent glass. The image had a strong light source overhead so a
delicate green hue could be seen filtering through the leaves. "I
got the idea for this one day when the sun was very strong outside
and I could actually see the light shining through the leaves of my
plant,” he said. “Of, course, it wasn't all sparkly like this,
but it was still very beautiful. I would like to make it someday,
but haven't yet figured out how to make glass strong enough for that
kind of detail work. I've read that there was a way to do it in the
past but it required Caesium which, obviously, is impossible to get
now as a private individual as it is needed to support the space
elevator."
Rachel felt
slightly embarrassed over the fact that she didn't know what Caesium
was and nodded politely, hopping nothing would happen to expose her
ignorance. Then, thinking of the plant reminded her of the other
things she had seen in the entry way. "The picture of the woman
with the bird wasn't a computer image,” she said curiously. “What
was it?"
"Paint.
That was how they made pictures before they had computer images, at
least, that's what they told us at education. Some people still do
it and their pictures can sell for a lot of money. I tried it once
but I wasn't very good at it. I probably still have my old paints
lying around somewhere, if you want to look at them.”
"That would
be nice," said Rachel a little vaguely. Sure painting, like
anything else historical, sounded interesting but only in a
theoretical way. Certainly, if Dave hadn't been able to do it, she
would never dare to try, especially in front of him.
“Well, they're
buried in a storage closet somewhere, so I'll let you know as soon as
I manage to dig them out,” said Dave, then asked if she would like
something to eat. She finally decided on lasagna, which they ate in
a small wall alcove with a window that faced the Light Dome across
the city. But, before they sat down, Dave went to get another chair
from the entryway for Rachel to sit in.
"Only one
chair?" asked Rachel.
"I've never
had someone else eat up here before, so it made sense to give myself
more room." Rachel looked puzzled. "When my friends
visit, we just use the game systems and such, so we eat down there as
well."
"But what
about when you...?" Rachel began. "Oh, I forgot, you've
never been with a woman."
"So?"
said Dave, almost defiantly. "That doesn't hurt anyone and it
doesn't violate any 'standards of professionalism' so it's no one
else's business."
"It is,
because it could be me," Rachel thought. But then, "But it
isn't because it wouldn't be me." Aloud she said, "I
didn't mean to sound accusatory. It's just an unusual thing, so it
shocked me..."
"I've never
found a woman I could sleep with without regret." As he said
this, he turned away very quickly, as if he couldn't look at her.
"Obviously,
that includes me," thought Rachel bitterly. "You're trying
to avoid hurting my feelings. Well, you're failing horribly. But
thoughts should count," she concluded sarcastically to herself.
There was a long uncomfortable silence. "At least, you're free
to choose," she said finally.
"The other
guys don't seem to think I am. They're constantly telling me that
it's something that everyone does and I should just get over it.
And when I say I don't want to, they try to get me to go to a
medical because there's obviously, something wrong with me.”
“What kind of
medical would you take for that?” asked Rachel. She knew there
were pills for men who wanted to have sex but weren’t physically
able, but the opposite? Those who were physically able but didn’t
want to? “Is there even enough of a market for that to be
profitable?”
Dave made a face.
“Must be, because it exists. Of course they don’t advertise it
openly.”
Rachel nodded.
“Because no one would ever admit to needing it. That would be
almost as embarrassing as not having sex.”
“I just know it
exists. After I’d been going to parties for maybe a year and
declined opportunities enough times that people could no longer write
it off as temporarily feeling stressed or being under the weather, an
older man came up to me and offered me a card of the pills. Who
knows where he got them from.”
“Or why he had
them.” Rachel gave a barking half-laugh tinged with malice. “I
wonder what he was trying to hide.”
Dave looked
surprised, then confused. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said,
after thinking for a moment. “I guess I always assumed he did it
out of the ‘goodness of his heart’ to help me.” Sheepishly, he
shrank slightly down into his chair and gave an embarrassed laugh.
“Not likely.
Unless he had a lot of investment riding on you, he wouldn’t risk
his own reputation like that, in case he got caught buying them.
Anyway, so what did you do?”
“Politely said
no and I thought that was the end of it. He didn’t offer them
again but, at a party a few months later, someone slipped some into
my drink.”
“How did you
know.”
“I didn’t at
the time. Later I went online myself and researched the effects.
Its easy to find when you're looking for it. I’m not afraid for my
reputation. I’m already weird. The effects match was too close
for it to be anything else.”
“What
happened?” Rachel gasped, simultaneously concerned and fascinated.
Dave closed his
eyes and bit his lip. “I’d rather not say,” he said through
clenched teeth. “Let’s just say it was so bad I thought I was
going to be sick…or worse, right there in front of everyone.” He
was blushing furiously as he spoke. “Even at the time, I was
vaguely aware that a number of people in the room were watching me
intently, nudging each other and exchanging glances. I don’t
remember exactly who but enough that I felt like they were all in on
it, like I couldn’t trust anyone. In any case, they wasted their
effort because they didn’t get the effect they wanted.”
“But you said
it worked.”
“Worked? It
had the effect it promised. If all they had wanted was to watch me
suffer then they would have been satisfied. But I’m sure there was
more. What they really wanted was to normalize me.”
“Why are you
telling me all this?” Rachel's heart was pounding furiously so
that she could barely speak. Never would she have imagined that
someone else would speak poorly of medicals, let alone resist them
like she did. It was too wonderful to be true and part of her was
afraid it could be a trap. Dave became even more awkward and
embarrassed and refused to look in her direction.
“I've never
talked to anyone about this,” he mumbled. “I've never felt safe
doing so and...it...well...it gets...you know...it gets overwhelming
never being able to.” There was a long moment of uncomfortable
silence as Rachel played with her fingers and felt she really ought
to say something but had no idea what. “But I saw you at Luther's
in your awful shawl when the other women tried to keep me out and it
was clear you were unhappy and then you told me the secret about high
heels. I think, I hope, you are nice and won't expose me for that
reason but, even if I'm wrong, you won't do it because I have dirt on
you too.”
Rachel's head
snapped up and she gave him a hard glare. “Maybe I don't care.
Maybe I want to ruin Luther's.”
“Well that's
even more scandalous and you would keep quiet so I don't turn you in
for your subversive plans that would get you instantly hauled off to
an attitude corrective medical.”
She shuddered at
the thought and was very quiet for a moment. “So what happened?”
she asked at last, in a small voice.
“They didn’t
understand the situation. They gave me a pill to make me want to
have sex because not wanting to is the only possible reason they can
think of for not doing it. But that isn’t my ‘problem.’ It’s
not that I don’t want to, it's that I choose not to…and no matter
how much drug induced wanting they force on me, I can still choose
not to. I don’t think there’s a pill for that.”
“I wish there
weren’t pills for the things people want to cure me of,” said
Rachel bitterly, then bit her lip. How could she have been so
stupid? What if Dave asked her what kind of pills people wanted her
to take? “Aren’t you worried about getting picked up by the
medicals?” she asked quickly to distract him from her slip up. “I
worry about that all the time. The other girls think I’m a
‘valuable team member’ or at least a potential one so they don’t
want to be in too big a hurry to commit me but I know I’ve had a
few close shaves.”
Dave rolled his
eyes. “You’ve noticed I don’t belong to a corporation,” he
said dryly.
“I thought that
was because you enjoyed the freedom of being on your own.” Try as
she might, Rachel couldn’t keep an edge of jealousy out of her
voice as she spoke. If he asked maybe she could say that was
why the other girls were always trying to give her a Sir Clemtal.
“Oh sure, I do
like all that.” Rachel fumed internally at his casualness
regarding this option that she just didn’t have. “But those were
side benefits. I was super nervous about going independent so young
and kept second guessing myself. I might not have actually taken the
plunge for years if it had just been about free time. It was the
worry about medicals that tipped the balance for me.” He was
silent for a moment. “I read a story in the news about how a guy
showed up to work one day and the management just had the medical
waiting for him. Sure, he had insulted the representative of another
company but I still didn’t want to risk it being me. Like you, my
earning power protects me. Certainly, no one who has me under
contract is going to try to commit me since they would just lose the
money they paid and I have my transport on speed dial to make a quick
getaway if I have to, like if someone tries it at a party. Still,
worrying about it means I don’t really like being around most
people. They don't know, they don't know anything about how I really
feel. They just talk about how I'm supposed to feel, what I'm
supposed to do."
He looked so distressed for a moment that Rachel longed to go to him
and comfort him. But she restrained herself for fear of what such an
act might reveal. Inside, her feelings were warring with each other,
a giddy elation that she had found someone else who shared her
disgust for medicals and her fear of others attempting to force them
on her, her resentment that he had weapons in his arsenal she lacked,
like an elite private transport on speed-dial, and her aching longing
for him rising above both. Uppermost in her mind was the fact that
this was a shared thing between them, horrible but shared, that it
made her feel closer to him, and that she desperately hoped it made
him feel closer to her too.
After a moment,
Dave shook himself and smiled at her and her heart leaped and turned
over at the sight. "Our food's ready," he said as he got
up and walked over to the wall slot to pick it up. Past ready,
really. They had been so focused on their conversation that it had
started to go cold but Rachel didn’t mind. While they ate, they
talked and laughed, as if the short period of tension had only been
imagined. "What would you like to do now?" Dave asked, when
they had finished, not only the lasagna, but also some wonderfully
fluffy strawberry shakes that Rachel had suddenly gotten a craving
for. Naturally, the food dispenser at Dave's house was of
much better quality than the ones at Luther's.
"Well, what
I would really like," said Rachel, very shy and embarrassed
about her request, "is to have you show me your house." It
was a very rude thing to ask and she was afraid he would be angry.
That or guess that it meant she was interested in him. She would
have wanted to explore any house just to learn more about the world
outside the narrow confines of the brothel but even more and
especially his house because of the other reasons. She had no idea
where she had found the courage to make such a request. Perhaps it
was the very personal conversation they had just had.
©Amanda RR Hamlin 2025
