She held out her slim, red-nailed hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal, handsome.”
Her voice dropped to a sultry purr. “Shall we get the vulgar financial details out of the way, darling, then go somewhere more private?”
“I would be honored,” he replied, closing his gloved hand around hers to seal the deal. His hand felt strangely hard, but his grip was gentle. “My name is Marchey, by the way. Georgory Marchey. My friends call me Gory.”
Merry had noticed that he wore gloves right off the bat, and once again she had to wonder why. But she gave it only a moment’s thought. She’d dealt with odder kinks than that. Much odder.
Of course that still didn’t mean he wasn’t hiding a nun’s habit, a pink-lace merry widow, or even a chicken suit under his clothes. If so, she could play along. One kay bought one hell of a lot of leeway.
“Pleased to meet you, Gory. My name is Merry.”
Marchey made himself comfortable on the suite’s shapeless black couch, watching the woman who called herself Merry fix them each a drink.
He knew that Merry was just her working name. Her real name wasn’t supposed to matter. While she was Merry it was her job to be whoever and whatever he wanted her to be.
From the back she looked so much like Ella it made him ache. Although not quite as tall, she had that same impossibly thin frame, the narrow waist and small firm behind, the same long lean limbs that would be gawky but for an innate inner grace. She had the same close-cropped, nearly white hair, straggling tendrils curling down her knobby spine.
But when she turned around the illusion unraveled.
Her face was pretty where Ella’s had been plain, softer and less severe, underlaid by an elegant bone structure. Her eyes were brown instead of green, with long dark lashes.
He watched her come toward him, one side of her wide, ruby-lipped mouth curved up in a warm smile that showed no sign of artifice. The other side of her mouth—the other side of her face—remained lax and nearly expressionless. That eyelid drooped in what looked like sleepy suspicion.
There was also a scarcely perceptable drag to her foot on that side. It was so slight that only someone trained to look for such things would have noticed the minor paralytic trace.
His observations were by no means all diagnostic. He was also paying close attention to the undulating roll of her slim hips, the rhythmic flexings of the long lean muscles in her thighs, the sweet and subtle sway and swing of her breasts. He feasted on the sight of her, feeding a gnawing hunger, and sharpening that hunger at the very same time. Just knowing he was still capable of feeling it was a pleasure in itself.
It had been almost two years since he had last been with a woman. There were times—usually those increasingly rare moments when he was stone-cold look-at-yourself-in-the-mirror sober—that he became dismayed and depressed at just how accustomed he was getting to his solitary life and his celibacy. It was almost as if he could feel his libido shrivelling up like some vestigial organ that no longer had a purpose. Before long he was going to have to start counting his balls each morning to make sure he still had them.
Not that he had much choice in the matter. In fact it was better that way. A sex drive firing on all thrusters would have driven him mad, making intolerable a life spent all alone on a ship of his own, ricocheting from place to place like some spacefaring surgical Flying Dutchman.
MedArm called it the circuit, and it had been instituted less than a year after he last saw Ella. That meant he had been on it for over four years. Hard to believe.
Working with the Bergmann Institute, MedArm had created the circuit, giving each Bergmann Surgeon a ship of their own and sending them where they were needed worst. He had no idea how the higher-ups decided where they should go and whom they should treat. It didn’t really matter. At least they were allowed to be of some use.
He and his fellow Bergmanns remained constantly on the move, skulking in and out of health facilities like thieves. The circuit’s chief advantage was that once he was freed from the schedules set by the regular carriers less time was wasted waiting around to get from point A to point B.
Unfortunately that also meant no more long layovers during which he might at least try to find some companionship, be it a brief flirtation, a one-night stand, or even the boozy camaraderie created by adjoining barstools. He would arrive at his destination, perform the procedure he had been brought in for, and more often than not go straight from surgery to the local equivalent of a liquor store and be in his ship and on his way again before the patient regained consciousness.
Only rarely did he remain anywhere long enough for even an unsatisfying taste of paid sex such as with that prostitute on Ceres two years ago. This stop at Vesta was the longest break from the monotonous treadmill he’d had in months. Not only was he here long enough for two procedures, his ship was undergoing some minor refitting, which gave him a bonus night of his own.
He’d ventured into Gusto Mews, Vesta’s infamous pleasure district, looking for something—anything—to fill up some small corner of the emptiness inside himself. Some proof he was still alive, still a man. He’d been resigned to settling for paid sex and simulated affection if that was all he could find.
But when he had caught sight of Merry he’d suddenly glimpsed a chance to find something worth having.
She handed him his drink as she sat down on the couch beside him, folding her long legs under her. “Here you go, love.”
“Thanks.” He helped himself to a sip, grimaced. It was cheap fake scotch whiskey, algaecol and artificial flavorings, probably made on-site. Not that such distinctions made all that much difference. He would drink the good stuff when he could get it, and whatever was available when he couldn’t. Humanity had risen from the tribes in the treetops to cities in space because of its ability to adapt. It was only fair he did his part.
The “suite” was as low-rent as the whiskey. It consisted of a three-meter-by-three-meter sitting room furnished with the lumpy couch under his butt, a chunky foamstone table cemented to the floor in front of it, its top covered with a pink-plastic tablecloth and bearing a platter of unidentifiable soy- and algae-based delectables. Then there was the bar. That was no more than a shallow alcove in one wall equipped with four shatterproof glasses, three smudged decanters, a beer tap, and a metered ice dispenser.
A wide arched doorway led to the bedroom, which was barely larger than the fake-fur-covered king-sized bed. There was a deep narrow bathroom off to one side of the bedroom, complete with pay shower. The suite’s black-glazed stone walls were stenciled with patchy red flocking in an Early Bordello design. Bad erotic art hung askew on the walls. Wallscreens faced both the bed and the couch so the happy couple could watch themselves, or some quite likely more photogenic other couple at sport.
Well, he hadn’t really been expecting the Mars Grande. At least it was fairly clean and private.
He peered down into his glass. “Not exactly sippin’ whiskey, is it?”
Merry’s face fell. “Sorry. Maybe I can get Randy to—”
“Don’t worry about it. That just means there’s no point in sipping it.” He drained his glass, knowing the sooner he got his palate numbed the better it would taste.
When she started to jump up to get him another, he restrained her by resting one gloved hand on her thigh. “That’s all right. No hurry.”
She settled back. “Okay, but if you want more just say so.” Her face was turned so that the damaged side was hidden from him, and her smile promised all wonders for the asking. “If you want anything,” she added, “I’m here to please you.” That last was said in such a way there was no mistaking her meaning.