She fingered the lax side of her face and let out a sardonic chuckle.
“I became Frankenwhore. Now I’ve got two maybe-someday settlements coming. Now my landlord keeps his fly closed and demands cash. Not only am I getting old, this isn’t exactly helping further my career as a prostitute. My body’s still okay—”
“Your body looks great.” He grinned. “Believe me, I’ve noticed. As for your face, couldn’t you change your name and maybe wear a mask to hide it, and make you more exotic?”
She ducked her head. “I could, I guess. But I was an honest tech. I never palmed parts or faked burnouts. I never padded my hours or strung a job on. I try to be as honest a pro.” Her tone sharpened. “This is how I am, take it or leave it. I never fobbed off damaged goods as new when I was a tech, and I’ll be damned if I’ll do it as a whore.”
“It must be hard.”
God, you don’t know how hard! She wanted to scream it, cry it, let it out of the damaged fist she kept clamped around it.
And this was hard, laying herself open to a stranger. Exposing parts of herself no one saw no matter how many times she removed her clothes. It was unbearable.
She polished off her drink, the raw liquor searing her throat. She rarely drank this much while working unless it was demanded of her, but at that moment it was just what she needed. Anesthetic and fuel all in one.
This madness had gone on too long. It was time to take control and stop it while she still could. She put her glass aside and forced a smile onto her face.
You’re nothing but a juan, she told him in her head. A coddy. Time I started treating you like one.
“It’s you that should be hard,” she purred, keeping her head turned so only the best side of her face showed. Her fingers toyed with the skinsuit’s sealtab, and once his eyes were on it she drew it slowly down, opening it from breastbone to crotch. Cool air rushed across her skin, making her nipples stiffen.
She sauntered toward him, putting a lot of hip into it. Planting herself right in front of him she bent over, feeling the front of her suit gape open even wider. “Hard instead of difficult. Difficult won’t feed the kitty.” She ran her tongue around her lips. “But I can fix that.” She trailed her red nails up the inside of his thighs, feeling his muscles quiver.
She looked up into his face. Their eyes met. He was smiling, but it was one of the saddest smiles she’d ever seen.
“I’m sure you can,” he said in a thick voice, “If that’s what you want to do to me.”
Merry had the business of punching a man’s buttons down cold. It would be so easy to reduce this one to the level of just another juan. She knew he wouldn’t even fight it.
Yet she could not make herself ignore the disappointment shadowing his face and voice, implied by his answer. He wanted her, and badly. But not yet. There was something else he wanted first, wanted more, and she found herself wanting to give it to him if she could.
Only to earn the big payoff he’d promised, of course.
But what was it he was looking for?
Merry had not become a whore because she was too stupid to do anything else. Tech work demanded superior problem-solving skills, and prostitution had taught her a hundred seminars’ worth of applied psychology. Part of her job was figuring out what it was her customers wanted and providing at least some acceptable semblance of it.
She studied the schematic lines of this strange man’s face, trying to read what was behind it. He wanted her to trust him, he’d said that at the very start. He wanted her to tell him about herself. The first thing he’d done when they were alone had been to ask about what had happened to her face.
He’d been acting in a very specific manner: getting her trust; asking about the things that had happened to her; how they affected her; how she was dealing with them. There was something very familiar about all that…
Something someone who’d spent as much time being put back together by doctors as she had would recognize.
Bedside manner, it was called. Whores had their own version of it. He was a doctor, and had been treating her like a patient. His moves had been subtle, but now she saw them clearly.
Things he’d said took on new meanings. That remark about having an itch he couldn’t scratch, for instance. Were those silver hands keeping him from practicing medicine?
Driving him to hire a prostitute to play patient?
All that made her wonder what he meant by that bit about paying her with something better than money. Was he hinting that he could fix her up right when no one else could?
That was a logical conclusion, but it didn’t jibe with having to pay someone to be his patient. Besides, how could he fix something every other doctor had said was irreparable? A fried mod was a fried mod, and that’s all there was to it.
Still, if her guess was right, then what could she do to cater to him? She doubted he wanted to play doctor like the usual juan might. Show me where it hurts, little girl.
“Trying to figure out what I’m up to, Merry?” he asked quietly.
She blinked in surprise, startled from her thoughts. For just a moment there it had been like the old days, getting so wrapped up in trying to solve a problem that everything else faded away. She considered his question. No sense in denying it. None of the usual rules worked here. With him.
“Yes, I am,” she admitted.
He patted the couch beside him. “Sit with me, please.” Merry did as he asked, but arranged herself so that he’d get a good eyeful of the merchandise. His smile said that he was, and not minding it one bit.
“If I’m acting more doctor than, um, patron, I’m sorry. I can’t help what I am. If I seem to be getting too personal, it’s because I like you.”
Hearing him say that made her feel absurdly pleased. She fought the feeling by saying, “It’s just my body you’re not crazy about.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true, and you know it. It’s just one of the many things I like about you, and I plan to get around to it in a while. The thing is, if I’d wanted nothing but mindless sex, one of the other girls downstairs would have been good enough.” His voice dropped lower, as if confiding a secret. “But I want more, Merry. I don’t want to settle for an empty package wrapped with a pretty face and a certified disease-free vagina. I want to share my night with a woman who’s lived a little, and maybe even died a little. I want to spend my time with someone keeping on, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. Someone I have something in common with.” He sighed. Merry saw resignation in his face, and the need and desperation and even despair that lurked behind it. Those things were easy to recognize. She’d seen them all too often in her mirror when she put on her working face, painting them over with that night’s good-time-girl smile.
“I’m just like you, Merry. I’m not what I once was.” A wry smile twisted his lips. “When you get right down to it, I’ve become a bit of a whore myself. Good for only one thing as far as most are concerned, and once I’ve turned my trick for them they want me gone. How I feel about the way I’m used doesn’t enter into the matter at all. I don’t like it, but I live with things the way they are because I have no choice…”
It was Merry’s turn to sigh. “Choice is an illusion, love.”
“Is it?” He shook his head. “I sure hope you’re wrong. I keep telling myself that it’s just something you have to wait for. That if you can just hold on, it will come along sooner or later and give you a chance to escape from the box where circumstance has put you. That it will save you.”