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That's all you are to him, Vyry. Just the old slave woman out back. She got up, angry. What am I wasting time thinking on that asshole for when my own man ain't been back all night. She hoped Turner hadn't gone and gotten himself caught. No, he was too smart for that, too smart, too fast, and too strong.

She went downstairs. The dress, a new one the House had just issued her, rustled as she walked. As long as the government forced her to be a whore it was nice to be a well-dressed one, with perfume, new shoes, even a little jewelry. There were worse assignments for CEs with political records. The behavior-research laboratories in Memphis, for example. She shuddered. No one ever came back from being sent down the river. She swept into the room, a smile pasted to her face, and looked around. Yes, sweet Jesus, there he was. He stood as she approached his table.

"Hello, Vyry."

"Evenin', Major. You lookin' fine tonight."

"Sit down, please. I've some wine — a good old port. Will you have some?"

"All right."

"You look great. Is that a new dress?"

"Yes."

"Here's something to go with it." She took the little package suspiciously and unwrapped it. Inside, under foil and three layers of tissue paper, was a long red scarf, of real silk. The labeclass="underline" Paris.

"Don't you like it?"

"It's nice."

"Put it on. It's beautiful. You're beautiful. You know that."

"I heard it before." Dryly. "Where's your friend? The one doesn't like us colored?"

"Sawyer? I don't know. We don't go everywhere together, you know." Quidley chuckled. "He's not very well bred, is he? I agree, he takes the racial thing a bit too far. I think the races should be — well, separate, of course — but that certainly leaves room for a little friendly—"

He stopped, searching for a word, and Vyry said, "Why don't you pour the wine, Major."

"Uh, certainly. There you are. Confusion!"

She studied him as they drank. She wondered how many uniforms the man owned, that he could wear a fresh one every day. Or maybe he changed more often — it certainly didn't look as if he'd worn this one very long. His cheeks were flushed and the pale eyes sparkled. Was he drunk already? No, she thought. He just got the hots for the slave woman. Wonder can he wait long enough to finish this bottle.

"What are you thinking, Vyry?"

"Oh, nothing in partic'lar, Major."

"Finished with your wine?"

"I suppose so. You not going to leave the bottle here, are you? These girls—"

"No, let's take it up with us."

She hid a yawn as the elevator hummed upward. When the door was closed behind them she unzipped — useless to wear anything underneath — and hung it up. By then he was undressed, too. She knew he was clean but gave him a honk just for luck, washed him with the little cloth, and lay back on the bed. She bucked him into position and began to grind, looking over his shoulder at the clock.

"Say, not so fast," he said, into her ear. "You weren't like this last night."

"Look, Major." She decided to have it out, uncorked him and wriggled out from underneath. "You got to get the picture. This here is a whorehouse. Now, you're an officer, and my job's to take care of you, but let's not be gettin' the ideas I think you're getting."

A veil of hurt slid down over his eyes and she felt him grow soft against her flank. Why… he really cares, she thought.

"Ideas? Well, Vyry… I am getting to like you."

She found herself with nothing, at the moment, to say. She was surprised, yes. But there was a sense of outrage, too. As if she were a horse, a dog, something to be adopted and cherished at his whim, with no response necessary by her… or rather, with her response foreordained, bred in, the automatic abject love of the inferior whose master condescended to notice her.

"What are you thinking?"

She felt his body long and muscular against hers. He felt cool and she ran a hand over soft white freckled skin, down his neck, to his nipple, framed and protected with sparse reddish hair. She felt him stir in response. "I think you're some kind of man, Major Cavalier."

He was eager again; he did not sense her sidestep, her deflection of him; his hands slid between her thighs, readied her. He made love differently than Turner, less roughly, almost tentatively and gently at times, till he at last lost control and she moved with him, arching her back. His hands gripped her shoulder blades and she heard him moan deep in his throat. Trapped, held, penetrated, she stared at the curve of his shoulder. So unlike her strong rough longshoreman — his lovely dark shining skin, the curved ripple of hard muscle, the smell of sweaty work. This man smelled of wine, of English scent, of soap. Not of manhood.

I want my man, she cried soundlessly. Where is he? Is he safe? And when will I lie with him again?

His arms relaxed. He raised his head and she saw sweat on his forehead, the pale eyes unfocused. "Damn," he whispered. "You're — it's like a pot of warm honey. And the way you moved, there at the end.…"

"Uh huh," she murmured lazily. She seemed to be floating in something warm. Save for the odd tension around her eyes that always came for her with climax, she felt undone, abandoned. She felt his penis slide limply from her. He rolled free and they lay side by side staring up at the ceiling. A fly explored their inverted images. Quidley moved his leg to lie across her thighs. She stirred. "Major—"

"Yes?"

"Hand me that cloth?"

Wordlessly he reached it over. She mopped with it and sighed and rolled over to look at the clock.

Nine-twenty. She sat up. He took the hint and got up, pulling on his trousers. She reached out to run a finger along the buff stripe.

"Get up, Vyry. Let's go out."

"What'd you say?"

"Come on, we'll go for a walk. It's fine out, cool — do you good." He grinned, smoothed his moustache in the mirror. "After that little entertainment, you can't go back to work tonight."

"Like hell I can't."

"No arguments. Up you come." He seized a wrist and pulled; she had to yield or be tumbled to the floor. "You have anything to wear besides that bed-dress? Get it on."

"Miz Rosen isn't going to like this."

"Chicken works for the Army, and that's me. I'll pay for your time, don't worry."

"That wasn't — " she started to say, but he was already dressed and gone clattering down the stairs. She shook her head and reached for her shoes. God, what a queer man.

Outside — the frown erased from the madam's face by Quidley's twenty-dollar coin — a fine mist hung in the night air. It was humid but cool, and her clothes felt clammy against her still-damp skin. She shivered. "I suppose you knows this is crazy."

"I don't care. Aren't you glad to get out of — there — for a while?"

"Sure I am, Major. I don't enjoy that work."

"You were assigned to it."

She didn't answer, and he dropped the subject. "Let's walk toward the basin," he said.

Streetlights glowed yellow at intervals along the treeshaded cobblestone streets. This part of the city hadn't changed much since the early nineteenth century. It was quiet, peaceful; they passed no one.

The basin — Smith Creek, it had once been — was now a hundred-yard-wide pool of calm water, ringed by street lamps and quiet old houses and tree-shaded benches. A rare auto purred over the new bridge, under which the tide slowly eddied. All was stilled by the mist, and the warm yellow of the lights played on the black water. He paused by a bench and wordlessly she sat and watched his tall shadow pace back and forth by the shore, occasionally shortening as he stooped for a pebble to toss out into the water: plook.

Some of her customers asked for strange things. The House rules protected her from the real crazies, the ones who wanted to hurt. She knew how to take care of them. But this thin correct man, gentle at times, so domineering and high-horse at others… she felt uncertain, about him, and also… about herself.