been taught to do, and practiced for so many hours in front of the mirror, making my lips just so, so that the Johns would find them irresistible.
"Well, hello there," I drawled, in my sexiest, breathiest voice.
He looked away, at the stream of cars, zooming by, then back at me, his smile not dimmed, but managing somehow to give the impression of shyness. "I was wondering," he says. "How much it would be for an hour."
I couldn't place his accent, which was strange enough, considering how many people I got through here everyday. "Thirty creed units for an hour," I said. "Sixty for the whole night." Hardly worth it now, with the night half gone. But I still had to say it, with the big smile, and the slight wiggle of the hips.
He grinned. "Not tonight. I don't have sixty. I'll see next time. Tonight it will have to be thirty." He handed me the credgem, an unembossed, clear one.
I popped it into the authenticator—the oval attachment dangling from what looked like a heavy gold bracelet on my wrist. I smiled while I waited.
He wore a well-cut suit, with an odd design, like the ones they wore in all those twentieth century vids that they'd made me watch in the crèche. It was black and emphasized his square shoulders, his narrow waist. But the cut was strange. It had to be a revival thing.
He smiled back at me as if he, too, had been to the crèche and practiced, a smile that would make your insides melt.
The gem cleared, and emptied. Thirty cred units was all he had.
I looked at him, surprised, because after all, a man like that exuded money, the feel of never having had to do anything he didn't want to.
I led him to the offices, a block away, in a tall, grey tower, put up expressly for the purpose. Inside were cubicles, barely large enough to accommodate a large, comfortable bed, its sheets pulled back invitingly, and a broad band set across the white linen. The band said sanitized for your protection and was put there by the robots who cleaned the room afterwards.
He laughed at it; laughed, laughed as if he'd never been to a doxy room before, never seen anything like that.
* * *
He undresses himself, with an impatient eagerness that gives me no time to do more than