“Oh…’cause you’redoingit wrong. I saw you out in the Hub—you can’t just talk to the customers, you got to show someskin,” she advised me. “Like this, see?” She pushed the sleeve of the ragged bright green fur coat she was wearing up to show a pale wrist covered in bite marks.
The sight made me wince but Mar’ra acted like she was showing some man a peak at her bare breasts. (Later, I learned it was roughly equivalent—anyplace the veins run close to the skin is supposed to be covered, at least on “decent” women. That’s why when youdosee regular Naggian women outside the home, they’re always wearing dresses that look like something out of an Amish romance novel.)
Just as Mar’ra was showing me how to “entice” a Naggian man with my sexy wrists, an enormous gong started ringing somewhere.
Gong…gong…gong…
It was so loud it made my head hurt. I clamped my hands over my ears instinctively but Mar’ra didn’t seem bothered a bit.
“So you got nowhere to go?” she asked me sympathetically once the awful noise finally died away.
I shook my head.
“I guess I thought I’d sleep in the, er, Centra Hub tonight.”
“No way—you can’t do that. Like I said, the Sweepers will get you. Come on…” She took me by my wrist and tugged in the direction of one of the myriad tunnels running through the hub. “Come with me. You can share my hole for tonight and tomorrow I’ll introduce you to R’xs.”
“To who?” I asked, following her automatically as she led me to one particularly small and cramped looking tunnel at the far end of the Hub.
“You’ll see—he’ll help you out,” she informed me. “He helps lots of girls—you have to have a man to help you, right? A girl can’t make it on her own.”
Which is pretty much what Naggian women are taught from birth.
I never should have listened to her. But then, if I hadn’t, I’d probably be dead right now. Though sometimes I think that death might be better than living the way I have been for the past six months—I mean, I’m literally slitting my wrists to survive!
Anyway, after a night spent in Mar’ra’s cramped “hole” which literally was just that—a hole in the side of one of the underground tunnels—and a breakfast of bland nutritional paste, which was every bit as tasty as it sounds—she took me to meet R’xs.
He was even taller than most Naggian men and skinnier too. His pale skin had a sallow tinge to it, like snow that someone had urinated in and there were deep, unhealthy looking shadows beneath his glowing green eyes.
I learned later that these were symptoms ofTskaddiction—a drug that Naggians use recreationally. The good thing aboutTsk—or so I’ve heard, because I’d never touch the stuff myself—is that it numbs emotional pain and gives a brief but euphoric high. The bad thing about it is that it gradually erases any empathy or sympathy or kindness the person taking it might once have had. Basically,Tskturns ordinary people into sociopaths and people who already have sociopathic tendencies into psychopaths.
Let’s just say, it’s not a good drug. And if I had known anything about it or that R’xs was what they call a “Tskhead,” I never would have gotten involved with him. But Mar’ra was my only friend at that point and I was afraid I was going to die if I didn’t find some way to make a living. Mar’ra had assured me that R’xs could show me the “trade” and protect me if customers got too handsy during a blood-for-credit transaction.
Yeah, basically he was a pimp.
I should have realized that from the start but I was raised in a good Baptist home and my Daddy was a Deacon while my Momma sang in the choir every Sunday, so I didn’t exactly have experience with that kind of thing. I branched out a little in college and a lot more in grad school, but I still had never actually met anyone who was a prostitute or a pimp or addicted to anything stronger than Starbucks Frappuccinos. So I guess my ignorance got me into the mess I’m in right now.
Anyway, R’xs listened to Mar’ra telling him my sad story—abandoned on O’nagga Nine with no place to go and no way to make a living. He looked me up and down and nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, she’s ahsh’frux,but we could play that up,” he said at last. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You ever sold before?”
“You mean do I have retail experience?” I asked stupidly. “I worked in a jewelry store as an undergrad—”
“No,” he interrupted bluntly. “I meant have you ever sold yourblood?Have you ever sold yourass?”
“What?” I looked at him, feeling shocked. “No tobothof those,” I finally got out. “Of course I haven’t—I’m a grad student, not a prostitute!”
Then I looked at Mar’ra, who had a blank look on her face and realized how patronizing and hurtful that must be for her. After all, she was just doing what she had to in order to live.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Not that there’s anything wrong with, er, sex work, I’ve just never had any experience before.”
“Hmm…virgin blood. Could play that up, too,” R’xs said, nodding thoughtfully.
“Oh, I’m not a virgin,” I said quickly. “So I don’t think—”
“You ever been bitten before?” R’xs interrupted again. “Ever let a male sink his fangs into your flesh?” Here he bared his own fangs—long and yellow and sharp as knives—as though to illustrate his point.
“N-no,” I stuttered. “I…no.”