Steven Harper - Dreamer

It ain’t sex, I told myself. It’s money. M-O-N-E-Y.

My mouth dried up like a raisin. I didn’t know what the rules were. Do you look at people? Tell them you’re for rent up front? I should’ve asked Jesse.

Just to make things harder, the voices started whispering at me again. I concentrated hard, tried to make them go away. I can never quite make out what they’re saying, and it’s scary. Sometimes they come at night, and that’s the worst. It sounds like ghosts breathing on me.

And then this woman walked up to me as easy as you please and said, “Glory. You look like you’re lost.”

Whisper whisper whisper whisper.

I started to deny it, then realized the woman knew I wasn’t lost. What should I say? What would Jesse say?

“Glory,” I answered. “It’s hard to find your way around this place.”

“You need a ride somewhere?” She was about ten years older than me, a little heavy, with short brown hair. Her clothes looked really expensive.

Whisper whisper whisper.

“Um, sure,” I said. “I could use a ride.”

“Then let’s go.”

Her aircar-aircar! — wasn’t that far away, but I was so nervous I could hardly walk. I wouldn’t get anything done if I was scared, so I started pretending I was Jesse. Jesse knew which way was up. I was Jesse, strong and smart.

The voices faded a little bit, and that made me feel even stronger.

In the aircar, the jobber put her hand on my thigh, but I was in control by then. “It’s a hundred,” I said, pulling the number out of thin air. She handed it to me.

Her place was a rooftop penthouse, which meant she was a high-placer in the Unity. She landed on the roof near a door. A maid let us in. The jobber treated the maid like she didn’t exist, so I did the same. The maid ignored me, too.

I tried not to stare at the penthouse, but it was hard. Thick carpets covered the floors, paintings and statues were everywhere-real ones, not holograms-and her bedroom was bigger than my whole apartment. I figured she liked the color blue because everything in her room was done in it. Blue carpets, blue walls, blue bedspread.

The jobber shut the door and pulled me down on the bed without saying anything. I figured she wanted me to undress her, so I did. I was Jesse, who knew what to do. I opened up her shirt-she wasn’t wearing underwear-and pulled off her skirt. She just lay back on the bed with her eyes shut and didn’t move.

That sort of startled me. She didn’t try to undress me or kiss me. She just lay there. Her breasts were like little pillows with spots of pink on each. I stared at them-I had never seen a woman naked before. I was hard as a rock. (See? I told you I wasn’t into guys.) That was when she started talking.

She talked more dirt than a lot of the guys I heard on the street. Half of it was calling me names like “street whore” and “dick boy,” and half of it was telling what she wanted me to do. I was glad because I didn’t have to figure it out for myself.

She climbed on top of me. All of a sudden I wanted out of there in the worst damn way. I didn’t like the way she smelled or looked or sounded, and I didn’t want her skin touching mine. Before she could do anything else, I reached through that place and made her come hard and fast. She screamed and fell sideways onto the bed. I was scared the maid would come running in.

“What the hell did you do?” the jobber panted.

I shrugged. Then I noticed the voices had faded completely.

“Can you do it again?” she said.

The words popped out before I even thought. “For the right money.”

She gave me another hundred kesh, and I did it again. It was easy, and I didn’t even have to touch her much. So much for getting out of there.

After that, the jobber went into the bathroom. I pulled my clothes on and looked around. She had four closets and her dresser was the size of freight truck. It occurred to me that I could probably hoik something worth a lot more than a couple hundred. And if the jobber walked in, I could just freeze her in place until I was done and she’d never know the difference. I even reached for her dresser. Then I stopped.

Okay, fine-I’m a rent boy. Hooker. Prick for hire. But I’m not a thief. One thing you don’t do back in the neighborhood is steal, and I wasn’t going to do it here, either.

The jobber came back in kind of a hurry, as if she’d remembered she’d left a potential thief in her bedroom. So fuck her. Less than an hour later, I was back at the market with two hundred kesh in my pocket. I felt pretty good. I was smooth, in control. People would give me money for easy work.

I got home a little while ago. Mom isn’t here, of course, and I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t have a regular job. Like I said, the neighborhood takes up a collection to pay our bills and rent in return for all the organizing she does. Mom’s really the queen around here. No crime, no drugs, no wife-beating, and you keep a clean house or you’re out. Mom can’t legally make anyone move, but the Unity doesn’t give a shit what we peons do to each other, and when two dozen people show up to haul your furniture out to the street, you can’t do squat.

Mom’s good at banding people together. Something in her voice forces you to listen to her. Besides, everyone likes living in a place where you don’t have to worry about jay-heads breaking in looking for stuff to steal and where there aren’t any gangs cruising the streets. Who’s going to win, a bunch of addicts hyped up like hummer fish or group of organized, motivated patrollers?

So we’re all poor but honest folk around here. Mom got people to grow vegetables on roofs and in window boxes for sale down at the market for community money to pay for doctor visits and stuff. Some people raise small animals-chickens and rabbits and pigfish-and we sell them, too. Everyone contributes around here. If you don’t, the furniture committee shows up.

Anyway. I tried to take a nap when I got home. My room is tiny, with a bare wood floor and a lumpy bed that creaks. There’s a little dresser and an even littler closet. Good thing I don’t have very many clothes. I thought about the jobber, who was probably sitting in her big blue room sipping a drink brought in by her maid, and my room seemed even smaller.

I got out my flute and played for a while. Sad songs. I don’t know what it is. When you’re depressed, you want depressing music. You should want happy music to make you feel happy. When you’re depressed, though, happy music makes you want to puke.

I want off this rockball. Only one way to do that, isn’t there?

Mom’s coming. Signing off.

PLANET RUST, CITY IJHAN, PATROL GUARD STATION #4972

The door fell shut with a crash. Ara glanced around to take in her surroundings-tiny room, two chairs bolted to the floor on either side of a table, and probably no end of hidden surveillance devices. A sign read The Unity Punishes Only the Deserving. Kendi sat in one of the chairs, head in his hands. Ara sat down across from him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Get me out of here,” he whispered hoarsely.

Ara nodded. “I’ve arranged to pay the fines. It won’t be long.” She reached across the table and grasped one of his hands. Kendi’s skin looked like it was coated with ashes. His eyes were bloodshot, a half-healed cut slashed one forearm, and the hand that Ara wasn’t holding shook slightly. He squeezed her hand with a thin smile before looking down at the table again. Outrage filled Ara’s heart at his condition of her student.