Jenna Black - Replica

Nate clicked his tongue at her, still holding her wrist as she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. But young though she might be, it had been a long time since this girl had been innocent by any definition of the word, and Nate could see the calculation behind the expression.

“How old are you?” he found himself asking, shouting the question over the music. She looked barely past puberty, but this was Debasement, and looks could be deceiving here. He could hope she was really an adult with exceptionally good makeup and some quality amateur plastic surgery.

“What’s it to you?” she asked, dropping the innocent look for one of sulky belligerence. She gave a little tug to see if she could free her wrist, but he kept hold. Her voice was clear and high, a little girl’s voice rather than a woman’s. “You plannin’ to give me a spanking?” The girl leered at him, moving closer, pressing her body up against his. “I’ll give you a freebie to make up for the, um, misunderstanding.”

Nate suppressed a shudder. He was quite sure that even if he were really into girls, he wouldn’t be tempted by this little Lolita wannabe. But maybe he could make her life easier for her, if just for one night. Making sure her free hand wasn’t doing anything it shouldn’t while she pressed up against him, he reached under his leather jacket and opened one of the zipper compartments, pulling out a hundred dollar bill and folding it into his palm.

“I’ll let you off with a warning,” he told her, trying to smile at her while thinking how unfair it was that being born reasonably pretty in Debasement had doomed her to this fate. If she’d been born to an Employee family, would she be a perfectly respectable schoolgirl, looking forward to a safe and happy life? And if he had been born in Debasement, what would his life look like right now?

Of course, now was a shitty time for philosophical, self-indulgent navel gazing.

“You work for Angel, right?” She had to work for Angel; Angel wouldn’t let someone this pathetic set foot in her club as a patron.

The girl stuck out her lower lip, but there was a flash of real fear in her eyes. “Please don’t say nothin’ to Angel. I was just … playin’.”

“I won’t tell Angel you tried to pick my pocket,” he assured her. He clasped her hand, letting her feel the money against her palm. “I just want to have a word with Angel, and don’t want to have to spend all night looking for her. Any chance you can let her know I’m here and looking?”

Cautiously, ready to grab her and take his money back if she tried to bolt, Nate let go. She took a step back from him, keeping a wary eye on him as she glanced at the bill in her hand. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped when she saw what she held.

“Tell Angel the Ghost wants to talk to her. I’ll be at the bar. I’ll give you another tip once I’ve seen her. Deal?”

The girl licked her lips, still wide-eyed. Maybe he’d gone overboard with his payment, but he wanted to think it was enough to give her a night or two off.

When had he decided to become a knight in shining armor?

“Do we have a deal, or don’t we?” he asked, more sharply than he intended. He didn’t like seeing the place he’d once thought of as an adult playground for what it really was, but it wasn’t fair to take it out on the girl.

She lifted her chin, and defiance flashed in her eyes. “Deal,” she said, then turned to head off into the crowd. She stuck the hand with the money in it into her tight, skimpy shorts, and he tried not to wonder how she protected her money when those shorts came off.

“Hey!” he called after her. She stopped, looking over her shoulder at him. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Why d’you care?”

Nate wondered if Kurt had been such a hard case at that age, then shook his head, trying not to picture his boyfriend as a child prostitute. They’d never talked about it, but Nate knew Kurt had gotten started young.

“I don’t,” he said, because it was what she expected. “I’m just curious.”

She thought about it a moment, then shrugged her skinny shoulders. “Petal.”

She turned from him without awaiting a response and lost herself in the crowd. Nate hoped she was going to take his message to Angel, but she might just as easily have been making a beeline for the exit to spend her unexpected windfall.

Surprised by how strongly he wished he could just leave Angel’s and never come back, he reluctantly made his way to the bar to wait.

Natewas dangerously close to being a morose drunk.

He’d been sitting at the bar for the better part of an hour, and the longer he sat, the more convinced he felt that Petal had taken his money and run. Not that he could blame her. If he’d been in her shoes, he’d have been outta there in an instant.

How had he never noticed before how depressing Angel’s was? Sure, the Executive and Employee tourists were having a blast, getting drunk, doing drugs, enjoying the shows, and getting laid. And sure, some of the dealers and hookers probably got off on the power games they played, enjoyed being viewed as dangerous predators or seeing the sexual hold they had on such powerful people. But most were just doing their jobs, with about the same enthusiasm as a factory worker, dreaming of quitting time and hoping they were pulling in enough cash to make ends meet.

His disenchantment with the club had led him to drink more than was wise. Not that he had any choice but to order drinks while he was sitting at the bar, but that didn’t mean he had to actually drink them. But he hoped that maybe if he took the edge off, he’d see a little bit more of the Angel’s he remembered, the fun, wild, exotic club he’d so enjoyed visiting. Instead, it seemed with every sip of alcohol, he found the place just a little more depressing.

He’d gotten himself into such a nasty, broody mood that he was barely aware of the people around him as he sat hunched over his drink at the bar. He finished off the shot of insanely expensive chocolate vodka he’d ordered, barely tasting it. Nadia was not going to be happy with him for spending the hard-won dollars on liquor he didn’t really want, but maybe if he kept ordering the most expensive drinks, he’d eventually attract Angel’s attention even if Petal hadn’t bothered to take his message to her. And maybe he’d even have a few dollars left over with which to bribe Angel.

“Another!” he cried out loudly to Viper, waving his empty shot glass in the air and then turning it upside down before plopping it back on the bar.

“Fine vodka is meant to be sipped, you know,” said a voice from behind him, and Nate froze with his hand still holding the shot glass.

It showed how dangerously careless he’d become that he’d allowed the very woman he was looking for to come up behind him within touching distance without having noticed. Moving slowly, because there was something sly in Angel’s voice that jangled his nerves, Nate turned around.

Debasement was full of exotic, unusual-looking people, but even among them Angel of Mercy stood out. Nate wasn’t sure how old she was, but if he had to guess, he’d say somewhere in the vicinity of fifty. Her hair was a natural (he presumed) steel gray, cut in a six-inch-high Mohawk that made it look like she had a rotary saw coming out of her head. There were deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and she had the wattled neck of a much older woman, but her boobs were high and tight (almost certainly fake), and she always displayed her cleavage to best effect. The spiky dog collar she wore around her neck might have looked vaguely submissive on anyone else, but on Angel it was a mockery. If there was anyone in the world less submissive than Angel of Mercy, Nate didn’t want to meet them.