The beige door slides open with a click and I let her go in first. It’s dark, save for the neon glow streaming in like smog through the plexiglass. The glow gives the room’s edges an ambiguous quality, and I consider turning on the light but what’s the point. There’s a bed. A sink if you’re lucky. A functional room, and one that charges by the quarter hour.
There’s a small basin in the corner. It is my lucky night. I toss my coat onto it, sit down on the edge of the bed. I debate whether to take off my shoes this time.
She’s more or less how you’d describe a cat if they still existed: lithe and tawny, with spiky red hair. She practically purred into my neck when I came up to her, but I could taste the heat in this one. In different times she could’ve been an athlete, up on the uneven bars maybe, or an archer.
“So. What’ll it be?” she asks, an eyebrow raised. I don’t say anything, and when she drops her eyelids and licks her lips – more like grazes them with the tip of her tongue – I know she knows what she’s doing. The room’s no longer than fifteen feet, but she walks the small distance between her and the bed slowly, one pump in front of the other so her hips sway. When she finally touches me it’s almost maternal; her hands run through my hair, fingernails grazing electric furrows on my scalp before they glide down my neck. Next she’s going to go for my tie, and she does, undoing the knot with the easiest of motions before she takes it, slides it across her throat like a ribbon of silk, then draws it down across her chest—
Wait. No. She couldn’t be. This one couldn’t.
I get up from the bed and approach her. She stops her routine as my hands cup her face, as if I were about to kiss her. Suddenly I tilt her head towards the window to bring it into the glow, my thumb pressing hard against the soft spot under her right jaw. “Like it rough, do ya,” she breathes. A small, dim blue light winks underneath her skin from the pressure. In the neon her face is painted a garish pink, a rouge that’d never run even if she cried. Not that she would, unless you wanted her to.
“Not rough enough.” I push her away and sit back heavily on the bed. As I pull out a cigarette, I reflect that I have at least thirty minutes left. Fuck.
Usually you can tell when it’s a bot, down to its country of origin. Japanese ones are doe-eyed, virginal things, naïve about everything. American ones are almost cartoonishly sexual. Who knew about this one, though. I take a drag. She stands by the window looking at me, a hand on her hip, head tilted at an angle I’d almost call miffed if I didn’t know better.
“Lost your nerve, guy?” she asks, swinging my tie between her thumb and forefinger.
“My appetite.” I exhale, and the smoke puts up a brief wall that obscures her face.
“Ouch. If I could actually be offended, I think I would be.” She tosses my tie back. “I don’t suppose you expect a refund.”
I wave my hand. “Course not. Working girl’s gotta eat, after all.” She smirks.
“What gave it away?”
“The dance. Not the first time I’ve seen a bot run through that routine. Tie across your back like you got out of the shower, then between your legs like you’re buffing a pole.”
Her eyes flicker up and right for a millisecond before she laughs. “Didn’t realize you cared so much about choreography,” she says. “Sure you wanted a girl tonight?” I say nothing and look at the floor. She strides over, leans down next to my ear. “Hey,” she coos. “Everyone’s lonely. Why make it harder on yourself?” She nuzzles my neck. “Besides, you still got half an hour.” Leave it to a bot to care about whether I waste my creds. I push her aside.
“Some of us want to be reminded why we’re lonely.” I kill the cigarette, and she looks at me in a simulation of disbelief.
“Thousands of humans, and you’re the first,” she says. She taps the edge of the bed. “Can I sit down, at least?” I say nothing but she does it anyway. “I can go if you want.”
“What’s your name?” I ask. She leans back and stretches.
“Oh, Tammy,” she murmurs.
“Try again.”
“What does it matter?”
“In case I run into you at church.”
“Fine. Julia. Hello and what’s your name?” she says, extending a hand in mock greeting. I look away. “Just playing along,” she mutters.
“That’s the problem.” Was I really going to get into it, with her of all things. “It’s just playing along.” Hell, nothing better to do.
Julia looks up at the ceiling. “Nothing wrong with taking your comfort where you can get it.”
“That’s too easy. That’s how we ended up here.” I pause, notice for the first time my hands are trembling. “Things got easier and easier, and when we…found out where we were headed, we’d already greased the slide too much. Frictionless, all the way to the bottom.” Julia’s silent at this, her foot dangling in time to some internal rhythm, a tempo unknown and irreproducible in any living thing.
“But you shouldn’t keep punishing yourself for it,” she says softly.
“I don’t have to. Waking up in this city is enough.”
The urge comes out of nowhere, but I don’t fight it; slowly, I bring my legs up onto the bed and I rest my head in her lap. For a second, I sense something stir within her that feels like hesitation, and then her hand gently alights on my temple, strokes my hair. I feel my eyes go wet, and I pretend.
