Necropath (11 page)

Fat Cheng had taken her back, and for a couple of months she had gone with strange men fascinated with her scar, many of whom did nothing but caress the puckered ridge that bisected her face.

In time the interest in her scarred face fell away— the perverts no longer visited her; perhaps they had found other, more mutilated girls—and the regular customers preferred the beautiful, unscarred girls. For many days, Sukara had attracted no customers, and she feared then that Fat Cheng might tell her to go.

Then he arrived at the bar one night in the company of a tall, thin man—obviously alien—and introduced him, or it, to his prettiest escort girls. They had simpered to the alien, tried all the tricks. Sukara, watching, had felt a surge of jealousy. She’d heard from working girls at other clubs that aliens were gentle lovers and paid well.

The alien had whispered something to Fat Cheng, and Cheng had dismissed the beautiful girls and waved forward others, Sukara among them. She had sat beside the alien on a high stool, while the other girls fawned over the elongated, blue-skinned being from Barnard’s Star.

He had spoken to each of the girls in turn, asking them personal questions with a formality at once novel and disturbing. Trivial small talk was not the alien’s way—he wanted to know the age of each girl, something of her background. Some of the-girls tapped their temples and drifted away; others, intrigued, stayed and tried to win the Ee-tee’s patronage.

Then he had turned to Sukara. “You are quiet,” he said in his strangely modulated English. His eyes, slit vertically, stared at her. “What is the marking on your face, Sukara—a sign of beauty with your people?”

And for the first time she had realised how truly alien aliens were.

When she explained how she had received the injury, and that far from being a sign of beauty it was just the opposite, the Ee-tee became fascinated. For the first time in years, Sukara talked with a potential customer about something other than how far she would go for the least possible payment.

The Ee-tee had taken her to a cubicle and made love to her in the way of his people, with her seated face-to-face on his lap, his many-tentacled member tickling her vagina while his hands caressed her neck and face. He had not hurt her; in fact, the experience had been almost enjoyable. He had even paid her well.

Two days later, another Ee-tee turned up, an alien from another distant star, and he too had chosen to go with Sukara. Within a week, she had two or three customers a night from all points of the galaxy. Fat Cheng had even given her a room in which to entertain her guests. When the other girls, jealous of her new-found popularity, had started taunting her, Fat Cheng had called them into his office before work one evening. Listening at the door, Sukara heard Fat Cheng say, “Sukara, she bring in many baht— more than you, Koruna, or you, Suki. No more bad tricks, okay? I see you treat her badly, you go, quick smart.”

After that, the taunts and cruel tricks had been carefully concealed from Fat Cheng—but were all the more cruel because of that—and no one had admitted to putting things in her bed.

Fat Cheng had taken her to one side. “You no listen to other girls, little Monkey, you hear me? They only jealous. You know why Ee-tees like you, little Monkey? They like what in here—” and he had tapped her head. “To aliens, matters more what in here than what you look like, okay?”

Now Sukara opened the door of the cubicle and peered out. There was no sign of the drunken Indian. She ran down the corridor to the other cubicle, slipped inside, and lifted the mattress. She felt underneath, then stared in disbelief.

The Indian had taken her money.

Sukara showered, easing her battered head in the hot jet of water. While she was drying herself, she accidentally caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. She was surprised, as ever, by the extent that the scar ridge divided her face into two equal halves, each as plain as the other. Her most remarkable feature, she had to admit, was the scar.

She touched the swelling on her chin, where the flesh was becoming discoloured.

She dressed and returned to the bar, sat on a stool, and drank another cold beer. In the half-light, no one noticed her bruised jaw.

It was almost four and the Siren Bar was emptying. Even the flashing lights and the beat of the music had slowed. Fat Cheng had vacated his stool and dragged himself to his hammock in the office. A few desultory couples still traipsed around the dance floor, supporting each other more in drunkenness than through any desire to dance. Girls sat around the tables, their bare legs crossed, smoking cigarettes and staring blankly into space. Sukara had two hours to kill before she could go home. In that time, if approached by a human, she would flatly refuse him, even if he offered two hundred baht, three hundred. If an Ee-tee turned up, she would go with it.

She finished her beer and counted the empty bottles. Eight. She signalled for another from the yawning barman. The yahd was beginning to wear off, the alcohol taking its chance to affect her. She felt tired, and found herself clock-watching, which was always a mistake. The minutes seemed to last forever.

Around five, a handsome human man in a sharp suit walked in and ordered a beer. He stood by the bar, turning to take in the girls with an intensity that suggested he was looking for someone. A girl moved from her table, swaying across the room towards him. She placed a hand on his sleeve, stood on tiptoe to whisper into his ear.

It was then, with the girl trying her best, that Sukara noticed that the man was staring at her.

There was something disconcerting in his gaze, almost as if he recognised her, was surprised at finding her here. She looked away, flustered, and raised her bottle to her mouth. When she looked back at him, the man was brushing aside the startled girl and making his way along the bar.

She had decided to tell him to fuck off when she saw the look in his eyes. He had warm, brown eyes that smiled at her. They were not the eyes of someone who could hurt her, she told herself. The man was Western, perhaps forty, with dark receding hair and a wide, pleasant smile. Everything about him said that she should trust him, and yet the very fact that he had approached her, instead of one of the many other working girls still in the bar, told her to be careful.

“Can I get you a...” he began, then saw the row of bottles before her. He smiled. “Silly question.” He hitched himself onto a high stool beside her. “Don’t tell me,” he went on, gesturing to the regiment of bottles, “yahd, right?”

She looked at him, suspicious. “How you know, mister?”

He shrugged and smiled easily. “Calculated guess. You don’t look drunk. Yet eight bottles of beer would be enough to put you under the table. Ergo: yahd.”

She smiled despite herself. Some of his phrases didn’t make sense to her, though she understood his general meaning. She glanced quickly at him. He wore an expensive-looking pendant on a chain around his neck, a golden oval that glinted in the Light from the overhead fluorescent.

“Where you come from, mister? You European?”

“Canadian.”

“You here on big business?”

“You could say that. I move about, here and there.” He mentioned a few of the cities he’d visited recently.

She noticed that, when he thought she wasn’t watching him, his gaze would linger on her face, not her body—and specifically on her eyes, as if trying to see inside her. He made a brilliant show of not noticing her scar.

She lifted her beer and drank. “So, mister, what your name?”

“Osborne. And yours?”

“Guess.” She folded her tongue and poked it into the neck of the bottle, staring at him.

“Okay. Let me see... You look like a... a Su.”

Sukara blinked, sat bolt upright on her stool. “Hey, how you know that?”

Osborne smiled, shrugged casually. “I guessed, how else?”

She squinted at him, suspicious. “You guessed right. But millions of names. Lucky guess, mister. You always that lucky?”

He shrugged again, finished his beer and ordered another. He paid from a thick wad of baht. While he was busy with the barman, Sukara took in his clothing: the expensive suit, the stylish silk shirt.

He swivelled his stool to face her, drinking from his new beer.

“So, Mr. Osborne, you want come with me?”

He frowned in playful consideration, shook his head. “No. I’m fine here. I’m enjoying our little chat.”

He reached out, laid a hand on her knee, and squeezed. The touch affected her like an electric jolt. She ran a ridiculous fantasy—this man was different: not a customer, but someone who wanted her for what she was, not for how good she was in bed.

Then she stopped herself. There was only one reason he was talking to her now. He wanted to use her. Perhaps he was another scar freak.

They chatted about cities of the Earth, and then some of the colony worlds he’d visited. Sukara sat open-mouthed at the descriptions of the cities he’d seen, the natural wonders of the Expansion.

When she next looked at the clock behind the bar, it was almost six. Strange thing was, she no longer felt like going home. She could have sat and talked to Osborne all day.

He must have noticed her glance. He tapped her knee again. “Like I said, nice talking to you, Su.”

She was momentarily tongue-tied. She wanted to beg him to stay, to talk to her some more.

He pulled a baht note from his wallet, slipped it into her fingers. “See you around, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. See you around.” She tried to make it sound like she wouldn’t be bothered if she never saw him again.

Osborne eased himself from his stool and strolled, casual to the last, from the bar. Sukara watched him go, her heart sinking. She told herself not to be such a little fool. Then she lifted her hand and stared at the note. Two hundred baht... The sight of the bright orange note gave her a kick, and she told herself that she should be thankful.

At six, she jumped down from her stool and made her way unsteadily from the bar. She picked her mask up from reception, slipped it over her head, and hurried through the polluted dawn to the metro station.

The express was almost empty at this hour, heading out of the city, and she arrived home in record time. She locked the door behind her, switched on the vid-screen, and cooked egg noodles on her tiny stove. She ate them while watching an adventure movie set on Mars, then turned down the sound and prepared herself for bed.

As she lay on her back and stared at the ceiling a metre above her head, she thought over the past few hours. She considered the drunken Indian, then Osborne. She should have felt pleased that he had talked to her in preference to the other girls, pleased that he’d given her the two-hundred-baht note.

But, she could not help asking herself, why? Why her? She wanted to hate him for leading her on like that, giving her false hope. Then she recalled the charm of his smile, and how it had made her feel, and she could not bring herself to hate him.

She let her mind drift, and soon she was considering her little sister, wondering what she might be doing now.

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