“Oh come on, with pure DNA, you must get this all the time,” Sam said with a
grin. She seemed to think that he was joking.
“Does the word jailbait mean anything to you!”
Sam thought about it for a second, one of her ears twitching.
“Uh, nope, should it?”
Gabriel sighed. “Where I come from it’s illegal for someone my age to spill any Mayo anywhere near the taco of someone your age, figurative or otherwise.”
“Oh wow. Really? You must live in a really uptight place, mister Lawman. First of all, Nano Voluntary Mutation,” she gestured at lupine her ears, “slows aging. I look like the age I was when I got NVM, but I got ID to prove I’m older. And second, we don’t actually have to turn on the bow-chicka-bow-wow porno music. I mean, you could just, you know,” she made a jerking off motion with her hand, “in a cup or something.
I’ll even strip for you if that’ll help. Won’t take more than five minutes of your time and I do have, if I might say, a spectacular body. I mean, look at me. I’m the hottest thing you’ve seen all day, admit it.”
“Are you insane,” Gabriel cried.
“Uh, nope,” Sam replied with a shrug. “I don’t think so. Why? Don’t tell me you’re shy.”
“How old are you, anyway?”
“Old enough to have a child,” Sam sniffed indignantly. “Old enough to have a
good job to provide for it, if that’s what you’re worried about. Old enough to know more than a little about pole dancing, if you know what I mean. Get it, pole dancing? No?
Not even a chuckle? God, you’re boring!”
Somewhere in the back of Gabriel’s mind an alarm was screaming jailbait over
and over again, and his mental encyclopedia of law was running through all of the meanings and possible punishments for statutory rape.
Leaning close enough over Gabriel that he could actually see her nipples beyond the low neckline of her shirt, Sam gave him a sleazy look. “Come on. It’s your duty to society to knock up as many girls as you can. You want to do your duty don’t you? If I were a guy with pure DNA that’s probably all I’d ever do. Perhaps my perception of men has been colored by the sorts I normally associate with, but isn’t the only thing most of you think about, day and night, stickin’ it to women?”
Gabriel noticed that her eyes were not the golden color of wolf eyes, but a more metallic gold. He raised his pistol and pressed it against the exposed flesh of her belly.
“Get out of my room please.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me? Even a Lawman can’t get away with murdering an
innocent girl, even all the way out here on the border of the Red Zone.”
“I just might,” Gabriel growled. “I’ve had a very bad day and I don’t need this crap. Get out and leave me alone you crazy little nympho.”
“Fine,” Sam huffed. “I’ll be back in the morning with every woman in town to
gang rape you. Wait, you’re not gay are you?”
“God! I just want some damned sleep! Why can’t you just go away and leave me alone!”
“Because men like you are few and far between,” Sam retorted. “You know how
long I’ve been waiting? Four years! Stop being selfish. I just want a little of your white goo. It’s not like I’m asking you to cut off your arm. It was my impression that most men disposed of perfectly good semen two or three times a day, if you know what I mean.”
Winking, she made the jerking off motion with her hand again.
Gabriel pulled back the hammer on the pistol. “Get away from me.”
“Have it your way.” Walking to the window, Sam opened it and leaned out.
“Hey everyone! There’s a guy in here with—“
Rushing to the window, Gabriel pulled her away from it, slamming it shut.
“Don’t do that!”
The cat on Sam’s shoulders stood up and stretched. Moving to her right shoulder, it raised its head to her ear. She nodded as if it was talking to her.
“You’re not from around here, are you,” she asked.
“No,” Gabriel answered.
“Where do you come from?”
“Chicago.”
“I never heard of that place,” Sam muttered. “It must be really far away. Maybe so far away that the radiation is low enough people don’t mutate and drift. Maybe you just don’t know what it’s like here. Look mister Lawman. I wanna have a baby. I really, really, really, wanna have a baby. It could be years or even decades before another man as pure as you comes along. I’ll have to settle for someone of a lower grade and who knows what sorta defects my baby might have. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but here you’d be lucky to see one in ten years as pure as you. Please. Do you want me to beg?”
“Please don’t. I just want to sleep!”
“What do you want for it? I’ve got money. I’ve got a great body, see?” She
turned so he could see her figure at all angles. “All yours if you want it. I’m willing to do anything. Are you going somewhere? I could be your guide. I know the entire Empire like the back of my hand.”
Gabriel wasn’t aware that he’d given anything away, but Sam flashed him a
knowing smile. “That’s it. You don’t know where you’re going. I could lead you there.
It won’t cost you a single thing except a little semen.”
The cat put its mouth to her ear again and she nodded twice.
“I’ll even pay your room and board along the way,” Sam said. “So, what do you say? Is it a deal? Where are we headed?”
Gabriel thought about it for a second, trying unsuccessfully to eye her figure up and down without her noticing. She caught him looking, winked, and grinned at him.
She was rather attractive, despite her apparent youth. Of course he was totally going over that ID of hers with a high powered microscope to make sure she wasn’t jailbait before anything like Mayo went anywhere near anyone’s taco. Did accepting make him a manwhore? It seemed a reasonable deal, especially if she was perfectly willing to take the leavings of a solo session.
“I’m headed to the Spires of Infinity.”
The cat reared back and hissed loudly, and Sam took a startled step back.
“Why would you wanna go to a place like that, mister? It’s next to the
Quarantine Zone. The radiation is still very bad out there and there’s every kind of mutant between here and there, not to mention the fact that the Children of the Chosen have declared war on anyone passing through their territory. And the Spires are haunted.
Everyone knows that!”
“Lovely,” Gabriel muttered. “That’s where I have to go.”
“It’s very risky,” the cat said in a deep, male voice.
Gabriel was so startled that his knees gave out and he fell back onto the bed.
“That—that’s a talking cat.”
“Oh very observant,” the cat replied, sounding bored. It had an accent like a dried up, snobby, British art critic. It clapped its forepaws together. “Bravo. Do any other tricks?”
“Mister Mittens,” Sam cut in. “That was not very nice. He hasn’t agreed yet! Be more polite until the dealing is over please, then you can rip on him all you like.”
“That’s a talking cat,” Gabriel repeated.
“He’s a mutant,” Sam explained. “What is it, ninety-three times more intelligent than the average housecat?”
The cat—Mister Mittens—nodded smugly.
“He’s my boss,” Sam explained. “He’s very rich. He paid for my NVM in return for ten years of being his hands, with, of course, the option to renew my contract afterward. See, I have a great job and can easily provide for a child.”