this site cater to women or what? she thought, smiling to herself. “Also you can pick from smooth, medium hairy, or gorilla.”
“Listen to you,” Schneider sniffed disdainfully. “You’ve been surfing this site so often you have all the specs memorized. It’s disgusting.”
Leita sighed. “Like I’d expect you to understand. Tarbians only have to mate once every fifty years. You spend one week—one single week, mind you—producing and hatching your offspring, then you go off and never see each other again.”
“And that’s the way we like it,” Schneider stressed. “Most of us, anyway. The last time I hooked up with a female, she actually wanted me to hang around an extra couple of hours—ugh! I just can’t stand it when they get clingy.” He shivered, a move that displaced his sleek coat of tan fur so that he had to spend a moment grooming it back into place with his long pink tongue and small, six-fingered hands.
“The point is,” Leita said, rotating the dark chocolate-colored medium-sized man figure, “just because you don’t need someone to hold you at night doesn’t mean I’m happy sleeping alone.”
“You’re not sleeping alone,” Schneider protested. “I sleep on the pillow right next to you. Just because we have incompatible body parts and you humans are so freakishly huge I can’t service you sexually—”
“Schneider, please. You know what I mean.” She went back to studying the Companion 2000 series, deciding which one to get. What really drew her eye was the extra-large size in caramel-colored medium-hairy. Her interest flagged the site’s auto- sale personality and specs began appearing on the cube.
“The Extra Large Companion 2000 is between six-foot-two and six-foot-six” read the purple words, marching like obedient insects beneath the 3-D figures. “Two hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty pounds of Old Earth Standard solid muscle will be at your sexual beck and call. Penis size is, of course, proportionate to the size of the Companion. We guarantee satisfaction both physically and emotionally. All Companions in the 2000 series have been programmed with correct and sensitive emotional responses for every occasion. Be the envy of all your friends—you’ll swear you have the perfect man!”
“I’d be happy to have any man at all,” Leita muttered to herself, still eyeing the extra-large, caramel-colored, medium-hairy Companion 2000 wistfully. “But I guess this is the next best thing.”
“What are you going to do with that thing once you get tired of it?” Schneider demanded, lashing his long tufted tail in disgust. “Store it under the bed or in the closet? It can’t really love you, Leita. Or have an intelligent conversation, or share your interests, or help you fix the droids.”
“No.” Leita sighed. “I know that, Schneider. But I can manage the droids on my own as long as I stay here to keep on top of things. And I have you for scintillating conversation.”
“But what if it goes crazy and runs amok?” Schneider asked anxiously. “That’s a pretty big dildo you’re ordering there, Leita. It could do some serious damage if its wiring goes wrong.”
“Don’t worry. I can’t really afford the extra large anyway—it’s over four thousand credits more than the rest put together.” Regretfully, she turned her attention to a smaller, cheaper model. For Her Pleasure was running a special on a small, vanilla, smooth-skinned Companion with blond hair, she was dutifully informed by the scrolling purple letters. If she ordered now, she would get free shipping straight from the manufacturing plant on Osiris and she could have the new Companion 2000 in her bed in under one solar month.
Leita bit her lip. It wasn’t really what she wanted, but it was what she could afford. Besides, maybe Schneider was right—the small Companion was about her size and less likely to do damage if something went wrong. Making her decision, she placed the order and was rewarded with a confirmation number.
One small, blond, smooth, vanilla cure for sexual frustration was currently on its way to her door. Leita just hoped she could hold out until it got to her. Those damn sexy dreams she kept having were hell on a girl’s libido.
Pierce ducked another laser blast and dodged into the shadow of the large building to his left. Damn, when the deal went south, it went south in a hurry. ‘Course, he hadn’t expected to recognize his contact, or for that matter, to have his contact recognize him and decide he’d rather collect the bounty that was out on Pierce’s head than finish their negotiation. Shie-lu had