Year's Best SF 15 - By David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer Page 0,172

I was glad to have Amanda Sam wrap her arms around me, and most nights she was content and sated so there was no pressure to express my thanks for this half a bed in a tiny room.

I worked up the courage to ask questions. I gave Noriko’s full name. No one had heard of her. I named the unit I was with. Most didn’t know it. One or two knew that my unit was dealing with orbitals circling the neighboring gas giant, which at the time was too far away in its orbit for anyone to care. One woman had gotten word that the first foray had been successful, the second was disastrous, the third could happen at any moment.

When the newborns shipped out, I concluded I would never see Noriko, and I would never know what had happened to me. It was only then that I realized what a terrible situation I was in. Amanda Sam took me out to dinner to celebrate the great few days she’d had, and I drank brandy with her, and I told her that tonight would be the night. She kissed me passionately, and back in her apartment she was tender. She aroused me first, and the things she did to relax me actually felt good. She looked down at me and told me to hold her breasts, and entered me so slowly and carefully that it did not hurt at all. I suppose if I’d been in love with her or desiring this kind of moment, I might have felt something more than just the physical sensation, but instead I rubbed my hands up and down Amanda Sam’s back and remembered the one or two times Noriko had caressed my own back and said, “Let’s finish up, I’m ready to sleep,” and I now understood the distance Noriko must have felt (even though during the act I had been certain that because it was sex it must have felt good).

During the days I worked on making the tiny apartment look better. I thought of the people Amanda Sam brought there. I prepared meals. When she pressed herself against me at night, I turned and kissed her and wrapped my legs around her thighs. She got me drunk the night she wanted me to reciprocate her oral ministrations. The next day I searched for some kind of work, but as I already knew, there was nothing official available. “Pinky-up,” the guy in charge of sewage said. The fingerprint produced the documentation, and he shook his head. “You don’t even have one death to your credit. I can’t hire you. If you’re going to stay on Haven, you’re gonna have to keep doing the job you registered for. My apologies. I wouldn’t want to do it.”

When Amanda Sam took me out to dinner and then was Amanda for me in bed, I knew she was going to tell me it was time to work. “I warned you. I warned you. I warned you. And I’ll take good care of you and make sure you meet only the best of people. Some of my peers have taken new people under their wing and taken half. I’ll only take twenty percent, plus your share of rent and food.” The next morning she bought me a big breakfast, and she said how she’d loved every second in bed with me but it was time to learn how to do a few things a little differently. I asked feebly about women, and she laughed. “Young men, they can get for free.” Things were flush now, and she had found several people on Haven who would enjoy paying to break me in. And that’s how it all started.

I’ve heard other stories, and I know now how lucky I was. No one beat me or mistreated me. Amanda Sam always met me at the Wake at the end of an evening to find out how things went, to coach me on how to handle the rude and stingy ones and how to handle the ones who wanted to fall in love with me. And maybe if I were tuned that way, I might have enjoyed myself. Instead I felt like I was living someone else’s life. When I wasn’t working and when I wasn’t with Amanda Sam, I was walking. Long walks with long elaborate dreams. Noriko would appear in the Wake. She’d say she’s seen enough battles, and she now wants to take me with her, some place