winds of perhaps blew across his delimited consciousness. He speculated. . . .
Brendan Sealock had come to Buckminster's Gymnasium on a whim. The sign outside had said, sparring partners, and noted that the payoff was in hooker tokens, the only hard currency that still circulated in New York Free City. You didn't have to spend them on whores. People traded themback and forth, exchanged them for favors, bought unique personal mementos with them. There was a famous artist down on the Deuce who sold his canvases for them. Rumor had it that he could get laid a million times, whenever he wanted. They were little three-centimeter silver-plastic coins, the reverse embossed with the legendone fuque, the obverse bearing a tableau of two mating pigs. The pigs were smiling. When he came in, the handlers sized him up, weighed him, and smiled grimly. The fat black man turned to the fat white man and said, 'One hundred eight kilogram, Bobo!' The other snickered and his masses of doughy flesh jiggled beneath a filthy sweatshirt. 'Right, Mustafa. Killer Hunkpapa's meat she be.' He turned to Sealock. 'Pay is one fuque per minute you last with him.' He winked. 'You gonna get all fuqued up in no time, kid!'
They stripped him, taped his hands, stuck on gloves and shorts, and put him in the ring. The spectators, mostly dirty men and overdressed slinkers, were giggling and pointing. Killer Hunkpapa was waiting. He was a large, powerfully muscled man of indeterminate race. He had black hair, black eyes, and light brown skin. There were scars on his face and he was smiling casually, calmly.
'You ever do this before, kid?' He had what sounded like a German accent. Sealock shook his head. He was feeling nothing now, not even anticipation. The world seemed to possess that same crystalline clarity that it had when he was immersed in the dreadful complexity of Boab Analysis. He felt himself relax and his senses came to a point.
The boxer grinned. 'I'll try not to mess you up too bad. Give me a good workout, I'll let you go home with a pocket full of fuques. Maybe you'll come back.'
The bell clanked on the edge of his awareness and Sealock lifted his hands. The boxer's glove snapped in out of nowhere and tapped him on the face. There was a terrible lance of pain, proceeding from his sinuses to his occiput, and he staggered back, amazed.
Another punch floated his way and he bent forward at thewaist, letting the arm go over his back. He stood up and threw a right at the boxer's face. It missed and landed with a squishy thud on one muscle-ridged shoulder.
The boxer staggered a little and his grin broadened. 'Hey! I like that! This pussy has a real punch!' He hit Sealock in the face three more times, making him bleed.
Another long floater came and he ducked under it, learning. This time he put his fist out, then drove his weight at an exposed stomach. The boxer said, 'UF!' and sat down abruptly. Sealock stood upright, flat-footed, and wobbled Wearily, feeling dizzy and sick.
The boxer bounded to his feet, stared for a moment at Sealock, then wheezed, 'Call time!'
'But, Killer . . .'
'Call time, asshole! Don't you see what we've got here?' The bell clanked. The boxer helped Sealock over to a corner stool and sat him down. 'You OK?' Brendan nodded.
'Good. You come back tomorrow and I'll show you what to do.' He turned away. 'Clean him up, Mustafa. Give him a dozen fuques for his time.'
As he staggered slowly to the door of the gym, several slinkers followed him, touching him gently.
That evening, after a long, relaxing stay in a steam-hazy sauna had restored him to some semblance of normality, Sealock went out to walk the streets of the city, a few fuques clicking together in his pocket. The fat orange ball of a late summer sun wrote long shadows among the ancient buildings and the warm air was a feather touch, brushing across his skin. Very far away, he could see the great, featureless towers of the modern city leaning away from him into the sky. Somewhere, very vaguely, he thought about the curvature of the Earth and was startled. They were
He found one of the little parks that the hookers frequented and stood relaxed, his back pressing into the roughbark of a gnarled, gray tree. Its leaves were the intense olive-green of late summer. Unable to summon any coherent thought, he stood and watched.
It was early for the whores. Tradition made them denizens of the night, but they came out before sunset, perhaps to avoid any unfortunate mythological comparisons. They chatted with each other and ate little snacks. Some were touching up their body paint, and from time to time they would glance over at the staring, nearly motionless figure of Sealock.
A woman lay on the grass not far from where he stood. She had long, braided hair, pale blond, with a matching pubic thatch and large, dark blue eyes. She was lean, without being too thin, and her body was adorned with perhaps a hundred tiny butterfly decals. She did stretching exercises, alternately arching her back and then bringing her legs up until her knees touched her shoulders. Finally, apparently satisfied, she took a long applicator from her tote bag and squirted a small amount of some amber-colored jelly into her vagina. Lubricant? Disinfectant? It didn't matter, and he realized that he'd enjoyed watching her insert the skinny tube into herself. As she put it away, she smiled at him.
Brendan knew he liked watching women masturbate and he supposed that was at the root of his current pleasure. He found a certain interest in watching them at their daily ablutions as well, washing themselves, douching, even going to the bathroom. He'd never taken much time analyzing the things that he liked, perhaps
