Specimen Days

"Oh, I think you can." Simon took firmer hold of the client's elbow, as if he were a dance partner. He took a fistful of suit lapel. They were about twenty feet from the colonnade. Simon partially lifted the client, danced him into the dimness, pushed him up against a column.

Simon said, "Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female."

The client said, "What?" Fucking poetry chip.

Simon got in close. He could smell the man's sweat. He could smell his verbena cologne. Many Euros liked a flowery scent.

"I think you can," he said again.

"What do you want?" the man asked hoarsely.

"You know what I want," Simon answered. He decided to push the sex with this one. It was a tricky call, but his instincts were good. Most of them wanted more than pure violence.

"You want my money?" the man gasped.

Simon moved in closer. "Yeah," he whispered. "I want your money."

I want your sweet, fat ass, too. I want you to stick it high in the air for me so I can plow it with my big tattooed dick. Never spoken, of course. Implied.

"I don't want to give you my money." First refusal. As instructed. Good. "It's not about what you want, big boy."

"What will you do to me if I don't give it to you?" he asked, in a tone of desolate coquettishness.

Not as instructed. The client was edging over into porn. He was probably a sex customer looking for variations. The mugging was meant to be sexy, but there were limits in that department. This had been clearly spelled out to him.

"I think you know." "No. I don't."

Could that be counted as second refusal? According to the contract, yes. The client might complain. But he had signed the paper.

"I'd slap you around a little. Like this." Simon administered a quick slap, open-handed. Fingertips against the soft white cheek. "But harder."

"You'd hurt me?"

"Blind loving wrestling touch! sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!"

"Was?"

Focus. Concentrate.

"I'd hurt you, daddy," he said. "Yes, I would. You going to pass me some yen now?"

There was a pause. Again Simon said, "I want the money. I need it. Now."

The client said, "No. I'm not going to give you anything."

Third refusal. Initial engagement fulfilled. "Yeah," Simon said. "You are."

Second slap, full palm. Hard enough to draw a thread of saliva from the client's lips. It connected his mouth to Simon's hand like a strand of liquid spiderweb.

"No. Please. Stop."

This was always a tricky moment. The novices sometimes forgot about the safe word. They forgot that "no" meant yes. They had signed the paper. It had all been clear. Still, a disgruntled customer was never good news.

This client didn't seem particularly innocent, though. He might be new to mugging. It seemed unlikely that he was new to paying for play.

Simon administered another slap, backhanded. His knuckles crunched painfully against the client's jawbone. The client's head snapped back and struck the stone column with a hollow sound.

"Please," the client said. "Please, leave me alone." "Not until you give me what I need."

Simon took two handfuls of shimmering suitfront. He hauled the client up off his feet and bashed him semihard against the column. Level six now. Almost done.

"What if I don't have money?" the client panted. His voice was high with excitement. "What will you do to me?"

Simon tried sending a telepathic signal. It's not sex, sir. This is robbery. Sex is more expensive than this.

"I will waste your sorry ass," Simon said. He offered no note of S&M seduction this time. He spoke in the breezy monotone of a genuine killer.

The client's eyes were tearing up. A lot of them cried. It was time to take it one notch higher. It was time to finish the job.

The client said nothing. He looked down at Simon, breathing, bright-eyed. Unmistakable signs of arousal. The client was being satisfied, he thought. The client would have a story for his friends back in Frankfurt or Berlin.

"I. Will. Kill. Your. Fat. Sad. Ass," Simon said. "You follow?"

"Yes," the man gasped.

There were variations at levels seven and up. You had to improvise. It was a dance. There was no reliable way of telling what your partner really wanted until you got out on the floor. There would be no bloodletting. There would be no weaponry. It could be a punch, though. It could be a head butt. It could be…

Simon decided. He hoped he was correct.

He grabbed the client's crotch. The client had a hard-on, as Simon had expected. He took hold of the client's package and squeezed.

"No," the guy squealed deliriously. "I will never give you anything."

It was over now. Simon had delivered. He let go of the client's lapels. The client slid downward. He would have fallen, but Simon snatched him up under his armpits, turned him, and pulled the wallet from his back pocket. The man's breath came in stifled gasps.