PLEASURE

PROLOGUE

Club X

IN THE AGE OF ONES and zeros, anyone can dial a fuck. It is in the knowledge of this that he sits in the dim corner of a risqué bar, sucking up the steam from a freshly filled shisha. Certain the call he made a few hours ago would walk in at any moment.

As though confirming his belief, a pair of servers walk towards his side of the club. Both naked as the day they were born. Only with twin pairs of golden melon breasts, flat bellies, and bushy triangular patches curtained off in strung-out Ileke.

He locks eyes with one of the women. She blinks once, her gazelle-like neck angled like one balancing a book on her head, not a shiny bald skull. If his tastes weren't eclectic, he would think them stunning. That, however, doesn't stop his eyes from feasting on the twin orbs of their round buttocks. The thrilling jiggle of both their arses leads him to a shadowy corner, and he stiffens.

It can't be. He squints, leans forward for a better view, and exhales. Nothing to worry about there, just another partygoer refuelling the tank of his thrill ride. Exactly like he was, or is, as his dial chose that moment to walk into the club. She looks nothing like her profile image. If his mood is genial, he'll term her hideous. Not even the red glow of the club's light, or the misty cloud from his recent puff, filter out the crass ugliness that is her angular visage.

Sweet mother of all fucks. He winces and picks up his phone to recheck her image from the hook-up application. How did this cloning experiment escape the lab?

Taking cautious looks around, she blinks bulgy eyes made grotesque by false lashes, bares thin lips coated garish red, snaps them to cover buck teeth that hang like a bleating goat, and again, bares them.

I'm doing her a favour, then. She won't be missed. He works a practised smile onto his face when her gaze meets his. A charming wink and crook of his finger, and she treads towards him, clouding his nostril with a heady smell of orange peel. With trying not to sneeze and working to keep his smile intact, he concludes the night can't get any worse.

The look in her eyes, like the ones he'd seen expressed by most of her gender, is of lust. Unlike them, she bashfully flits hers across his face, roves them down his body, and returns them with a deeper sheen that replaces his earlier disgust of her with anticipation.

"You look better than your profile picture," she says in a honied voice. "Your eyes... I love the colour. They're beautiful."

"You're beautiful too," he says.

"Really?"

He grins. If beauty is a made-up frog.

"No one has called me beautiful before." She tucks a silky-straight wig behind her ear. "Thank you for being so nice."

"My pleasure, cariño mío."

He gets up, giving her his hand, feeling proud he'd pleased her with his compliment and show of Spanish fluency. He motions ahead, impatient for them to get on with it. She may be sore for his poor eyes, but she'll do. His antlers are all thoroughly roused. Changing plans will put him in a state he can't afford, making mistakes.