Racing the Dark by Alaya Dawn Johnson Page A

long, I'll pay anything."
    "A thousand kala," she said, and could hardly believe her audacity when the amount left her mouth. What humble hostess in a third-rate sailor establishment could possibly hope for such a large amount?
    He looked surprised as well, but then narrowed his eyes. "You have guts, Lei, I'll tell you that. You think you're worth so much? Well, for a thousand kala it would have to be the whole night. You'll have to do whatever I want."
    The back of Leilani's mouth filled with the taste of vomit, but he had agreed. A thousand kala. She could buy enough medicine for another week. She nodded. "My shift is over in an hour."
    He smiled. "This will be a night to remember." He took a long pull on the pipe and blew the smoke into her face.
    He took her to an inn with clean sheets and a proprietor who looked the other way when rich guests with anonymous partners booked rooms. He took his time with her, kissing and touching her far more gently than she would have expected. At first, she went through the motions numbly and struggled not to be sick. But then, unexpectedly, she felt herself respond physically to his caresses, even while she cursed him in her mind. It seemed to her like the worst sort of betrayal-it was one thing for her to give her body to another man, but to enjoy it? Her moans occurred somewhere halfway between pleasure and grief. It seemed to go on forever, no matter how she tried to speed it along. She felt crushed by him, horrified by both his and her own desire. Before tonight, she had only been with one man in her entire life, a man she was completely in love with. Was this how sex was for most women? Pleasure without love? How could she ever tell Kapa of what she was doing, of what she'd had to do-even if it was for the sake of their daughter? She felt as if she were dying when he finished, despite the fact that she had taken every necessary precaution earlier.

    He came at her all night long. All she wanted to do was leave, melt away, and she couldn't because he was on top of her again, and she couldn't even tell which one of them was gasping in pleasure. And then, finally, it was all over. Sated at last, he rolled onto the other side of the bed. She shook him awake.
    "The money," she said. Her voice was flat.
    His cold gray eyes looked amused. He levered himself upright, reached into his purse, and tossed the coins on the bed.
    "You were all right. I figured you'd have more stamina, though," he said as he collapsed on the bed again. She struggled into her clothes and put the money in her pocket.
    Outside the building, she ducked into an alley and vomited violently. Then she went to find the doctor.

     

4

    HE WOMAN HAD SETTLED HERSELF in an abandoned stall in the Alley, one of the less-than-savory market streets near the Eastern harbor. The previous occupant, a taxidermist of chimeras and exotic creatures, had succumbed to the bloody cough that was spreading relentlessly among the less respectable denizens of the docks. A few blocks from her stall in the Alley was Opona Street, where the better-patronized vendors hawked their more respectable wares, from bolts of brightly colored silk worth thousands of kala each to increasingly rare mandagah jewels. Those wishing for items of a less decorous nature went to the Alley. Fortune-tellers and apothecaries, prostitutes and bear-baitersthey crowded the wide, dirty street, clamoring for business with pitches as vulgar as they were amusing. Which made it an ideal location for the one-armed woman to set up shop. Indeed, she caused barely a ripple among those whose job it was, unofficially of course, to monitor the Alley. Just another self-styled fortuneteller plying her trade-strange about her arm, perhaps, but not worth any undue commentary. So long as she paid her tithe to the Alley Master, she was free to do as she pleased. If her business was especially slow, it was far more logical to blame it on the weather or her location than on halfhearted