Page 13 of Rescued

He made a gesture in the air and a holo illumination suddenly appeared. It looked like a poster you might hang on a wall, except it was made of light and hovered in front of Davrik’s face. And it showed at least a thousand women.

“Here we have our Zenthian blossom—she goes by the name of Treela,” the clerk said, highlighting one of the small squares and causing it to grow large so that it took up the entire holo. It showed a slender female with green skin and three large yellow eyes. She was wearing a slinky black dress that showed the curving tops of her three breasts and her long blue hair was waved over one slim shoulder.

“And here is Hi’la—our flower from Goisha Prime,” the clerk went on glibly. He shrank the first picture and highlighted another, showing a second woman—this one with pink skin and four arms—wearing a knowing smile.

“I am looking for a female—a human woman,” Davrik said, deciding to get straight to the point. “She looks like this.”

He pulled out his own holo disk and displayed the image of Sonya to the clerk, who hastily waved a hand and disappeared the glowing poster of the many “flowers.”

“Ah…I see.” The clerk studied the holo and nodded. “You have very good taste, Sir. I see that you’re interested in our brightest and most beautiful blossom—Sonya the Songbird, we call her.”

“Yes, that’s her!” Davrik’s heart jumped painfully in his chest as he put the holo disk back in his pocket. “I want to see her at once! No, first I want to talk to the manager here—I want to buy her contract.”

The clerk frowned doubtfully.

“Well…I don’t know about that, Sir. Here in The House of a Thousand Flowers, we’re not in the habit of selling our blossoms—though you can, of course, spend time with them—for a price.”

“I don’t want her for an hour, damn it!” Davrik growled. “I want to buy her! I need to own her! Who can I talk to about that?”

He didn’t have to fake the impatience in his voice—yes, he was pretending to be a rich asshole, but in this case, he was speaking from the heart. He needed to get Sonya and make sure she was safe!

The clerk shook his head.

“You’d have to speak to Master Oozle, I’m afraid. But he’s out right now.”

“In that case, just let me buy time with Sonya until he returns,” Davrik said. He didn’t want to take a chance on some other male coming in and “buying time” with his female and doing the Goddess knew what to her while he waited for the manager to arrive!

“I’m afraid she’s not at liberty to entertain guests right now, Sir,” the clerk said apologetically. “She’s singing at the moment—in our Flower Lounge. Her voice is positively heavenly—every one of our patrons says so.”

“All right, where’s the lounge?” Davrik asked impatiently. He just wanted to see her again, damn it! She was so close and he couldn’t get to her—it was maddening.

“I’m afraid the lounge is for members only,” the clerk told him. “Would you care to buy a membership?”

“Yes—yes, whatever you want,” Davrik growled.

“Excellent!”

The clerk made another holo poster appear, showing a complicated looking graph with several colors shading into each other.

“Now the next question is, what level of membership do you want?” he asked cheerfully. “The Silver membership allows you access to the Flower Lounge only, as well as some time with one of our lower tier flowers. The Golden membership includes access to our Flower Spa, where you can have the most luxurious and relaxing treatments administered by the delicate fingers of our Spa Flowers and also private time spent with any two mid-tier flowers of your choosing. The Platinum membership—”

“Yes, yes—give me that one. Or whichever one is the highest,” Davrik snapped. “Whichever one will buy me the most time with Sonya—that’s what I want.”

“Ahh…you must be speaking of our Diamond membership.” The clerk nodded knowingly. “Which will give you access to—”

“I don’t fucking care what it gives me access to!” Davrik growled. “Just hurry up and let me buy the damn thing so I can go and see her!”

“At once, Sir.” The clerk nodded obsequiously. “Now, how would you like to pay?”

Davrik reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of the rare gold-edged cred chips. He watched the clerk’s eyes widen with grim satisfaction.

“Is this enough?” he demanded. “I have more. Enough to buy Sonya’s contract ten times over.”

“That, as I said, you’ll have to discuss with our manager when he returns,” the clerk said. “For now, allow me to process your payment and welcome you as the newest member of our Diamond Level Club.”

“Just hurry,” Davrik told him.

He watched impatiently as the clerk began to fill out the long membership form. The process looked like it was going to take forever! He had an urgent feeling that he needed to get to Sonya soon…before someone else had the same idea as him and tried to buy time with her.

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