The Amber Columns (The City of Dark Pleasures Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

strokes the skin on my back, almost affectionately. “You’re a good girl,” he says, as I stifle a sob on my hand. “Are you crying?”
    “No.”
    He pulls out abruptly. I hear his zipper. “You consented to this.”
    I don’t say anything as he tidies my panties and pulls my skirt down.
    “Sentinel. Access code Kay, 68564. Please put a permanent copy of the last thirty minutes into the private legal sub-folder.”
    The terminal on the wall by the door beeps. I turn and look at him.
    “You can never be too safe,” he says with a cold smile.
    I stand and straighten my camisole. He lifts my jacket from the chair and holds it for me to slip on.
    “You’re a good girl, O’Mara,” he repeats, whispering into my neck.
    “I know.”
    He chuckles as I button myself, stepping away to open the door for me.
    “A free man would be lucky to have me in his harem,” I say as I turn.
    “You’re right about that. I’m going to put you in the ‘maybe’ pile. I don’t have a ‘yes’ pile yet.” He’s almost apologetic about it. I’m tempted to ask how many women are in the ‘maybe’ pile. And what you have to do to earn a ‘no’. But something tells me this is the end of the interview. His receptionist gives me a dirty look as I bolt out of there.
    I don’t look back.
    I’m nearly at the street level before I realize where I am. And though it’s near curfew I decide to brave the open streets. Wilton Kay has left a smell on me that’s making me slightly nauseous. I turn off one of the base level walkways and scan my pass over an exit panel.
    “Citizen O’Mara Tanner. Please register a journey plan before leaving the controlled area,” the scanner intones mindlessly.
    “I just want some air.”
    I feel my implanted chip buzzing in the back of my neck, making me want to itch.
    “Checking your oxygen levels,” the scanner says. “Stand by.”
    My scanner emits a very low electrical pulse throughout my body.
    “No, I just—”
    “Your scanner has measured mild internal trauma.”
    Behind me a group of harem brides, all identically dressed and toting brightly colored shopping bags, snigger as they pass. Everyone knows what “mild internal trauma” means. I close my eyes and let my forehead rest on the scanner terminal.
    “I’m fine,” I say. “I just want to go outside, for a walk.”
    “You’ve met your recommended activity requirement for today.”
    I thought it was a laugh, but it comes out as a sob, which I bite back because crying into a scanner terminal never ends well.
    “Never mind. I’ll just go home.” I turn and jump back onto the magway, which whisks me up two levels before the scanner network catches up to me.
    “ Citizen O’Mara Tanner. Please approach a terminal ”
    People on the magway turn and look at each other. Someone being summoned to a terminal in public is always a bit of a spectacle. I know if I don’t do it after a few seconds my secondary pass will start to whine and that will make even more of a scene. I jump of the magway at the next hub and step over to the nearest terminal.
    “Stand by Citizen Tanner,” it says as I wave my wrist over the scanner.
    Seconds later a woman appears on the screen. So I get to speak to a human instead of a bot. That’s something.
    “Good evening Miss Tanner,” the woman says. “I’m Doctor Jiang. How are you this evening?”
    “I’m fine. I’m really fine. It’s nothing.”
    She frowns at me. “Your scanner readings suggest you recently had sexual intercourse and that you are highly agitated. Can you tell me why?”
    “It’s nothing,” I say, but I’m fighting back tears and not very successfully.
    “Was this intercourse consensual, Miss Tanner?”
    “Yes,” I say. “I wanted to do it.”
    “The penalties for rape are very serious, Miss Tanner. If a man has raped you he will lose his citizen privileges.”
    “I know. I wasn’t raped.” Something about her voice suggests to me that if I had been raped, she