Velvet Dogma About 3300 wds by Weston Ochse

Rebecca wondered what his motivation was. Why would he volunteer to be a server? It couldn't just be the free drugs. Well, it could , she admitted to herself, but she couldn't believe it was that simple. She smiled to acknowledge him, but he'd already looked away.
    The bus stopped and a voluptuous young woman stepped aboard. Every seat was filled, so she slid down the aisle, then languished near where Rebecca sat. The young woman wore a sleek silver body suit that fit like a second skin. As she grasped the overhead bar, many of the male passengers admired the way the fabric hugged her skin, shimmering from her neck, across her breasts, down her flat stomach and both legs. The scent of sweat and pumpkin spice wafted from her like it came from her breath.
    Rebecca's head lolled back along her neck as she searched the woman's face. So beautiful and sensuous. Lovely. Rebecca watched in shock and expectation as her hand rose from her lap and drifted towards the woman's rear end. She could already imagine the feel of her skin on the fabric as it traced the contours. If only she could—
    Andy's hand snapped around her wrist and forced it back to her lap. He leaned across her and snarled at the woman in the aisle. "Turn it off, hook."
    The woman flashed him a hate-filled sneer from black-coated lips and sauntered forward on the bus. She stopped about seven seats forward, and was soon moving her hands along the shoulders of a balding man. This time she had no complaints.
    Rebecca swooned, feeling as if she'd drunk several glasses of wine. What the hell had come over her? "What happened?"
    "He was a hook. Used pheromones to entice you. They're not supposed to do that in public."   He grinned and shrugged. "Operating here on public transit, might mean that the cops are busy elsewhere. They don't usually come out in public, much less broad daylight."
    " He was a hook? You mean that's a he?"
    "Definitely."
    "How can you tell?"
    "If you look closely there's a tattoo on the web of his left hand with the letters B-G-C. Stands for Boy George Chameleon. Originally out of Europe, they're big on the West Coast. Think of the BGC as a union of sorts, and to be a member you have to have been changed."
    "But she looks so perfect."
    "Plastic surgery has improved since you've been in. Combined with hormone and stem cell therapy, almost anything can be done. Tails were the rage a few years ago. Folks paid handsomely to be just a little bit animal. Most have since snipped it off, since full removal costs almost as much as the original transplant."   Seeing her look of disgust, he added, "Hey, since they transplanted an orangutan heart into a human back in the nineties, the door opened to quite a bit of interspecies transplantation. One time I saw a martial arts match where both fighters had some sort of tiger claws for hands."
    Rebecca was horrified. "Isn't anyone human anymore?"
    "Oh, yeah. Don't get me wrong—these types of people are the exception rather than the rule. Me, Olga, and your friend Kumi are the norm."
    "But these... people seem to be everywhere."
    "You're forgetting that you're in Los Angeles."
    "Oh, yeah."   Rebecca grinned half-heartedly. "How could I forget that?"
    That made her thoughts move on to Kumi. She still couldn't get over how the woman had leaped forward to protect them. Last Rebecca had seen, Kumi was holding her own with the assassins. She was clearly more than she appeared. But where was she? As the government appointed representative, she was probably the one who'd sent the police after Rebecca. Or had the Hei Xin killed her? And what if the police thought Rebecca was the murderer?
    Rebecca felt a special affinity for the diminutive Asian woman, even though she barely knew her. Perhaps it was because she was the bridge between her past and her future, her last link to prison. For all the bad things Rebecca could lament about, and for all the loneliness she could attest to, San Berdoo Max had been her home for the