She snarled. It would have been easy to blame the little gland. It was a complex, delicate piece of medical bioware, secreting a carefully regulated dose of dopamine antagonist, helping keep the schizophrenia locked away in the darkness at the bottom of her thoughts like a slumbering beast. So she couldn’t blame her frustration on that. Maybe it was the run, pumping her up. Or the lack of work—over two months now. And it was no good calling around to her contacts. Work came to her, not the other way around.

She walked down the short hallway and opened Gustavo’s door. Gustavo had about the same status in the apartment as King Jaspar; he was certainly equally dependent—her houseguest, her charity case, her work in progress, her release. She’d found him in an alley behind a swish club seven weeks ago, beaten badly by a furious husband’s security team. He was nineteen and male-model handsome, so he explained, which was why he’d come to Rio in the first place, loaded up with excitement and hope. Except the modeling work had never arrived, despite his being on the books of three local agencies. Instead the agency bookers suggested he escort aging fashionistas to parties, to be seen, darling, so the right people know your name—a flesh accessory with far less value than their glittering jewelry and this-week couture. The fashionistas, colder and more calculating than any street pimp, began to pass him around their wealthy clients. He partied with them, smiled at their nonsensical jokes, then fucked them for half the night like only a virile teenager could. And when that stamina began to falter from the excesses, he took the right drugs to carry on regardless.

Gustavo was sprawled on the bed, snoring softly. She’d gotten him on a program, and he was staying clean; he’d even snagged a couple of gigs modeling sports gear and once as an extra in a music viz-u. But as charity cases went, she knew exactly what she was doing, and altruism didn’t much enter into it. He was convenient. Nothing more.

Her heel knocked the door shut. The noise woke him, and his head came up, showing him blinking sleep-confusion away. She grinned down at him as she tugged the spoiled Lycra top off over her head.

“Holy mother, what time is it?” he croaked.

“It’s morning.”

“You haven’t slept again, have you?”

“A few hours.”

“You need to sleep more.”

She wiggled out of her shorts. “I can sleep when—”

“You’re dead. Yes. You keep saying.”

“That’s right.” Kandara tugged his sheet away and climbed onto the mattress beside him.

There was a moment when he might have resisted. But instead he gave a sigh that played at reluctance. That left him soon enough as her hands moved proficiently across his lean body, banishing the last fog of sleep. After all these weeks she knew exactly how to rouse him, how to keep him hard while she rode him greedily. The sexual gymnastics her gened-up muscles let her perform on his bed never strayed into true intimacy. They were fuck-buddies, not lovers. All she wanted was the physical.