Oliver Benjamin
was quoted as saying, “one civilization at a time.”
“Damn. That was supposed to be off the record!”
“I think your record broken, mon,” said Niles.
Sprout had come in from her first day of work. A faint scent of
coffee and flowers filled the room as she came over and sat on the
sofa next to Niles. Her hair was pulled back from her face and despite
a full day of serving impatient drug addicts, she looked fresh as an
unmarked page.
To see them together one might have thought them extreme ends
of the human spectrum—she golden, he onyx, she flawless of skin, he
mottled and scarred, she supple like silk, he sturdy like stone. But
there seemed to be some exchange enacted between them. Niles’
strength, still weakened by the sedative, now ebbed even lower. He
sunk deeper into the sofa, flattened by the force of the photons
cascading off of her. Meanwhile, she seemed grow stronger under his
gaze.
“Hi,” he said. She looked long at him and briefly brushed the
back of his hand with her palm. Then she turned to Partment.
“I’ve got a job,” she said.
“Fabulous!” he cried. “Roy hired you?”
“Yes. So if you want to throw me out…”
“Throw you out? Never! Working for minimum wage is hardly
self-sufficiency. You stay here as long as you like, cherub. Plus, Roy
is paying you under the table, correct?”
“Under the table?” she said, “What do you mean, sex?”
Niles and Partment both let out choked laughs. “I mean, he’s
paying you in cash,” Partment said.
“He is,” she said, taking out a huge wad of money. “Almost all of
this is tips, though.” She counted out three hundred dollars.
Partment and Niles stared in disbelief.
After she put the money back in her bag, said goodnight, and
skipped upstairs, Niles confessed to Partment, “That’s more money
than the whole place made last month.”
Partment sighed. “Christ. I’m in the wrong business,” he said.
“What, you should get into coffee?”
“No,” he said, “I should get into her.”
Niles eyes opened wider.
“That’s not what I meant,” Partment protested.
A young man, ragged and worn, walked in noisily through the
front door. He hadn’t made it ten steps before he collapsed face-
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