Eleanor Bishop lay on the bed, Archie Lockwood's parting words echoing in her mind.
'Eleanor Bishop, you should be glad your body can still fetch a high price from me. After tonight, the slate is clean—we owe each other nothing! If I see you again, it won't be as simple as tonight!'
'The slate is clean... we owe each other nothing...?'
'Yeah, maybe I should be grateful. To Archie Lockwood, I still have this one last shred of value—the value of being humiliated.'
'And what a high price it was!'
'Across all of Tridell, perhaps even all of Jevon, no other "old woman" in her thirties could command such a price!'
'Twenty million for one night! That twenty million felt like a vicious slap to the face, leaving it stinging...'
She stared blankly at the ceiling, unsure of how long it was before she finally passed out.
She didn't wake again until the following afternoon, roused by housekeeping coming to clean the room.
