Page 71 of Outfoxed

“No one should invest in a fox if they’re unwilling to put in the work to properly care for one, and both hybrid men and women have those instincts. So, no. I have no pity for anyone who has bitten off more than they can chew in this situation. Don’t look for a hybrid to be the mother or father of a child under these circumstances, unless prepared to handle the reality of the situation. It’s part of marrying a hybrid. They need extra attention compared to a human and other shifter species, and you don’t set up an auction for one without being aware of what’s involved.”

Life had gotten stranger on me, and I longed for the return of sanity. “Is it just me or is this entire system severely fucked up?”

“It’s not just you. Rich doesn’t mean smart or wise, and the current rules are the results of putting rich idiots into power for an unfortunately long period of time, resulting in a scramble to correct the system. One day, the whole system will break, and just about everyone will shrug because we all saw it coming except for the rich idiots.”

“Yet you’re in the middle of it.”

“When you’re paid as much as I am, your morals bend a little. Or a lot. But I do what I can. So, let’s begin with the general questioning portion of your exam. Have you had any childhood illnesses?”

“No. I was vaccinated for just about everything under the sun, and if I could have been vaccinated for rabies, I would have been. Rabies was quite the concern in my childhood household for some reason.”

Dorothy wheeled me down the hall and pressed a button on the wall, which opened a door leading into a reception for a doctor’s office. After a nod to the woman behind the wood monster of a desk, she took me to an examination room. “Just sit tight. I’m not going to do any significant measurements, nor am I going to put you on the table. I can measure you to my heart’s content once you’re taking a nap. It probably hurts like hell for you to breathe at this point.”

“I wouldn’t call it comfortable.”

“Broken ribs are never comfortable, your infection is bad enough it’s going to start hurting significantly within the next few hours, and I suspect we will be performing exploratory surgery to make certain there are no complications from the gunshot wounds. The infection can be easily addressed, but I would rather address any problems immediately.”

“Please tell me I’m not paying for this bill, as you’re sore out of luck if you think I’m paying for this bill.”

“No, all cost of your medical care is being covered by the buyer who requested your auction, who will likely be the winner. They tend to refuse to back down on their bids after making substantial investments in an individual.”

“I’m just going to state, for the record, this is the dumbest damned system I’ve heard of in my entire fucking life.”

“As I said, rich doesn’t mean smart and wise. More often than not, it just means they have more money than sense, but those who have the money make the rules, and the rules currently state buying husbands and wives is the only way stupid rich people can get married to anyone worth marrying.”

“Oh, ouch, Dr. Dorothy. That was cold.”

“But true.”

Saturday, May 16, 2043.

Albany, New York.

The East.

Operations sucked, but the room they took me to afterwards reminded me of a luxury hotel suite, the kind that had gone extinct in the Alley years ago. While stuck with the IV stand, it rolled over the hardwood floor easily enough, and rather than uncomfortable plastic chairs, the room had several plush armchairs with footrests. Several bookshelves loaded with books kept me amused, and my keepers insisted on feeding me steak, seafood, and a variety of culinary treats in their effort to convince me life wasn’t all that bad.

I gave them full credit for effort. It’d been a long time since I’d eaten so well, and every meal dumped me straight into a nap consistently enough that I suspected they slipped sedatives into the food—or into my IV. Rather than question or be annoyed about it, I decided to enjoy the respite from life for a while.

Things would get worse soon enough.

Dr. Dorothy checked on me once an hour every hour during the day, and when she wasn’t working, three nurses shared the workload. Unlike in Asylum, they showed no sign of actively disliking me, and they went out of their way to keep me amused.

To them, a fox created trouble to eliminate the boredom.

It amazed me that they believed I might somehow possess the energy required to do anything more than sit, read, and eat anything they offered to me. Once they calmed my stomach, I bided my time, aware it would take a miracle for me to bust out of the place.

Someone stood guard outside of my door at all times, and the suite boasted a proper ceiling rather than flimsy tiles a persistent and clever fox might push out of the way and use as a route of escape. All in all, I labeled myself as the exact opposite of clever, as beyond stirring shit and making some buyer pay a ridiculous amount for me, I saw no easy way out of my situation.

Or any way out at all.

Someone had left a binder with an explanation of the current courtesan rules, explanations of the two primary types of courtesans, how someone went from a free citizen to a courtesan up for sale, and how someone put in requests for somebody to become a courtesan.

It involved the money they had and I lacked.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized Dr. Dorothy had, in her way, beaten the system, buying her contract and setting herself free, one of a few loopholes in which someone could acquire full freedom to resume being a free citizen.

According to the printouts, which were sourced from one of the government’s many websites, courtesans maintained their right to vote, they received tax deductions dependent on their class, earnings, and other miscellaneous qualifications, and gained certain legal rights in court should their owner fail to provide for them as dictated in their contract. The government also required certain clauses to be in every contract, and they could not be modified, which laid out certain rights.