I internally shook myself out of my reverie, as I didn't like thinking about that part of my life too much anymore, "Hmm... okay. I could eat, I suppose. What's the plan?" I asked her, fidgeting with my hands out of the video pickup range.
She grinned, "A bunch of us are going to Hotcake Heaven for breakfast. If you want to come with us, meet me at my place in Clouds in less than a half hour. I gotta go!" With that, she disconnected the call.
I hummed, nodded, and picked up my pace to return to my apartment. I wanted to change clothes, although I wasn't entirely sure what was appropriate to wear for a "breakfast with friends." The Hotcake Heaven was a pretty popular breakfast place downtown, and it was similar to the Waffle Wagon or the International Pancake Pit from my old world.
However, it was a slightly higher class here because, to some extent, pancakes had to be comprised of at least some "real food" in terms of refined and processed cereal crops. I was sure all the eggs, bacon and sausage I might eat was likely to be scop, and I doubted very much any maple syrup originated from a tree, but that had stopped bothering me ages ago.
Stepping into my apartment, I rushed to my private area and frowned at my clothes options. Whatever I wore, I would stand out in the company of dolls who were selected almost exclusively for their physical beauty. If I was going to be the black swan, I may as well lean into it a little bit.
I quickly doffed the casual clothes I had on and changed into what I privately called my "librarian outfit." It featured a dark, charcoal grey pencil skirt, mirror-shine black pumps, dark pantyhose, a white blouse and a complimentary casual dark open-front jacket.
It was dressier than business casual, but not by a lot. The casualness of the open-front jacket and simple white blouse made it much more approachable compared to the version of the outfit I could wear with a full-on skirt-suit.
After I selected the outfit and put it on, I stepped over to where I kept my accessories and frowned in consideration. This wasn't an outfit where you wore an out-and-out holster like I usually did these days, so I would have to leave my Omaha at home. I think it would have to be the subcompact Lexington today. Furthermore, the tight pencil skirt wasn't realistic in using a stocking holster, and I didn't really like wearing those anyway.
Although eight out of ten times, this type of holster would be used for the femme fatale character in some of the BDs I liked to watch, the truth was it was quite a pain to get at your weapon. Honestly, I didn't know why I bought a holster of this type anyway, as I have not left the house in a full-on dress, ever.
Nodding, I selected a simple concealed holster that I could wear at the small of my back. The back of the jacket I was wearing would hide it. Wearing a pistol at the small of your back wasn't the best either in terms of how quickly you could pull it out, but I had practised the move a fair bit, and I was very quick, to begin with.
With my main accessory decided, I settled on a pair of simple studs as earrings and an understated lady's watch, the latter of which was almost entirely a piece of jewellery in Night City. Nobody that had a watch would need to look at the watch to determine the time. However, there were still a lot of watches on the used market — selling your parent's stuff after they died and the like, so they were still relatively common to find at both pawn stores and used clothing stores, so it was a very cheap way to really class-up an outfit.
Looking at my face in the mirror, I frowned. I didn't normally wear cosmetics at all. Most of the cosmetics I owned were several years old, the stuff Alt-Mom had owned, and Alt-Dad had packed up in boxes. My own mom had passed before she could really teach me how to do it, and although there had been about a year between when we were twelve and thirteen when Emma was learning and sought to teach me, what would be suitable for her wasn't suitable for me. Her skin was smooth and jade-like, bright and pale, and her hair was bright and colourful; it wasn't a wonder why she ended up a model. If only she was as pretty on the inside.
I decided on just some red lip gloss. It was enough to give a little colour to my lips without actually giving the impression I was wearing any cosmetics. Plus, now that I had the knowledge of a hundred dermatologists in my brain, I essentially never got any blemishes, as I would notice them and correct them as soon as I noticed something wrong with one of my pores. If you had very clean, smooth skin, you didn't need much makeup.
I was about to head out of the door when I stopped. I pulled out the little subcompact Lexington, as well as the spare magazine and considered. Then I quickly emptied the two magazines and refilled them with the same armour-piercing ammunition that gave me bruises on my boobs, emptying the submachine gun's magazine to do it.
Normally, I always carried hollow points when I used the Lexington for extra stopping power on random street toughs, but I honestly wasn't too afraid of people who didn't have body armour or subdermal armour anymore. I honestly doubted a nine millimetre could penetrate the torso of someone with subdermal armour, but I could go for head or throat shots.
I could consistently hit a slow-moving head-sized target at twenty metres with my duty pistol, being in the top five of any clinician in Trauma Team Night City. I even got a small little plaque and a small bonus for my performance on the quarterly weapons qualifications. I doubted very much I could achieve the same accuracy with the much shorter barrel of this pistol and without the tactical heads-up display in my Trauma Team helmet, but I was still a pretty good shot.
After filling the two magazines, I slid one last round into the chamber through the open slide, then thumbed the slide release with a satisfying clunk noise and replaced the pistol in my holster.
Glancing down at my watch for fun, I saw I needed to set its time. It was an antique watch, so it was amazing that it still worked at all, so it wasn't surprising it didn't exactly keep accurate time. Pulling out the stem, I casually set it to the current time before leaving my apartment.
Turning to the left, I walked straight into Clouds. Surprisingly, I wasn't alone in their intake alcove today. I had to go through the path that was manned by one of the hostesses, as the other side was automated and wouldn't let me in unless I wanted to Evelyn in her professional capacity.
There were two men in front of me, one was finishing up with the hostess, and the other glanced at me as I stepped into the alcove. He did seem quite nervous, but he wasn't the "neckbeard" type that I had envisioned in my head as the "typical" Clouds patron. That was an unfair stereotype I had, probably. He was a little older than me and clearly had money from the way he was mistreating his Jinguji casual wear. It looked like he slept in it or maybe just put on the same clothes he had worn for the past couple of days.
After one of the hostesses walked away with the first man, a new hostess slid in to assist the next person. He glanced at me, and I smiled in a friendly manner, and then he glanced back at the hostess and stammered, "Uhhh... you can go first."
I smiled. At first, I thought it was because he didn't want me to hear any of his kinky fantasies, but that wasn't really how Clouds usually worked, so I guess he was just being nice. Nodding, I slid in front of him, and the hostess recognised me, "Ah, Taylor-san. You can go ahead on back..." she glanced down and then frowned, "... except you'll have to leave your pistol here, of course."
Ah. I had forgotten that. Clouds was a pretty high-security place. Although I couldn't see them, I imagined there were at least two or three security guys very close when someone walked in packing. I reached behind myself and pulled out my pistol and had already reversed it, holding it out to the pretty Japanese hostess grip first when she froze briefly and then said, "Ah, apologies, Taylor-san. Jin-sama has authorised you to carry your pistol on the premises." She seemed a little perplexed, probably because I wasn't an obvious Tyger Claw or one of the employees. However, I guessed Mr Jin trusted me to protect his workers when we were out on the town.
The man behind me had his mouth hanging open, which I noticed in my peripheral vision, and since I was feeling saucy, I glanced over my shoulder as I slid my pistol back into its holster and gave him a little wink, then did my best "sashay" back into the non-public area of the brothel unescorted.
I had been to both Himeko and Evelyn's places a few times, and I was always happy that liberal soundproofing was employed on the walls of all of the rooms. I would have been mortified if I had walked past Himeko's room on the way to Evelyn's and heard lewd noises or something along those lines. I had accepted what they did for a living in the intellectual sense, but I still didn't want to be reminded about it too often.
I pressed her doorbell, and after a moment, the door opened, and I stepped in. Frowning, I saw Evelyn in a mostly naked state. I didn't see her in the gym, but it was clear that she had to go, just likely not at the same time Himeko and I did. I imagine if you were a doll, taking care of your body was a business imperative. I wasn't frowning because I was a prude, but because there was no way we would meet the "thirty minutes," she had told me before. It had taken me twenty minutes to get ready myself, after all.
She glanced at me and must have noticed my expression as she said, "Sorry, it was taking a little longer than I thought!" She paused for a moment and looked at me up and down and then gave me a thumbs up, "Looking good! If a bit stuffy, but classy-stuffy. I like it."
Although I wouldn't have called the look I was going for "classy-stuffy" myself, I guess it was a pretty accurate summation of what I was going for. Her room was pretty small but about the same size as my first apartment in this building. I sat on one of her chairs and waited, saying, "It's alright. Who all is coming with us?" It was, too. I didn't really have anything else to do today besides go get my car in the Badlands.
She was wearing pants that were tight enough that she had to lay briefly on her bed to wiggle into them, which caused me to smile in amusement. My cooling suit was just as tight, but it had the benefit of being made of slightly stretchy material all over. She glanced at me and said, "Me, you, Himeko, Amy and Anders." The last name was unfamiliar and sounded like a man's name, which threw me for a loop for a second, although I didn't know why as, of course, there had to be male dolls, too, even if females were much more common and popular.
After getting dressed, she spent a few minutes putting some cosmetics on and made a viola motion, asking, "How do I look?"
"Pretty, as always," I replied, and with that, we both walked out of her room.
She redirected me away from the front area, saying, "No, no... We're leaving through the back door. One of the security guys is driving us all in a van." Well, that explained how we all were going to get there. I was going to offer to drive Evelyn, but my car only had two seats after all.
The others were waiting by a back entrance that I didn't know anything about, as well as an obvious Tyger Claw wearing a suit that I supposed was our security. I waved at Himeko and Amy but almost tripped when I saw Anders. Not only did he look like he should be on the cover of a bodice ripper novel, with long flowing blonde hair, but I recognised him.
Specifically, I recognised him from some "special" BDs that I bought. They weren't X-rated; those types of BDs weren't special at all and could be bought pretty much anywhere. The ones I bought were speciality products only sold online and were of the genre "wholesome romantic." For example, a walk along a beach while holding hands, a dinner date, and the like. The lewdest they got was perhaps a kiss on the cheek. It said something about this world that these types of products were more niche and, to some extent, harder to get than XBDs. This Anders was the main actor in the series of BDs that I had bought! Oh god, this was mortifying. I can't let him know.
Himeko introduced us, "Taylor, this is Anders. Anders, this is Taylor."
He smiled prettily at me and said, "Hi, Taylor!"
"H-hi, Maximilian..." I said, and then I wanted to die immediately and have the earth swallow me up. I had just used the name of the character on the BDs that he acted in.
Both he and Evelyn grinned, although Himeko and the other woman looked a little confused. Evelyn said excitedly, "I knew it! I knew you would be into that weird shit!"
Weird shit?! Was hand holding weird shit?! It actually was in this world. Oh god, just kill me now.
Maximilian... err, Anders chuckled and looked pleased, "This is the first time I've met someone who was a fan! You've got to tell me all about what you liked and what you didn't!" Oh, no, please, no.
Thankfully, they noticed my discomfort and didn't tease me much more. We all got into the back of the nondescript black van, and the Tyger Claw man drove us to the restaurant. I asked curiously, "Do security people always escort you if you leave the building?"
Evelyn shook her head, "Nah, but they offered since it was four of us all going to the same place. They do recommend we only go to a few places though if we leave Japantown, but it is not mandatory or anything." Okay, that made sense. I would take the free security, too, if I were them.
Almost on cue, I got a call on my encrypted phone app from Mr Jin. Tilting my head to the side, I answered it, "Hello, Mr Jin." The four of them looked interested in my conversation, as they clearly knew who ran the business. He hadn't hired a new professional manager yet, and was actually quite popular with the dolls, from what Evie and Himeko had told me.
"Hey, Taylor! I just wanted to thank you for going along with Evelyn and Himeko... oh, and one other thing," he said, possibly misunderstanding precisely why I had come into his building armed. Or maybe he didn't, since he knew I would if I could, protect them. However, the last thing he said had a sly, amused tone.
I told him, "Oh, it's no problem. But what's the other thing?"
"Just a job offer if medicine or mercenary work ends up not working out for you. I think you have awoken something in the gentleman in the lobby today," he said, very amused. Then he told me a little bit about what he meant without violating too much client confidentiality. He said it was actually a pretty common fantasy, but I frowned as I disconnected the call.
