“Yes. Yes. Oh God yes. Yes, baby, you get me hot.” As hot and steamy as her voice was, Lisa Harrison didn’t seem to be getting into the excitement. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and drawled, “Oh, yes, baby, keep on doin’ that, you’re gettin’ me wet.”

She wasn’t impressed with the drooling idiot at the other end of the phone; he was obviously a veteran of this service, which bothered her more than she could say. But she had long ago lost any compunctions about what happened between human beings in bed- or over a telephone line if a bed was not immediately available. Perhaps a younger woman would have been vaguely aroused by the constant sex talk, but by this point she was jaded. She was rapidly losing touch with her softer side; on court, she could still access emotions, but only enough to inspire her during place, while off the court she found that she couldn’t make herself care.

The guy was still panting in her ear, and she replied by rote. The view out the window, however, called to her, distracting her. She saw disturbing similarities between herself and the barren desert landscape. Once upon a time they had both been full of life, but now one of them was literally dead and the other felt figuratively so. If she hadn’t been in the middle of a conversation, she would have burst out with bitter laughter. Everyone loved her because she brought emotion and intensity to the court, but they didn’t really know her at all. Ironic, that, when she thought about it. After all, she had been the one almost willing to bare it all for men with no lives (and some women, but she didn’t want to think about that). Now here she was giving guys hard-ons so they could play with themselves and imagine themselves with a luscious woman.

In frustration, she realized that she had become a whore. Not necessarily in the literal sense of walking the streets and turning tricks in skimpy clothing, but in the way she was so willing to serve other people. She remembered that if Playboy had been willing to offer her more money, she might well have posed for them, baring everything to the world. Had she sunk so low, then, in this life?

She wasn’t really listening to the stream of talk that was supposed to be arousing both of them. Her answers were rote and rehearsed, and the tone of voice came naturally. And she grieved for what she had become.