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Rich or poor. Beautiful or plain. Films of sex. Films of introspection. It could be a lucrative business for someone who had the time and inclination
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    He stopped the camera and rubbed a crick from his neck. The hookers, back on the bed again, looked at him. Their eyes had an odd cast to them. He wondered if the lighting had shifted as he filmed.
    “I’m done,” he said. He slipped into his clothes and coat as they watched him without moving, without speaking. He fished into his pocket to retrieve the money. He suspected they would fall all over themselves once they saw what he had to offer by way of pay.
    He looked up at them again. Still, their eyes were oddly wide, and tinted with a peculiar sheen. It was unnerving. He suddenly didn’t want to be close to them.
    “Here.” He held out the money. “This is yours. I’m going to put it on the windowsill.” He put the money down.
    They stared, saying nothing.
    “Did you hear me?”
    In unison, they said, “Yes.”
    “I want you to just stay here until I’ve left.”
    Together again, in almost an identical, flattened voice: “Yes.”
    He quickly packed the camera in its case, buckling it and adjusting the leather straps. When he glanced back up, they were still staring at him. “Are … are you all right?”
    Together: “Yes.”
    Andrew lifted the camera case and walked to the door.
    Then the blonde, her head turning slowly like that of a marionette’s: “What do you want us to do now?”
    The brunette: “What should we do? Tell us.”
    Andrew put the case down. Something was wrong with them, but what? They’d had no drink, had taken no drugs.
    The two got up from the bed and stood, hands outstretched, waiting. Andrew stared back at them. And then …
    No …!
     … the darkness was coming. His blood vessels began to hum as if they were filled with tiny bees. He began to shake.
    “Tell us what to do.”
    No, not now!
    The humming grew louder, harder, hotter, rushing up into his brain and settling behind his eyes with a deafening roar. He grit his teeth and drove one fist against the side of his head.
    Then all went dark.
    A perfect, silent darkness.
    ***
    Cold air brushed her face and naked body, but it was all right. Cold didn’t matter. There was money on the windowsill, but she didn’t want it. Money didn’t matter. As the brunette hooker shuffled toward the young man, her bare heel came down on a protruding nail in the floor. It punctured the flesh, but it was all right. Pain didn’t matter.
    All that mattered was obeying him.
    “Tell us what to do,” she said. The blonde woman beside her echoed, “Tell us, please tell us.”
    He raised his hand and they stopped. He walked around the two of them and looked them up and down. His eyes were narrowed and reddened, his brow deeply furrowed, and his mouth contorted and twitching. He looked different from the way he had earlier. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was doing what he commanded her to do.
    Then he said to her, “Slap that worthless, stinking whore!”
    She turned to the blond woman, opened her hand and drove it as hard as she could against the woman’s face. There was a resounding crack that sent the blonde spinning to the floor, where she lay for a moment, panting, a huge red welt rising beside her nose.
    The man looked at the blonde and ordered her back onto her feet. Then he cocked his head and said, “Tear out some of that bountiful brown hair.”
    The blonde reached for the brunette with both hands. The brunette waited for it to happen. He had ordered it and so it was right. The blonde grabbed a hank over the brunette’s right ear and pulled down with a quick and powerful motion. With a loud ripping sound, a large portion of hair came out along with a slab of blood-covered scalp. Again there was pain. Great pain.
    But, as before, pain did not matter.
    She stood, blood rolling down her neck, waiting for the next order. The blonde waited beside her.
    The man crossed his