Almost immediately she started to cough. Wanda-Jean wasn't quite able to handle doing two things at once. Coughing and keeping a grip on her stomach was more than she could manage. She made it to the bathroom just in time.

Afterward Wanda-Jean walked unsteadily into the kitchen area. Throwing up had helped her hangover, but the comedown from the three decks of Blind Tiger she had bought from that Korean hustler when she had been drunk had moved into its place. She found a nearly clean glass and filled it from the water cooler, but then a bad fit of the trembles hit her and she had to put the glass down quickly. She leaned on the cooler, half doubled over, praying that they would go away.

The trembles subsided after a couple of minutes, and Wanda-Jean tentatively straightened up. Generally she tried to avoid taking drugs first thing in the morning, but she was going to have to make an exception. Even if she called in sick, she would need something just to see her back to bed.

An unpleasant thought suddenly struck her. Maybe the bastard had stolen her drugs. Maybe he had even glommed her smartcard. Pain forgotten, she fled in panic to the bedroom. Her bag lay among the discarded clothes. She wrenched it open and tipped the contents onto the bed. To her relief, both her smartcard and her enamel pill box with the picture of a dragon on it were among the debris. With a sigh, she sat down on the bed. She opened the box. There was half a deck of Tiger still wrapped in its original tinfoil, two Serenax, an octagon, and a valium. Just seeing that she still had the pills made her feel better.

Wanda-Jean knew she had to put some clothes on. She certainly didn't feel like roaming around nude all day. Putting on clothes meant she had to make up her mind whether to go to work or not that day. The pills were making her feel a good deal better. Not better enough, though, to smile brightly at dumb, pussy-mouthed customers all day. She decided to skip work.

She returned to the bedroom in search of a sweatshirt and a pair of pants. A close look at the discarded clothes from the night before stopped her dead.

"Motherfucker."

She grabbed the black satin dress off the floor and held it up. It was ripped all down its length.

"Dirty bastard."

Wanda-Jean's rage spilled over, and she hurled the dress into a corner. The dress had cost her an arm and a leg. She must have gone to work for three solid days to get that dress, and the bastard ripped it pulling it off her. She'd only worn it twice. It was strictly a boom-boom room number, with the skirt cut away up to her crotch and the deep V neck that showed off her tits. Her fury increased when she noticed that the matching satin briefs were also torn.

"I'd like to castrate that son of a bitch."

She sat down on the bed, hugged her anger to herself, and cursed silently and steadily.

The pills didn't let her stay mad for very long. After a while she stood up and looked at her body in the full-length bedroom mirror.

Wanda-Jean liked her body. According to the magazines and movies, she had a good body. She always showed a high score in the kind of Know Your Attraction Count questionnaires on the sex and beauty shows. To her eyes, her legs were too long and her shoulders too broad, but none of the men she knew had ever done anything but pay her compliments.

Although it was a little confusing, Wanda-Jean was satisfied with her body. She did, however, suspect that if it was really first class, she would have gotten further in the world. The only thing that worried her about it was that one day it would start to fail. It would wrinkle, the breasts would sag, and it would no longer have the effect on men that it had right now. Wanda-Jean liked having an effect on men.

She wasn't as happy about her face. She had always wanted one of those aloof, perfectly proportioned faces like May Marsh who played the nurse in "Penal Colony" on Channel 80. Compared with May Marsh, Wanda-Jean's nose was too long and her mouth too wide. Wanda-Jean spent a lot of time and money trying to hide these defects. In moments of depression she managed to convince herself they were her main stumbling blocks. If she got really low, words like cheap and common sprang to mind.

She turned slowly around, craning her neck to look at as much of herself as she could. Then she did it again. She noted that she carried some legacies from the previous night in the form of bruises and scratches. On another level, she looked at the marks with a certain degree of satisfaction. What was the point of spending the night with a guy if you didn't have a few bruises to show for it? She would still kick the bastard in the nuts, though, if she ever met him again and recognized him.

With the bout of narcissism over, Wanda-Jean became busy and businesslike. She stuffed her party clothes into the closet and pulled out a red sweatshirt and a pair of white jeans. The sweatshirt had the badge of a well-known Brazilian university on the front. Wanda-Jean had never been near a university, or Brazil, for that matter, but she thought it gave her class. She laid the things on the bed and went to take her shower.

By the time she was dressed and dry, Wanda-Jean was humming to herself. After breakfast, over her second cup of coffee, she began to think what she would do with the day. She picked up the phone to see if any messages had been left. There was nothing except some all-subscriber commercials.

She began to feel depressed. The pills were starting to wear off. Wanda-Jean felt lonely and unloved. That was the trouble with living on the twenty-fifth floor of a faceless, downtown security block. You were always so goddamn alone. It seemed as though she only met people in order to have a bit of quick sex. Even then, they ran out in the middle of the night.

Wanda-Jean picked up her pill box again. It was too early to take the half deck. Instead she dug out a packet of chewing gum and started unwrapping it, then stopped. Maybe something had come for her in the mail.

She went to the door of the apartment and opened the mailbox. There were two circulars, a reminder on an unpaid bill, and a long white envelope. Wanda-Jean picked up the envelope. It was very expensive paper, not like the usual letters she received.

She turned it over. It was correctly addressed. In the top right-hand corner was the logo of the National Cable Corporation. Why should NCC want to write to her?

For a moment a nasty thought flashed in her mind. She'd forgotten to pay for the TV. She was going to be cut off. That couldn't be true, though. She'd taken care of the cable payment only a few days earlier. And anyway, they didn't send final demands in expensive envelopes.

Wanda-Jean tore it open. Inside was a white, engraved card. Wanda-Jean looked at the print in disbelief. Almost in a trance she walked back into the kitchen and sat down.

It didn't seem possible. They had only filled in the applications as a joke. She and her friends Shirley and June had been drunk one night. She had never imagined that it would go any further.

She read the words for the tenth time.

You are invited to audition as a contestant on the NCC game production- WILDEST DREAMS. For further details call 9000-9000 during normal office hours. This application is only valid until November 2.

November 2 was only two days away. Wanda-Jean thoughtfully put a stick of gum in her mouth and picked up the phone. Carefully she dialed 9000-9000.