Explore "Mating Center" by Frank Belknap Long on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
His arms were still tight about her and she was murmuring strange words of endearment when one of the approaching pedestrians swung about and gestured to a lean, big-boned woman a few feet to the left of him. Both pedestrians increased their strides, their shoulders jogging in the sunlight.
The first gesturing pedestrian was a man with a squat, muscular body and coarse-featured face. He was not a civilian. He wore the iron-gray uniform of a Monitor-caste security guard and the insignia of his rank, a silver mace, glittered conspicuously on his chest. A thick leather belt encircled his waist, and a flexible metal rod terminating in a catgut whiplash dangled at his hip.