Trait traders often get an unfair rap. People label us parasites, bottom feeders preying on the desperate. That we are buyers and sellers of human life. Well, yes, the letter one might be true. But we never take what isn't willingly given. On their 18th birthday, everyone becomes eligible to open a Trait Account and have the freedom to buy and sell as they wish. Whether they invest wisely or not is their lookout, not ours.

Take Chloe here. Look at her - pretty, feminine, fertile. And what is she doing with those gifts? Nothing! She is no catwalk model. She has no plans to get pregnant until her career is where she wants it to be. She finds her youth and beauty only a hindrance, as her managers look down on her as only an inexperienced girl. So what does she do? She comes to us. We take all those useless traits and put them on the free market for others to trade.

It may look cruel and is certainly painful, but she's got a great deal here. She signed a fifteen-year contract, granting us half her life and all the womanhood we can suck out of her. When the contract matures in ten years, she will receive that essence back with an additional average return of 4.23%, depending on market forces.

We perform an important public service, ensuring traits move from those who waste them to those who need them. By next week, the aging laborer will be back in work on the construction site, reinvigorated by Chloe's years, or some prostitute will be able to use her beauty to satisfy her clients. And thus are the wheels of commerce greased. Almost anything can be found on the traits market, ranging from more abstract concepts to personalized body parts.

Extraction complete, and one arthritic handshake later, Chloe limps out of my office, grumbling. Her traits will rest in my personal 'account' for several days, of course, giving me time to fully appraise her assets. I slip off the baggy business suit, running my eyes and hands over the smooth skin of her taut stomach and young, fertile body. The breasts were not Chloe's - I snapped those up a year ago in an auction, taken from mother who had defaulted on her debts, and they've been sitting in my account ever since, unseen on my male body. I have to admit that they fit Chloe's petite body perfectly.

But her pièce de résistance is her ass. Turning around, I'm stunned at its size and shapely beauty in the mirror. The girl must not have known its worth before she signed it away. One of the perks of the job is having first pick over all the attributes you acquire. No need to float that piece on the open market, I think, cupping her firm cheeks. I'll be keeping that asset for myself.