Chapter 1 #2
Everything about this was a terrible idea. As I lifted my fist to rap the metal door with my knuckles, my thoughts were spiraling down and down until I’d half convinced myself this whole thing was an elaborate scam.
I was struggling through an emergency escape plan when the door opened, and I gasped.
In front of me was a lavish hallway that seemed to go on for miles. Ornate light fixtures draped on the walls, a richly patterned carpet lead toward a faint light, and the open space was filled with the rumble of distant voices.
A lot of voices.
A whole crowd of strangers, none of whom were the kind of people I’d feel safe meeting.
I was in the right—very wrong—place. This looked exactly like the kind of place where a girl could auction off her virginity. I was still in disbelief that that girl was me.
When my father suggested it, I thought he was joking. We’d been talking on the phone, his voice barely familiar to me after years of only hearing from him once in a blue moon, and I thought I’d misheard him at first.
“You…you want me to go to an auction?”
Impatience colored his response. “Frankie, I’ve worked damn hard for what I’ve got. If you want my money, you’re gonna have to work for it, too.”
All I could do was listen, slack-jawed, as he explained the situation. An annual Valentine’s Day auction of “rare goods,” he called it, organized by some “business colleagues” of his.
“I have to contribute something. They know I’ve got a daughter, and just about anyone would pay for the right to deflower my little girl.”
My stomach turned just remembering his words. Not only because of the general ick-factor of the term “deflower,” but because of the ruthless tone of his voice.
What kind of father saw his own daughter’s body, her sexuality, as a bargaining chip?
I always knew he didn’t care about me as much as he should. But I had no idea before that phone call that I was just a commodity for him to sell to the highest bidder. Literally.
“We’ll get you dolled up,” Robert Ferrara had declared simply. “Showcase the merchandise. And then the higher you go for, the more money you’ll get for yourself. I’ll take my portion, of course. So if you’re a hot button item, we both win.”
“I…” What was I supposed to say to something like that? What was the protocol for talking about selling off your first time to a stranger at the behest of your father?
“And of course, if you do this for me,” Dear Ol’ Dad continued, his tone full of a malevolent power I’d always suspected he had under his charming facade, “I’ll be more willing to negotiate more help for you. School tuition. That little house of your mother’s.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. In an instant, my pulse was racing loud enough that I heard it above the ringing in my ears. How was I supposed to turn him down if this, this one little thing, no matter how scary it was, could solve all of my problems? Could solve some of Mom’s problems, too?
So I’d agreed.
Now I was reminding myself of the stakes here, the possibility of saving my childhood home and getting back into school again hanging in the balance, as I walked toward the auction that shouldn’t exist.
When the hallway opened up and spit me out into a large, low-lit space glittering with gold and crystal and diamond jewelry, it sunk in that I was entering a whole world I’d never known existed.
All around me were polished, confident people with the kind of money I couldn’t fathom, decked out in tuxedos and gowns not unlike my own.
They all had an air of certainty that I lacked. These people, the bidders I’d be paraded in front of whenever I figured out exactly where I was supposed to go, belonged in this glittering underground society.
I knew this whole thing was illegal, of course. I just never expected criminals to look so…glamorous.
Somehow, while dodging leering looks from men at least twice my age and skeptical stares from the women on their arms, I found my way to the far edge of the room, right by the stage with heavy velvet curtains where I assumed the auction items would be displayed.
This was where the show would begin.
At the edge of the stage, I found someone who was clearly working, another indistinct man in a dark suit with an aura of authority that warred with his efforts to draw no attention to himself.
“Excuse me,” I squeaked then cleared my throat.
You need to act like you belong, Frankie.
It seemed ill-advised to show any vulnerability in this crowd, even as a cold panic was creeping its way up my throat, demanding to be felt.
I tried again. “I’m here for the auction.
As…as a special representative of Mr. Ferrara. ”
It was what my father had told me to say, and it activated the man in front of me.
His sharp eyes widened slightly, then he was whisking me off down another hallway, this time darker and less decorated, leading to the crowded backstage area.
There were people in dark clothing with headsets and clip boards, all bustling around, making this shady event run like a well-oiled machine.
He pointed me toward a place where I could sit, catch my breath, give my already-aching feet a break. He gave me a sign with a small chain attached to it like a handle. In large print, the number 0693.
“That’s your lot number,” he told me. Then he left me alone. I got the hint to slip the chain around my neck from seeing the first item, a large marble statue of an eagle in flight. It had its own lot number tacked at its base.
Though I felt more and more uneasy, the sick dehumanized feeling only amplified by the literal chain around my neck, I was able to settle myself and my nerves for a short time, planting myself in a quiet corner alone as I waited for this whole ordeal to get started.
Something stuck out to me, though, and when I finally figured out what felt weird—well, even weirder than this whole night—the realization just about knocked me over.
Of all the bustling, busy people in my line of sight, none of them seemed to be up for auction themselves. They were in plain clothes. They were working. I was the only one decked out in sparkles, teetering on impossible heels. There were other auction items, but they were…normal.
Large frames covered with cloth to hide the precious artwork within them, antique objects in clear glass cases, enormous pieces of jewelry I suspected were at least stolen if not full-on cursed.
The only other living auction item, as far as I could tell, was growling from behind the bars of a large cage at the far side of the room. I made sure to keep my distance.
I’d assumed this whole auction was, well, for virgins.
That I wouldn’t be the only young, untouched woman available for the lecherous types who would pay for virginity to gawk at, bid upon.
But when the auction started, just as I suspected, almost all the prizes up for perusal were inanimate. Stolen, valuable goods.
I heard the applause. The fast-talking of the auctioneer, the exorbitant costs some items were going for. Over a dozen lots were queued up before me, leaving me to stew in my fear, my wish that there was some other way to help my mom.
There wasn’t one other human auction item on the entire lineup. And it became clear by the time I heard my own introduction that that was by design.
I was the grand prize.
When it was my turn, my auction number on the sign around my neck hanging low enough to still show off my cleavage, I had a worse bad feeling than any of the other anxiety derivatives I’d been experiencing since that phone call with my father.
“Last up for tonight, but certainly not least, we’ve got our most exclusive treasure on the docket, item 0693.”
A booming cheer erupted from a crowd that had, before now, kept their reactions pretty subdued. I felt my legs carrying me forward, through the parted dark curtains and toward the stage lights where I wouldn’t be able to hide.
The auctioneer had more spiel, and it accompanied my slow walk to the chopping block.
“Some lucky bidder will get the right to the greatest pleasure a man can experience: being the first person to fuck a sweet young thing.”
Another cheer, louder than last time, a fair few wolf-whistles mixed in as I finally stepped into the light. I could feel the eyes on me before I could see them.
I squinted through the bright stage lighting, staring out at a crowd that was bigger than I’d thought when I was making my way through it.
Had even more greedy, morally bankrupt people arrived during my decompression time backstage? How many people could there be in the area where I’d grown up who fit that description?
“And in this case, as you all can see, our sweet little virgin is a very special lady indeed. Isn’t she delectable, boys?”
A rumble of more cheers, stomping feet, and ravenous near-growls turned my stomach.
In the front row, I spotted a pockmarked old man with a wicked expression of glee on his face, and for the first time, it occurred to me that I couldn’t go through with this.
No way I could sleep with someone like that.
I’d flinch at the slightest touch from most of these men.
“We’ll start the bidding,” announced the auctioneer in a sickly satisfied voice, “at twenty-five thousand dollars.”
That was the starting price. More money than I’d ever seen in my life, though it wasn’t nearly enough to solve mine and Mom’s money troubles. But I didn’t have time to worry that no one would bite, because in seconds the stakes had raised.
“I’ve got seventy-five, seventy-five, do I see eighty?”
My pulse was running wild. The next number I heard, seemingly seconds later, was $150,000.
“We can do better than this, fellas! Look at that tight little body!”
I felt someone push me forward, closer to the clutches of the criminal creeps vying to take me to bed. I flinched but hurried to regain my composure, squaring my jaw and turning my expression as blank as I could make it.
The bait worked, though. Between one breath and the next, the amount of money the men were offering for my body was astronomical.
“And with that bid, we’re at a quarter mil! Hey, now we’re talking! Can I get two seventy-five?”
And the men, astonishingly, were continuing to bite.
To up the ante and show how badly they wanted access to what they could see.
It was an amount of money I could really use, regardless of losing the percentage my horrid father had demanded from my “earnings.” The mental math came to me naturally, a nice distraction from the emotional calculations I didn’t want to be making.
When the bidding was over, I’d have to face reality.
I’d have to have sex for the first time, and not with someone I loved, or liked, or even knew.
Numbers were much, much easier to swallow than that.
The dollar amount hit high enough that I knew for sure my cut of the pie would fix everything.
A solid half million dollars—and still climbing.
With that kind of cash, I could pay for Mom’s house, I could pay for the rest of my education, and I could even wipe out a good chunk of mom’s medical bills. We might even be able to negotiate some of them down enough that I could wipe the slate clean and have a little safety net of cash left over.
Relief swept over me like a wave of cool water, temporarily wiping away the grim reality.
But then I noticed who was currently the highest bidder.
The little paddle was in the front row, and it belonged to the one man I’d unfortunately noticed before, the creepy grandpa.
A wide grin, bright white in a way that implied veneers if not dentures, caught my eye amidst the haze of the audience.
He threw a wink at me, and I wanted to throw up.
There were a handful of other bidders continuing to up the ante, too.
Another elderly man a few rows back who was hanging all over a different woman around my age in a way that made me cringe; a pair of guys who, though a bit younger than the others, were big and rough-looking enough that I feared for my safety if they won me as their prize.
The last bidder, though, was far enough back in the sea of strangers that I couldn’t make out more than an imposingly broad-shouldered silhouette, a glint of the chandelier against a shining wristwatch.
The man kept his cool as the numbers climbed ever higher.
Dizzying amounts of money, but he kept up with the bidding war regardless, his determination palpable even across the broad space.
Because he was in the shadows, I could almost imagine that he was someone gentler, someone less repulsive than the other men who wanted a night with me.
If I was more of a romantic, I could even pretend he was some prince charming type, destined to save me from my fate—but I knew that wasn’t the kind of event I’d attended. It certainly wasn’t the kind of life I usually led, either.
Maybe if that was my life, I wouldn’t still have my virginity to auction off in the first place.
“One-point two mil, fellas! We’re reaching some real numbers now. These are the numbers that separate the boys from the men, and I’ve already seen our candidates for this gorgeous lady’s first fuck thin out. Who will win the prize? I guess we’ll see…”
The numbers were climbing again, the pace breakneck until a dramatic pause that scared me out of my skin. The bidding was hovering at two million dollars.
I felt like I was going to pass out when I saw that the smug near-winner was Mr. Front Row, his skeevy gaze feeling cold and slimy against my skin like I was sure his touch would be.
He had two million dollars on me, on a first that should have been special and wanted, and I could see in his expression that he knew was going to win.
“We’ve got two million going once, going twice…”
“Three-million,” a powerful, cool voice rose up from the back of the crowd.
I gasped. In what world was I worth a bid that high? Was any one person’s body, any one person’s virginity, worth that much?
“And an extra fifty K for you, Mr. Auctioneer, if we can end this right here, right now.” The same voice, confidence rich and apparent in it, a honey-sweet timbre complimenting its deep darkness.
It was the mystery man. The bidder from the back. He went on to say, “My associates and I would like to get our night started sooner rather than later.”
The other men laughed, whistled, whooped. Associates? My heart in my throat, I watched the glittering crowd part as a mass of men approached the stage.
I heard the angry sputtering of the man in the front row, and faintly I recognized the auctioneer’s mallet hitting his podium, a loud crack of sound that made me jump like it was a gunshot.
I’d been won.
I’d been bought.
And it wasn’t just one man, the man from the shadows who sparked my hopeful imagination, who was coming up to claim me.
There were three of them.
And somehow, by some merciful miracle, they were all gorgeous.