CHAPTER THREE #2
Kanji considered the question for longer than Rodney expected.
"Respect and like aren't always the same thing.
Everyone respects her. Most people like her.
She's—" He searched for the word. "Fair.
She'll use you, but she'll tell you she's using you, and she'll make sure you benefit too.
That's more than most people in this city offer. "
"That's what Geoff said. Almost exactly."
"We've had the same boss for a while. You start sounding alike." The ghost of a smile crossed Kanji's broad face. "Get some sleep tonight. You look like you haven't in days."
He hadn't. But it was still kind of Kanji to notice.
***
Day two. Tuesday.
Rodney woke up at four in the morning, which was becoming a pattern. He lay in the dark and listened to the fridge and thought about blindfolds.
He'd never worn one. He'd never had a reason to.
The closest he'd come was a sleep mask his mother had given him one Christmas, the kind with lavender inside that was supposed to help you relax.
He'd worn it twice and both times had pulled it off in the middle of the night because not being able to see made him feel like the walls were closing in.
That was a problem, given that "being blindfolded while a room full of strangers stares at your naked body" was the central feature of what he was considering.
He got up. Made coffee, the cheap kind, because the expensive kind was one of many things he couldn't afford.
Stood at his window and watched the building across the narrow gap between them.
An old woman in the apartment opposite was watching television.
The blue light flickered against her curtains.
There was something comforting about knowing other people were awake at four in the morning too, even if their reasons were probably less dramatic than his.
He thought about texting Lady Leo. Kanji had said she didn't sleep much. But what would he ask? How naked is naked? What kind of people bid on strangers? Is there a minimum attractiveness requirement, because if so I'm in trouble?
Instead, he opened his laptop and searched for Kinky Kritters.
There wasn't much online. A sleek, minimal website that gave almost no information, just a logo (a stylized paw print), a location (listed only as "Las Vegas"), and a members-only login.
No photos. No reviews. No social media. The place existed in the physical world but barely registered in the digital one, which was either very deliberate or very old-fashioned.
Knowing what little he knew about Lady Leo, Rodney guessed deliberate.
He found a few mentions on shifter forums, the kind of semi-private online spaces where shifters talked about shifter things without worrying about humans stumbling across it.
The references to Kinky Kritters were uniformly positive, if vague.
Best club in Vegas. Lady Leo runs a tight ship.
The auction is worth it if you can get in.
One poster described the auction experience in terms that made Rodney blush at his kitchen counter at four-thirty in the morning: It's like skydiving except you're naked and the parachute is a stranger who knows exactly what to do with you.
That was not reassuring. Rodney had never been skydiving and had no plans to start.
Another poster, someone who'd entered the auction to pay off a debt, just like Rodney was considering, had written something that stuck with him: I was so scared I almost threw up before they put the blindfold on.
But the staff talked me through it. There was this guy, Amani, he's Lady Leo's kid, he's like if a golden retriever was also a lion and also had no concept of personal space.
He made me laugh and that helped more than anything.
Rodney closed his laptop and stared at the wall. A golden retriever who was also a lion. He had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like the kind of person who would be impossible to ignore.
He went to work. He took calls. He didn't text Lady Leo.
At lunch, Dean sat across from him in the break room and talked about a concert he was going to that weekend.
Rodney nodded at the right times and said "that sounds fun" when prompted and ate his damp vending machine sandwich and didn't say: I might let a stranger buy me for sex tomorrow night and I'm not sure if I'm terrified or excited and I think the answer might be both.
When Geoff met him after his shift, Kanji had the day off, apparently; even Komodo dragons needed a break, Rodney fell into step beside him and didn't say anything for two blocks. Geoff, true to Lady Leo's description, did not attempt to fill the silence.
Finally, Rodney said: "I'm going to do it."
Geoff glanced at him. "The auction?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"No," he said. "But I'm going to do it."
Geoff nodded. He didn't congratulate him or try to talk him out of it, or offer any more reassurances.
He just accepted Rodney's decision the way a person accepted someone telling them they were going to jump off the high dive, respectful of the courage, aware of the belly flop potential, not about to push them.
"I'll pick you up at five-thirty. Wear whatever you want. You won't need it long."
***
Day three. Wednesday.
Rodney stood in front of his closet, such as it was, a narrow alcove with a tension rod, and tried to decide what to wear to be auctioned off in.
It was, objectively, a stupid thing to worry about, since the whole point was that he wouldn't be wearing anything.
But the walk from the car to the locker room still existed, and he'd be passing Bethany at the front desk and probably Amani and god knew who else, and some stubborn part of him wanted to look like a person who had his life together, even though every other part of him knew that ship had sailed years ago.
He put on his best jeans, the only pair without a hole or a stain, and a dark green button-down that his grandmother had sent him three Christmases ago, the last Christmas before she died.
It was the nicest shirt he owned. It still had a crease from being folded in the package because he'd never had reason to wear it before.
He looked at himself in the mirror by the fridge.
Round face. Dark hair. The green looked good on him, actually, brought out something warm in his skin tone that the blue polos never did.
It wasn't going to make anyone's jaw drop, but it was the best version of himself he could manage, and that night that would have to be enough.
He buttoned the shirt all the way up, then unbuttoned the top button, then buttoned it again, then unbuttoned it again and left it open because he was going to be undressing in an hour anyway and the button situation was the least of his problems.
At five twenty-five, he was standing outside his apartment building.
His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips.
The evening was warm, Las Vegas in summer, the heat pressing against his skin even after sundown, and the street smelled like asphalt and exhaust and the faint chemical sweetness of someone's dryer sheets from a vent above.
At five-thirty exactly, the black sedan pulled up to the curb. Geoff leaned across and pushed the passenger door open.
"You look nice," he said.
Rodney got in the car. The leather seat was warm. His hands were shaking. He buckled his seatbelt and pressed his palms flat against his thighs to still them.
"You okay?" Geoff pulled into traffic.
Rodney thought about it. Really thought about it. He was scared. He was nauseous. He was wearing his dead grandmother's Christmas-present shirt to go be naked in front of strangers. But he was in the car. He had gotten in the car. He was going.
"No," he said. "But I'm here."
Geoff nodded, and drove him to the club.