Chapter 3
Scarletta
"Iam so fucked. I am cosmically, catastrophically, thoroughly fucked. I am fucked in ways that require new vocabulary. I am fucked in dimensions scientists haven't discovered yet. I am—"
Ding.
The laptop notification cuts through my rant with the precision of a scalpel.
Silence rushes in. Loud silence. The kind that makes you aware of your own breathing, your heartbeat, the way the radiator has stopped hissing just to listen to you make a fool of yourself.
I stare at the glowing laptop screen, covered in blankets inside my fort.
Probably spam. Probably someone asking if I take commissions. Or—worse—another reader wanting to know when I'll update "Claimed" because I've left them hanging for three weeks while my obsession over See Me, Spank Me, Cure Me played out.
I fish it out, and stare at the screen.
The notification banner shows a username I don't recognize: AuctionAdmin_DarkDesires
Ok.
I click it open.
SUBJECT: Exclusive Invitation - 75th Annual Triple X-Mas Auction
Dear ScarletSins,
Based on your exceptional content and engagement on DarkDesires, you've been selected for an exclusive opportunity.
Would you wrap yourself up as the perfect gift for a generous benefactor this holiday season?
The Triple X-Mas Auction connects willing participants with verified high-net-worth individuals seeking companionship for Christmas Eve, December 24th, through Christmas Day, December 25th.
Selection Process: Right Now
Christmas Eve Bidding: December 24th, 10:00 AM
Service Expectation: Starts immediately after auction, ends December 25th, 12:00 PM
Payment Disbursement: December 25th, 12:00 PM
Compensation:
Minimum guaranteed payout: $20,000
Performance bonuses available
All transactions confidential and legally binding.
Make this Christmas unforgettable—for yourself AND for someone who values exactly what you offer.
Interested? Click below to review terms and begin the selection process.
[CONFIRM INTEREST]
I read it twice. Three times. Twenty thousand times. Once for each dollar. Minimum.
My hands are shaking.
This is insane. This is—this has to be a scam. Or trafficking. Or some elaborate phishing scheme designed specifically for broke erotica writers with eviction notices.
But.
Twenty thousand dollars.
The number blazes in my mind like a neon sign. Twenty thousand. Two-zero-zero-zero-zero.
Twenty-four-ish hours.
Christmas Eve at ten AM through Christmas Day at noon.
My brain starts mathing, defensive and desperate all at once. If I was going anywhere except my usual blanket fort of seasonal depression, I could technically still make it back in time for... what? Presents? Family dinner?
I mentally catalog my pathetic excuse for Christmas plans: me, my laptop, leftover ramen if I'm lucky, and the crushing silence of being completely alone while the rest of the world pretends to be jolly.
I'm not going anywhere on Christmas. There's nowhere to go, no one waiting, no tree with my name on a single wrapped package underneath it.
But the point is—and this feels important somehow, like my brain is grasping for any rationalization it can find—the point is that I could.
If I had somewhere to be, this wouldn't even interfere.
It's... considerate? Is that the word? Weirdly thoughtful for what is clearly, obviously, definitely—
Auction.
The word sits in my brain like a stone.
Auction. Like... sex... auction?
That can't be right. Can it? Is that what this is?
My hands are trembling so badly I nearly drop my laptop as I push it up to my nose like I'm checking for fine print, or hidden messages, or some kind of "GOTCHA, you idiot" disclaimer.
I read the whole thing one more time. Every word. Every implication.
Make this Christmas unforgettable—for yourself AND for someone who values exactly what you offer.
It is sex auction.
It's an actual, literal, what-the-fuck-is-my-life sex auction, and they're inviting me.
Why?
I mean... okay. Yes. I'm a good writer. My erotica stories have game—twelve thousand followers don't lie, and "Owned" hit the top of the Psychological Dark Romance leaderboard for six consecutive weeks.
My readers say things like "most realistic D/s dynamics I've ever read" and "how does she know what it feels like?
" and I sit there behind my screen, anonymous and invisible, glowing with validation I can't get anywhere else.
But that's words. That's fiction. That's me, alone in my apartment at 3 AM, pouring every filthy fantasy I'll never actually live into characters who are braver, and prettier, and far more fuckable than I could ever be.
I look down at myself.
Yuk.
Who the fuck would bid on this?
The forum dings again—a sharp, invasive sound that makes me flinch.
[CONFIRM INTEREST]
And below it, in cold, unforgiving red numbers:
Invitation expires in: 0:59
0:58
0:57
A minute? I'm supposed to decide my entire fate—whether to potentially sell myself to a stranger for Christmas—in one fucking minute?
No.
No way.
Absolutely not. This is exactly how stupid, desperate young women end up as the cautionary-tale protagonist in someone else's erotica story—the kind where things start off intriguing, and flattering, and just a little dangerous, and then three chapters in she's locked in a basement wearing a dog collar while her family files a missing person's report that goes nowhere because she signed a fucking contract.
I know how these stories go. I've written these stories.
The difference is, my protagonists always get their happy ending. They're always secretly brilliant and unexpectedly beautiful beneath their mousy exterior, and the dangerous man always turns out to have a heart of gold buried under all that trauma and control issues.
It's fantasy. It's fiction.
Real life doesn't work that way.
Real life is Derek laughing when I used my safeword.
Real life is men who see vulnerability and think target.
Real life is me, four months behind on rent, scrolling through an invitation to what is very clearly an illegal sex trafficking operation disguised as a "private event," and actually—God help me—actually considering it because twenty thousand dollars would solve every single problem in my pathetic existence.
0:51
0:50
My phone rings.
I swear my heart skips—no, lurches—forward in my chest, slamming against my ribs like it's trying to escape through bone and tissue. Seventeen beats condensed into one violent thud that leaves me breathless and dizzy.
I drop the laptop. It tumbles gracelessly into the pillow mound beside me.
Then I'm scrambling. Limbs tangling in blankets. Hands patting frantically through the fabric chaos of my blanket fort.
Where the fuck did I put it? Where—
There. Wedged between two cushions, vibrating insistently.
I yank it free.
The screen glows up at me, bright and merciless in the dim string-light glow of my apartment.
The caller ID mocks me. Mocks every single one of my pessimistic, cautionary, sensible thoughts from three seconds ago.
Because the name displayed in crisp white letters is:
AuctionAdmin_DarkDesires
I laugh.
It bursts out of me—high-pitched, disbelieving, borderline hysterical. The kind of laugh that would make a therapist lean forward with concern and scribble notes about "inappropriate affect" and "dissociative response to stress."
And in my panic-stricken, laugh-strangled fumbling, my thumb slips.
Slides right across the green "accept call" button.
Is it a slip though, Scarletta? Is it?
"Fuck—"
"Scarletta?"
The voice that emerges from my phone speaker is male.
Deep. Cultured. The kind of smooth baritone that belongs to someone who's never had to raise his voice to be obeyed.
Professional yet somehow intimate, like he's speaking directly into my ear instead of through cellular towers and digital compression.
My stomach drops straight through the blankets, through the floor, through four stories of modern, walk-up, soul-less apartment building, into the frozen December earth below.
Shit.
"Um... yeah?" My voice comes out small. Uncertain. Like I'm a child caught stealing cookies, not a twenty-two-year-old woman who accidentally-on-purpose-maybe answered her phone.
"Good evening." There's warmth there. Genuine pleasure, maybe, or an excellent facsimile. "I hope your writing is going well. I'm such a fan of your work."
My brain stutters to a halt.
He knows. Whoever this is—this stranger calling from the DarkDesires admin account at nearly midnight on Christmas Eve Eve—he knows I write. He's read my stories. He's... a fan?
The cognitive dissonance makes my head spin.
"I'm sorry..." I press my free hand against my forehead, trying to ground myself in something real. The pressure of skin on skin. The slight dampness of nervous sweat. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one who just sent you the message." His tone shifts slightly. Still pleasant, but there's an edge now. Purpose. Like a salesman moving in for the close. "I don't want to pressure you, but I'm sure you've noticed the countdown timer. And I really do need an answer soon."
The countdown.
Right.
The fucking countdown that's currently at—I glance at my laptop screen—thirty-three seconds and dropping.
Something in my chest constricts. Not panic exactly. Something worse. The terrible, seductive pull of… what if.
But no.
No.
This is insane. This is dangerous. This is every true crime podcast I've ever listened to condensed into one phone call.
"Right. The countdown." I force steel into my voice. The kind of firmness I've never managed in real life but can conjure in fiction without effort. "Listen, I'm a no. OK? So... I don't know what this is, but... yeah. No. Hard pass. Thanks but no thanks."
I jab the red "end call" button before I can do something phenomenally stupid.
Like say yes.
Like ask questions.
Like let that smooth, confident voice talk me into believing this could possibly be anything other than a setup for disaster.
My hand is shaking. The phone trembles in my grip, screen going dark, and I have exactly three seconds of relief before it lights up again.
AuctionAdmin_DarkDesires.
Of course.
I don't answer. I just stare at the screen, watching it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
Then call stops.
The silence feels worse somehow.
This is stupid. This isn't real. Shit like this doesn't happen—not to people like me, not in actual reality. It's a fantasy. A dark, fucked-up fantasy that belongs in fiction where it's safe, and contained, and can't actually hurt anyone.
A notification dings from my laptop.
I'm scrambling again before I consciously decide to move. Hands diving back into the pillow mound, shoving blankets aside with increasing desperation to get to my computer, then I yank it into my lap.
The notification is coming from a tab I opened several minutes ago—the one I pulled up in a fit of masochistic curiosity to confirm that yes, I really do only have forty-seven dollars and thirty-two cents to my name.
Except I should be logged out—they do for you. Automatically. When you leave your bank account wide open in a tab. Because god knows, Scarletta, and other morons just like her, can't possibly be expected to log out of something as mundane as an account holding her entire net worth.
But I'm not logged out. And on screen is some kind of receipt. A transaction record. I squint at the small text, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing in the dim glow of string lights.
Is that my...
Holy shit.
It's my account balance.
But it can't be my account balance.
Because I have forty-seven dollars. Not one thousand and forty-seven dollars. Not a randomly round deposit of exactly one thousand dollars that appeared in my checking account at 11:59 PM on December 23th with a transaction note that reads simply:
Good faith deposit
AuctionAdmin_DarkDesires.
I refresh the page.
The number doesn't change.
One thousand and forty-seven dollars.
The number stares back at me, impossible and real.
Another ding.
A new notification banner appears at the top of my screen, overlaying the bank website with a message from DarkDesires PM's:
Good faith deposit. It's yours regardless of your decision. All you have to do is click [CONFIRM INTEREST] to proceed.
Five seconds.
Four.
Three.
I click confirm.