Chapter 10
Caleb
Iwatch from my cabin's control room, leather chair angled toward the wall of monitors, Macallan Twenty-Five in a crystal tumbler resting against my thigh.
My helicopter dropped me here thirty minutes ago, then returned to the club for Scarletta. She'll be delivered to me like a package. Gift-wrapped in humiliation and fear.
Exactly as planned.
Six screens show Scarletta's auction from different angles. Close-ups of her face. Wide shots of the theater. Overhead view of the platform where she stands naked under that spotlight, trying not to shake.
She's shaking anyway.
The other nine screens cycle through the other auction rooms. Sixteen girls total tonight. All of them already owned. All of them thinking this is real.
It's theater. Expensive, elaborate, legally binding theater that was specifically designed for them.
Every girl signed contracts agreeing to specific acts. Every girl walked onto a stage believing strangers would bid on her body. Every girl will leave with a man who's been watching her for months.
The auctions are pretense. The paperwork is deliciously confusing.
The result, always the same.
They understand.
Yet, they don't.
They understand what they agreed to, but it's set up.
A tiny lie of omission. Still legal, if things like this were legal, that is.
They're not. Not in the world Scarletta lives in, at least.
But in my world… in my world, they absolutely are.
I take another sip of whiskey. Smooth. Expensive. Celebratory.
On screen, the announcer begins reading Scarletta's details. Height, weight, measurements. Her unemployment status delivered with just enough emphasis to remind everyone watching that she's desperate.
I wrote that line myself.
Gave the announcer a script. Told him which stories to quote, which passages would cut deepest. Made sure he understood the goal wasn't just to sell her body—it was to strip away every defense she'd built between herself and her shame.
She checked the box for verbal degradation. For psychological dominance. For permission to weaponize her writing against her.
I'm simply honoring her contract.
The announcer's voice drops into a different register—intimate, almost reverent—as he begins to recite passages I selected myself.
Lines from "Owned by the Slave Trader," that story she posted at three in the morning nine weeks ago.
The one where her protagonist begs to be seen completely, darkness and all.
"'I want hands that know how to hurt me,'" he reads, letting each word land with deliberate weight. "'Not because I deserve pain, but because pain is the only thing that feels honest anymore.'"
Scarletta's breathing changes. I can see it on the monitor, the way her chest rises faster, shallower.
He continues. "'Choke me until the world goes quiet. Hold me down until I stop pretending I don't want this. Make me admit what I am.'"
Her own words. Her own need, stripped bare and broadcast to strangers.
The announcer pauses for effect—I told him to do that, let the silence build—before delivering the final passage. "'I don't want someone who loves me despite the darkness. I want someone who loves me because of it.'"
On the close-up monitor, Scarletta's face goes white. Then red.
She didn't expect this. Thought "weaponize your writing" meant teasing her about a sexy story during foreplay.
No.
It means this.
Fifty men—actors, props, fluffers paid to fill seats and look interested—listening to her most private fantasies read aloud like livestock specifications.
She's learning the difference between fantasy and reality.
She's learning what she agreed to.
The announcer continues. Scarletta stands frozen in the spotlight, naked and exposed, while her psychological profile gets dissected for an audience that doesn't exist.
Every man in that theater is on The club payroll.
And by The Club, I mean… me.
I own the club. This one, and two dozen more scattered all across the world.
The auctioneer. The announcer. The security team. The fluffers who bathed her.
I own all of them.
Soon I'll own her.
"Bidding begins at one hundred thousand dollars."
The number was my idea. High enough to make her feel valuable. Low enough that she won't question why someone would pay more.
A man in the third row raises his paddle.
"One hundred thousand."
Another paddle. "One hundred ten."
"One hundred twenty."
The bids climb in increments I designed. Not too fast—that would seem suspicious. Not too slow—I want her to feel wanted.
Worth fighting over.
"One hundred forty."
"One hundred fifty."
I shift in my chair, adjust the growing pressure of my engorged cock. Watching her on those screens—the confusion and shame warring across her face as strangers pretend to compete for her—is better than any scene I've ever witnessed.
She has no idea.
No idea that the confident girl who mocked her in the waiting room was hired specifically to make Scarletta feel inadequate. No idea that the nervous girl's story about the pre-arranged rape fantasy was designed to plant seeds of doubt.
No idea that every camera angle, every humiliation, every moment of her preparation was orchestrated by me.
"One hundred fifty-seven thousand dollars."
The final bid. Pre-arranged.
Scarletta doesn't know just how thorough I am… yet.
She will.
"Sold. Lot Number Twelve to Buyer Number Seven for one hundred fifty-seven thousand dollars."
Scarletta's knees buckle slightly. She catches herself.
The announcer's voice turns professional. Courteous.
"Miss Desmond, please exit stage left. Your experience starts now.."
She picks up the white robe, wraps it around herself with shaking hands, and walks off the platform on unsteady legs.
I drain the rest of my whiskey, set the tumbler aside, and stand.
The monitors show her being led down a hallway. Into a private room. The severe woman with the clipboard speaks to her but I've muted the audio.
Don't need to hear it. I know what she's saying.
Your buyer has requested immediate transfer. You'll be transported to his location now. The contract terms have already begun. This is how he wants you presented…
I cross the control room to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the helipad.
It's a beautiful morning. Nearly noon. Twelve hours ago, she had no idea.
Five minutes from now, her understanding will begin.
She'll arrive terrified.
Perfect.
I turn toward the full-length mirror mounted on the opposite wall and study myself. Black boxer briefs cover my raging hard on, bare everywhere else. Ink covers my torso, arms, thighs, back. Every piece of art depicts the same thing.
A woman in submission. Bound, choked, fucked, eaten, displayed by a man in a black ski mask.
Every woman's face, the same face. Wearing an expression between fear and ecstasy.
I commissioned these pieces over the course of many years, one by one, each session lasting hours under the needle. This face of this woman invaded my dreams every single night—the curve of her jaw, the vulnerable slope of her neck, the way her lips would part in surrender.
A fantasy woman I was convinced existed only in my subconscious, some amalgamation of desire I'd never find in flesh and blood.
And then... I saw her writing.
Six months ago. A random link on DarkDesires forum. "Captive" by ScarletSins.
First paragraph and I knew. The voice. The darkness. I read every story she had at the time over the course of three days. Read every comment she'd ever left. Every response. Every fragment of herself she'd scattered across that forum.
I read all her most secret, filthy desires. Things she'd never tell another living soul. Things she was ashamed of craving.
I didn't know what she looked like then. Didn't have a name, an address, a face.
I just knew it was her.
It wasn't until after hiring a private investigator to trace her digital breadcrumbs that I came up with her real name.
Scarletta Mae Desmond.
When I saw photos of her face for the first time from socials, my heart stopped.
I knew it was her. But now I had proof. Her face, the face. Perfectly matching the woman inked on my body.
It's not a coincidence.
I don't believe in coincidences.
It's fate.
She's mine. She's always been mine. And the tattoos prove it—proof written in ink and pain across every inch of my skin years before I knew she existed in reality.
Immediately, I put cameras in her apartment. I hired a team that specialized in corporate espionage. They had her place wired in under twenty minutes. Bedroom. Bathroom. Living room. Kitchen. Multiple separate feeds streaming directly to encrypted servers I'd set up specifically for this purpose.
Her car came next. GPS tracker installed during an oil change—I sent her a coupon for a free service, used a shell company that looked legitimate enough she didn't question it.
Then her digital life. Keylogger on her laptop that captured every single stroke. Backdoor access to her phone that mirrored every text, every call, every app she opened. Her passwords. Her browsing history. The files she thought she'd deleted.
I became addicted to watching her exist.
Tonight, I become the man inked on my skin. The man in the black ski mask who binds, chokes, fucks, eats, and displays her.
No face. No identity. Just power.
When I'm in my Tom Ford suits, not a single tattoo shows. High collars. Long sleeves. Perfectly tailored to hide everything.
My business associates see wealth and control.
My employees see discipline and competence.
Nobody sees me.
Nobody except the ones who earn it.
And now… Scarletta.
I grab the black ski mask from the table beside the mirror. Pull it over my head. Adjust the eye holes.
The man in the ink stares back at me.
Faceless. Dangerous. Exactly like her darkest fantasy.
Through the window, the helicopter appears in the distance. A black dot silhouetted against the mid-day sun pouring through gray clouds like a delivery from Heaven.