CHAPTER FOUR
Nadine
“Could you explain it one more time?” I was scared to ask. I could tell I was getting on Carmen’s nerves.
She didn’t make a face, but she gripped the steering wheel a little harder.
“Sure. My brother Nico and I own several clubs. You’ll see them all tomorrow when I give you a tour.
The main ones you need to know about are our membership only clubs.
They’re all named for spices. There’s Saffron, which is a gym and a spa.
Then there’s Sugar, which is a very high-end strip club.
That’s where you’ll be working.” She plunged on when she saw I was about to ask questions.
“Cayenne is our sex club. You won’t be working there or even going in there, except maybe tomorrow for the tour.
Lastly, there’s Cinnamon. It’s a gentleman’s club on the first floor, but we hold the monthly auction on the second floor.
We call it the Cinnamon Auction, and that’s what I want to put you in. ”
She paused and glanced at me. “Membership is complicated. I won’t bore you with the details, but background checks and NDAs are required to be members of the clubs.”
“What’s an NDA?”
“Non-disclosure agreement. That just means that to join they have to sign an agreement that they won’t share anything that goes on at the clubs. They know we’ll sue their asses off if they violate it.” She paused. “I’m a lawyer. Did you know that?”
“Nope.” That made me even more impressed with her than I’d already been. I watched the scenery changing outside the window as we got close to West Bay. “Do you have a lot more male members than female?”
“Yes. The only places we have female members so far is Saffron, where they come to work out or receive spa services, and Cayenne. I think you’re aware of why they’re members there.
We might eventually have them at the other clubs, too, but I have to figure out the logistics.
That’s a big future project of mine. I work on it when I have time, but…
” She held up her hands, “I never have much extra time.” I looked at the road nervously.
She talked with her hands and was not the best driver I’d ever ridden with.
“Anyway, we always need more female members, but we have a wait list for men. We host several ‘party’ nights at Cayenne to draw more attention from the young, hot, professional women of West Bay. We send out top secret invitations to these parties to certain women in the community, and our female members are allowed to bring two guests a month to try Cayenne out and see if it’s right for them. ”
I opened my mouth to ask another question when she cut me off.
“Everything will make more sense tomorrow, when I take you on a tour.”
I nodded. I was both nervous and excited to think about that.
“In the meantime, I’d like to talk a bit about the auction. As I told you and your mama, I want to put you in the auction soon. Have you ever heard of a sugar baby?”
I had not. “I’ve heard of sugar daddies but not sugar babies.”
Carmen nodded like she wasn’t surprised. “It’s the opposite of sugar daddies in a lot of ways. Women go in search of sugar daddies. Men go in search of sugar babies. They want a young woman to spoil in exchange for sex.”
“Oh. So, they both know what the other wants, then?”
She nodded. “Cinnamon’s auction is like that, except the contracts between the two parties are drawn up by me.
It’s a safe way for young women to enter into that kind of arrangement.
They don’t have to go through a website or app.
They know what they’re getting going into things, and so do the men.
We run stringent background checks on both the men and the women to make sure nothing sketchy takes place. We want everyone to feel safe.”
“But it’s an auction. The men bid on the women?”
“Yes. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all you need to know for now.”
“Can I ask one more question, though?”
“Sure.” She drew out the word as if she was nervous to hear my question.
“How do you pick out the women to be in the auction?”
She looked a little relieved. “Ah. They usually have to work at one of the clubs or one of my younger brothers’ restaurants to be considered. We’re much more likely to pick someone from Sugar than any of the other clubs. Hence the name. Get it? Sugar as in sugar baby?”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “I get it.”
“I have a meeting once a month for interested employees to learn more about it, fill out an application form, ask questions, that sort of thing. I pick a few women each month to be in the auction.”
“What about me? I’m not an employee.”
“Yet,” she clarified. “But you will be. Occasionally, we come across a woman who would be perfect for the auction, or someone recommends someone. I can always bend my own rules. They’re mine to bend,” she chuckled.
“Is it hard to get chosen?”
Carmen eyed me. “Yes. I only choose ten to fifteen each month.
“Why not more?”
“It’s supply and demand. If we have fifty members taking part in the auction and only ten women participating, it drives up bid amounts.
The higher the bid, the more money we all make.
Each Cinnamon Girl, that’s what we call the girls in the auction, walks away with twenty-five percent of the winning bid when her contract is up.
So, if a man bids two million dollars on you, you’ll end up with five hundred thousand when you fulfill the contract.
Plus plenty of other things, but we’ll talk about that more later.
“Okay.” I could hardly believe it. Just the concept of half a million dollars was a lot for me to grasp. My eyebrows went up as something occurred to me. “Wait—and you’re choosing me?”
“You have to know that you’re gorgeous, Nadine.”
“Thank you,” I said automatically.
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “And there’s something else. One special girl is the ‘headliner’ each month. I sort of build the auction around that girl. She’s bid on last, and I start the bidding for her at a higher amount than the others. You’re going to be that girl, Nadine.”
My eyes widened. “You think I’m the ‘special’ girl?”
“Absolutely. The members are going to go crazy when they see you. You’re different, and they’ll like that,” she said simply.
It was hard for me to wrap my head around that. Carmen was one of the most stunning women I’d ever seen, and she was telling me she thought I was special? I’d heard that I was beautiful my whole life. But it hadn’t done me much good so far. Maybe now it would.
It was as if Carmen could read my thoughts. “If you play this right, Nadine, this auction will give you a chance at a better life. A much better life.” She grinned. “Soon you’re going to forget all about that guy who married Jessica Huber today.”
“Mark.”
“Whoever,” she waved her hand like he was nothing more than a mosquito.
It made me happy to think that was possible, even though it seemed unrealistic right now.
I’d been with Mark almost my whole dating life.
We’d been together from the time I was sixteen until…
well, today. I spent eight years with him.
Eight years that I’d never get back. And he’d been cheating on me with another girl for two of those years. That I knew of.
I was tired, my brain hurt from all the new information, and I was trying to process my broken heart. I turned and stared out the window as we got further into the city.
West Bay was going to be my new home. I needed to put all thoughts of Mark behind me.
“And you’re taking me to…”
Carmen looked at me while she was stopped at a traffic light. We were on the outskirts of West Bay now, and I was getting nervous.
“You’ll be living someplace safe. And it’s very nice,” she assured me. “They’ve already got your room ready.”
I had listened as she’d talked to someone on Bluetooth in her fancy car. She’d told them I was coming and to get a room ready for me in Cinnamon House. Whatever that was. The person obviously worked for Carmen and had hurried to get off the phone and do as she’d asked.
The car grew quiet as Carmen focused on the road, and I tried to make sense of all the new information bouncing around in my head.
I had plenty to think about. This was a lot to take in all at once. Especially when you paired it with the fact that I’d just left home with a woman I didn’t know to do my best to get a better life for myself. And Mama, too.
***
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I stood outside the house where Carmen had parked.
It was huge—a three-story, white brick mansion in the kind of neighborhood I didn’t even think existed, much less that I’d ever live in.
It had black shutters with flower boxes on each window and a black door.
I gaped as I looked around. There were sidewalks and huge old oak trees lined the street.
Instead of streetlights there were gas lamps.
Everywhere you looked were manicured lawns and fences.
It was like something out of a movie. Or a dream.
Carmen just smiled. “This is part of The Estates at South neighborhood. It’s the nicest one in West Bay. Well, in the new money part, anyway. This is Cinnamon House.”
“Why do you call it Cinnamon House?” I asked.
“It’s what everyone calls this house because only girls who work at Sugar, have agreed to be in the Cinnamon auction one day, and have applied to live here can stay here,” she said as she walked up the cobblestone pathway that led to the front porch.
“There’s no rent, I take care of the utilities, a maid comes in twice a week, and there’s a live-in chef who buys the groceries and prepares meals. ”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you for real?” I felt like the poor kid in that Willy Wonka movie who finds the golden ticket in the chocolate bar his family couldn’t really afford to buy.
“But I didn’t apply,” I whispered as she knocked on the door.