Chapter Three #2
I stared at the ceiling and tried to build the next month in my head the way I used to build study schedules. Dance. Collect. Hand the money over. Earn the next photo. Earn the possible call. Stay quiet. Stay useful. Stay alive long enough to get my little sister back.
The plan was thin. It always had been. But it was the only one I had.
The memory remained. Somewhere in the city a man with dark hair and tattoos on his hands had watched me dance and had not looked away when I caught him doing it. The sight of his eyes sat behind my own. Scary. Intriguing in a way that made me angry at myself.
I did not have room for intrigue. I did not have room for anything except the next shift and the next scrap of proof that Camilla was breathing.
I turned onto my side and pulled the thin blanket higher. Tomorrow I would do it all again. The stage. The weight of eyes that felt like a claim I had never agreed to. And the quiet, constant terror that the dark presence watching me was not a customer at all.
That it was something much worse. A king that had decided I belonged to him.
Ileft the apartment later than usual the next evening. The sky was dark. I had spent most of the day staring at the wall, replaying the photo of Camilla until the edges of the memory started to blur. My eyes felt dry and gritty. Sleep had not come in any useful way.
I reached the corner where I usually turned toward the bus stop. A black car idled at the curb with the windows up. The passenger door opened from the inside. Dario leaned across the seat.
“Get in, Morena. I’ll take you.”
Every part of me wanted to keep walking. The bus was public. The bus had other people. The bus did not smell like Dario’s gross cologne and the faint chemical sweetness he always carried on his clothes. But refusing him had never gone well.
I got in and closed the door. The locks clicked a second later.
He pulled into traffic without speaking at first. The city lights slid across the windshield in broken lines. I kept my bag on my lap and my hands still. The silence stretched until it felt deliberate.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said at last. His voice was flat, almost bored, but there was a faint undercurrent of enjoyment when he glanced at my rigid posture. “About how long I’m supposed to keep feeding and housing a hole that doesn’t earn its keep the way I want.”
I stared at the dashboard, refusing to speak.
“You’re not getting younger. The stage money is fine for now, but men get tired of the same sad face,” Dario sighed. And I’m tired of paying for the kid while you act like your body is yours. Like you have a right to it.”
I forced my voice to stay flat. “I’m doing everything you asked.”
“Sure, for now. You’re dancing. You’re handing over the cash. That’s the minimum.” He looked at me longer this time, eyes brightening when he saw the fear I could not fully hide. “So I’m giving you a choice. One time only. Listen carefully.”
He drove in silence for a few seconds, then continued in the same dead tone, clearly feeding on the way my breathing had gone shallow.
“There’s an auction at After Dark. Private.
The kind where men buy girls permanently.
I’ve put your name forward. Young. Still untouched between the legs.
Easy to scare. They like that. They’ll pay good money to own a girl they can use however they want for the rest of its life.
Some of them like to cut. Some like to brand.
Some like to keep their property in cages when they’re not breaking it in. You’ll fit right in.”
Three weeks. The air in the car felt thinner. I turned my head and looked at him. His face showed nothing except a small, satisfied gleam when my hands started to shake.
“You would sell me,” I managed.
“I would sell the only part of you that has market value.” My stepfather said it like he was discussing trash disposal. “Or… you drop the act and take what’s in front of you.”
“What do you mean?”
He took pleasure in drinking in my curves.
“You move in. You keep your mouth shut and your legs open. You let me use every hole whenever I feel like it. You call me Daddy while I do it. You thank me after. In exchange you get to see Camilla every day and pretend you’re a person when the sun is up.
At night you are just three holes and a stomach for my cum. That is the deal.”
The car stopped at a red light. The red glow made his face look bloodless. He watched me the way a man watches an animal he has decided to hurt.
“Please,” I said. The word came out broken. “Let me see her. Just once. I’ll do the auction. I’ll do anything. Just let me hold her first.”
Dario’s mouth twisted into something that was not quite a smile. “There it is. The begging. You always sound like a dirty little beggar when the kid comes up.”