Chapter Three #3
He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed until pain shot up my leg.
The pressure increased when he felt me tremble.
“You don’t get to hold her. You don’t get to touch her.
You get to earn the right to look at pictures…
if you behave. Until you decide, she stays where I put her.
Safe. Fed. Forgetting the sister who cared more about keeping her cunt closed than about being with her. ”
“I’m not asking for much. I’m asking for Camilla back,” I begged. “Please, you know I take good care of her, Dario.”
“And I’m telling you no.” His fingers dug in harder, bruising, and he exhaled like the feel of my fear pleased him. “You don’t get comfort. You get options. Auction or me. Both end with your body belonging to someone else. At least with me you get to see the kid.”
The light turned green. He let go of my leg and drove on. The place where his hand had been throbbed in time with my pulse. He kept talking in the same flat, merciless voice, clearly enjoying every flinch he pulled out of me.
He described the auction without raising his tone.
How I would be stripped in front of a room of men.
How they would make me hold myself open so they could inspect the merchandise.
How they would discuss the size of my tits, the tightness of my unused cunt, the way my ass would look once someone forced it.
How some of them liked to cut little marks into their property so their toys never forgot who owned it.
How others preferred permanent tattoos across the tits or the mound so every future user would know it was ruined.
He listed the kinds of men who bought girls like me. Old. Violent. The type who kept their property locked up, marked, and used until there was nothing left behind the eyes.
Then he switched to the other option with the same empty calm, voice dropping even lower.
“If you choose me, that virgin pussy becomes my property. My right. I will fuck it when I want,” he said cooly. “I will fuck your throat until you choke and cry and learn to take it. I will fuck your ass until it stops resisting. You will call me Daddy every time.”
I shuddered, which seemed to offend him. His mouth set in a line before he went on.
“You will say thank you when I’m finished.
You will never tell me no. And if you ever forget who you belong to, I will remind you the permanent way.
I will carve my name into the inside of your thigh deep enough to scar.
I will have my name tattooed across your cunt so even when you’re alone you’ll see it.
I will cut little reminders into your skin whenever you disappoint me.
I will destroy every soft part of you until the only thing left is obedience and fear.
You will sleep in my bed so I don’t have to go looking for you when I wake up wanting to hurt something.
In return you get daylight hours with Camilla.
That is the best offer a used-up dancer with a dead mother and a stolen sister is ever going to get.
Take it or get sold to someone who will do worse and won’t even bother using your name while he does it. ”
Every word scraped something raw inside me. The way he watched my face while he spoke made it clearer that my terror was the part he liked most.
By the time the car slowed in front of the staff entrance of After Dark, I felt scraped clean. Hollow. Filthy in a way soap would never fix.
Dario put the car in park and looked at me. His eyes lingered on the tears I had not been able to stop. He looked at me for a long second, and for the first time something almost like regret flickered across his face, quickly buried.
“Your mother was the same,” he said quietly. “Pretty. Soft. Thought she was better than life until life reminded her. I tried to keep her. Didn’t work. You’re going to be different.”
I stared at my trembling hands, wishing I could get out already.
“You have until the end of the week. After that I choose for you. And Morena.” He waited until I met his eyes. “If you run, or talk, or try anything, Camilla disappears into places that don’t give girls back. I know the people who handle that. Don’t test me.”
I nodded once. My voice was gone. He unlocked the doors.
“Go earn my money, little girl,” Dario instructed. “Smile. Look available. Remember what happens to the kid if the money drops. And remember what happens to your skin if you choose me and then forget the rules.”
I got out on legs that felt disconnected from the rest of me.
The bag with the lace knocked against my hip.
Dario’s car pulled away before I reached the door.
The taillights vanished around the corner and left me under the harsh security light with the bass from the club vibrating through the walls.
I went inside.
In the mirror, I stared at my reflection until she looked like someone who deserved every vile, cutting thing that had just been promised to her.
When I stepped onto the stage later, the dark presence was there again, heavy in the shadows. I did not look for it.
I knew I was going up for sale.
The only question left was whether I would be sold to a room full of strangers or given to the man who had just explained, in careful detail, how he would cut his ownership into my body and burn the rest of my soul out through the wounds.