by Gabi Moore
“It’s actually incredible how much like a regular marketplace it looks. Like eBay in the nineties,” Jeff said. He had been with Black Rock for more than 5 years.
“Oh? I always imagined it was just strings of code. But they have shopping carts and things?”
“Oh sure. Everything arranged in categories. Man, you can get anything you want. And I mean it, anything,” Jeff replied, ogling the waitress.
Jeff and Olaf, the fund’s other two partners, were with me on the distinguished Pearl Terrace, along with a pair of investor reps who wanted to ‘treat’ us.
“Anything huh?” said one of them. They were young. A few years out of MIT, cocky as hell and skinny enough that they weren’t quite filling their suits yet. But they were sharp.
“Yeah, anything,” Jeff said. “Think of any firearm, you can get it. Any chemical, any drug. You can buy passports, identification, that kind of thing. Boatloads of porn, obviously”
He was two whiskeys in and I could tell he had already forgotten the model we were supposed to work on together later that evening.
“What about people?” one of the reps asked.
“People?”
“Yeah, can you like, buy a person?” he asked.
Jeff laughed, his beer gut shaking.
“Well, I’m sure you can buy parts of people, yeah. Like an illegal kidney or something.”
“But I’ve heard you can buy,” the rep said, “you know, a slave. A person. From some third world country, I don’t know.”
Jeff’s smile faded a little. He was closer to my age. He wasn’t quite part of this new crop of kids and though he was a raucous bastard, I knew he preferred his degeneracy a little more on the old fashioned side. He was taking a night course in cryptocurrency and had been playing around on the dark web and underground markets, but with something more like a scholar’s interest than a criminal’s. Jeff had a chubby wife he loved to death and if he ever did transact on dark net markets, it would likely be to buy a discontinued superhero figurine or something.
“Yeah, I bet you could. You could buy all sorts of crazy shit, yeah. I mean, there are no rules. It’s mostly just people buying pot, if I’m honest. I haven’t looked, but yeah. You could buy a person.” His tone suddenly changed. It certainly wasn’t a fun answer. The rep looked a little deflated.
“I’m just asking, man.”
“Yeah, of course,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll show you sometime. But even in total anonymity, I’m sure it’s not that easy to just buy, you know, a whole person. For whatever reason you’d want to do that.”
We all sat in silence at the table. Every one of us knew quite well what reason someone might want to buy a person off the dark web. But it suddenly felt like the conversation had run dry anyway. We ordered another round, had a look at some reports, then left an hour or so later.
When I was little, my mother had told me I could be anything I wanted. That the world was my oyster. I’m sure she never pictured me sitting around a table of pigs in suits discussing the ins and outs of buying a human being illegally off the internet, but then again, the world my mom was talking about was a different one. One I didn’t live in anymore.
Jeff and I saw the rest of the party off and we walked back to the office together.
“Can you really buy a person?” I asked, feeling a little tipsy.
“Christ, what’s with you guys?” he laughed.
“I know, I know. I’m just curious. That’s wild. Do they Fedex them or what?”
He laughed.
“Yeah, you can leave reviews and everything. Choose your color in the dropdown and then they send you a tracking number. Can’t return it if it’s not in the original packaging though,” he joked, and laughed again.
“I wonder how much it costs,” I said, suddenly serious.
“Depends what you’re getting I guess. They could have me for a hundred bucks.” He grimaced as he poked the flesh around his belly.
“How’s the old hernia treating you?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll live,” he replied, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.
It’s not surprising that you can buy a person. In fact, the only thing that surprises me is other people’s surprise. I was at that very moment walking to an office filled with people whose lives I had paid for, wasn’t I? There is no ‘dark web’, or at least nothing darker than what’s happening right now, out in the light. Everything – and everyone – has their price. The people who disagree? It’s only because they know they’re not worth very much.
When we got back to the office, I couldn’t focus. My brain kept flitting around, wandering over to an idea that wasn’t fully formed yet, but which kept nagging at me nonetheless.
Natasha’s next punishment.
In small, dark pieces, the idea slowly pieced itself together in my mind. All I knew now was that the moment we had started talking about buying and selling people, I saw her face in my mind, bright, like a flash. I already ‘owned’ her, didn’t I? How much was Natasha worth to me? And me to her? How much ‘punishment’ did she deserve for screwing me over, for breaking my heart?
Everyone loves to hate the soulless banker figure, but what about me? What revenge am I entitled to, even though yes, I neglected her and yes, we haven’t technically had sex in almost a year? In the great debit and credit sheet called marriage, who owed who now?
Seeing her writhe on another man’s cock was a slice so deep into me that I still didn’t have the courage to even think about it yet. But I would balance the score, one way or another. Licking my wounds or not, she would get her just deserts. I wanted my pound of flesh. And I knew exactly which pound it was going to be.
I make my living manipulating numbers. I find money in tight margins people aren’t even aware exist. Even if it killed me, I would tally up her betrayal, put a figure on it, and mete out her punishment. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of someone I hadn’t spoken to in years. The night in the restaurant had been a good start.
But it was just that: a start.
Chapter Nine - Natasha
“Belinda, I’m a paying customer,” I said. “Just cut it off, I keep telling you, I’m sure.”
My hairdresser Belinda gave me a skeptical look.
“Girls always cut their hair when they’re having breakdowns,” she said. “Please don’t be having a breakdown on me, Natty.”
“Oh my God, you’re not giving me a buzzcut here. Do I need to sign a waiver or what?” I said, laughing. She sighed and patted down my shoulders, looking at my insistent face in the mirror in front of us.
“Ok …if you’re sure…” she said and smiled.
She picked up the shears and got to work trimming down my long mane down into the slick, streamlined vision I had spent the last 15 minutes explaining to her. I don’t know what it is that makes a girl want to change up her entire look, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t having a breakdown. I just wanted to look …different.
I felt like I had been grooming for the last three days straight. I’m no stranger to primping and preening, but this somehow felt like higher stakes. Todd was away on a short business trip, and tonight we were having a ‘quiet dinner’. Alone. I hadn’t made an entry in my secret black book for the last week at least – the longest period of time since I started it more than two years ago.
He had given me no further information, hadn’t ordered me to wear any ridiculous pre-chosen outfit. Hadn’t told me a damn thing actually, other than not to make any plans at all. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to the chefs. “Leave it to me” he had said, and now the only thing left to do was groom.
So I waxed my body head to toe. I exfoliated and buffed and moisturized and glossed my nails in a vivid coral. I got a facial, did my eyebrows and plumped my lips. And of course, the crowning glory, my new hair cut: a more severe shade of blonde, but an altogether more mature cut. The tips were blunt cut and brushed against my shoulder blades. Belinda had asked me, “what’
s the brief” and I had told her, “make me look expensive.”
And holy hell, did I look expensive.
At home, I waited for him. The silver dildo had long since been removed, washed and hidden far at the back of a drawer. But I could still feel it inside me. I was still aching deep inside, still felt hot on my skin where he had pierced me with his cruel, unrelenting gaze. I wasn’t sure yet if I was mad that he had humiliated me, or mad at myself that despite my best efforts, I had enjoyed it.
Though my heart was filled at the moment with nothing but contempt for him, there was nothing I could to do stop myself wriggling and coming like a little slut in my chair. I came harder than I ever think I have in my life. By the time I had paid and stood to leave, I realized how badly my legs were actually shaking. And that I was soaking.
Even though I had now been preparing for days for him, I felt rushed when I finally realized that evening that he would arrive in ten minutes or so. I paced around, approaching the mirror a million times. Yup, still a cheater. Still a whore. On some days, it seemed like no amount of make-up could cover up the trash I was. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore? It felt kind of good, for it to all be out in the open. God, at least we were talking again. And tonight, maybe …well, who knows. My head was in pieces, and I couldn’t think about tonight further than saying “hello” to him.
When he arrived, he came in through the main front entrance, which we never use. He seemed different. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest as I saw him walking up the drive.
“Hello,” I said.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
I thought of twirling around for him, and pouting a little and fluffing it and asking if he liked it. But all of that felt a little phony now. After all, within the last few days alone he had seen me raw and truly naked, face contorted in pleasure. I know how to primp and be pretty …but there’s something to be said for being naked. After hours in the hairdresser’s seat this morning, my whole endeavor to look different suddenly seemed utterly unimportant.
We walked inside together.
“Don’t do it again without my permission,” he said, back to me.
We moved to the red dining room and made small talk. We almost never used this room, and even the cook seemed surprised to be serving us in there. The meal was uneventful, and after a while, I began to think that I had only dreamed our last encounter, and that now I was woken up and living through another dreary scene of my real life. The one in which my husband can’t bear to fuck me and I spend all his money and screw other men to spite him.
“No more for me,” I said, and put my hand over the rim of my glass as he tried to top it up. He lowered the bottle again, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“Peter Cromwell was very grateful for your feedback.”
“My feedback? I never gave him any feedback.”
He smiled mischievously. “Oh yes you did, you sent him an email a few days ago, saying that you’d found the thing in your husband’s study and couldn’t resist giving it a try, and you loved it so much you just had to let him know.”
What? I could feel the edges of my fresh new haircut grazing the skin of my shoulders. I was completely and utterly at this man’s mercy. For now.
“Haha, very funny. Next time tell him to make one in leopard print”
He wasn’t smiling.
“Oh my God, Todd. Did you really? What did you do?”
He smirked and reached for my hand, then stroked the lines on my palm just lightly enough to send goosebumps crackling through me.
“I didn’t do anything. You did. Because you can’t help yourself” he said slowly, still stroking. My arm tensed.
“You’re trying to humiliate me now? Be serious, what did you do?”
He flashed naughty eyes at me.
“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I’m not angry. But the fact of the matter is, you’ll need to be punished,” here his caress on my hands went firm, “again.”
“You didn’t say anything to him, you’re just messing with me,” I said, the end of my sentence not quite sure if it was a question or not.
“Again, that’s irrelevant now. What’s important is that you’ve made me look bad, and now you have to be disciplined,” he said. He raised his cold, hard eyes to me to see what I would make of this new word. Discipline. He never did this. He was never like this. With a weird flutter in the pit of my stomach, it dawned on me how little I knew the man sitting across from me.
We sat together for a while, silent except for my heart pounding in my ears.
“What form will my discipline take?” I asked. I searched his face. Was I doing this right? And what the fuck were we doing anyway? The words seemed straight from a cheesy 80s porn film and yet …the moment was heavy with sexual tension. Chemistry was one thing, but there was something else going on here. A slow, strange reaction that didn’t explode but only burned and smoldered. Something that was way hotter and more dangerous than it looked.
His touch softened on my hands again and he cocked his head to one side to look at me.
“Your hair’s pretty, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Your punishment, well, yes, I’ve been thinking about that…”
I wondered if it was even worth it to try and talk to him again. To apologize. Maybe marriage counselling. Maybe he could take some time off work and we could go on a trip together, just the two of us, and really hash things out. I could explain myself. Everything thing would be fine again.
Or, we could carry on with this train smash.
He drew back and pulled something out of his jacket pocket, then placed it on the table squarely between us. It was my diary. The place on my fingertips where he had caressed me suddenly went cold.
“That’s mine,” I said, trembling in my voice. How in God’s name had he found it? I suddenly felt sick.
“Yes, and all the nasty little stories in there are yours, too,” he said quietly. The air hung all around us, thick and silent.
“I’m sorry…” I said, but he snatched up the book and began reading loudly from one of the pages.
“Yesterday, I think I finally discovered my absolute limit. A nine-inch cock sounds like a lot of fun, but I can barely walk today. I think he must have broken my pelvis. Ten out of ten. Todd’s at work late this evening, of course,” he said, adding a nasty sneer to the last sentence.
“Todd, please.”
“I got the delivery guy to finger me in the hall. He said he’d come back some other time, when he wasn’t on the clock, which I thought was pretty rude. Four out of ten.”
My face was on fire.
“Todd, please don’t do this.”
He slammed the pages shut and flung the book on the table again, and looked at me. I looked away.
“Am I going to be punished for that too? For this new crime?” I said, mockingly. I wasn’t even sure if the punishment or the lack of it would be worse at this point.
“New? Oh no, this isn’t a new crime Natasha.”
“What do you mean?”
“This shitty little book? I’ve known about it for years. In fact, I first discovered it about a week after you wrote the first entry.”
My mouth hung open.
“But how-- “
“Again, details. It’s not important now. This book?” he said, flicking it with his fingers, “this book is not the crime, it’s the punishment.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiled.
“I’m nowhere near done with you yet. Tell me something, Natasha, the things you wrote in this book …you enjoyed them all, didn’t you?”
My throat felt dry.
“Well that’s a loaded question, it’s a complicated thing, when you think about it…”
“Yes or no?” he snapped.
“It’s not as simple as that, it’s not a--”
“Yes or no?” he asked. His voice echoed in the red dining room.
> “Yes! Fine, are you happy now? Yes, I fucking enjoyed it, of course I did,” I said, and felt the first pricks of humiliated tears.
He smiled.
“Good, that’s all I was asking. No need to lose your temper. Now, let me explain how this is going to happen. This isn’t your book anymore, it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine. Let’s say we’re going to turn over a new leaf. You can hide it wherever you like, I don’t care, but from now on, I’m the only one who writes anything in it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, I haven’t punished you to my satisfaction yet. But I will soon. Whatever I write in this book, becomes real for you. You will read it, and follow the words written there to the letter. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“You have no choice but to follow everything as it’s written in the book. You already know what will happen if you disobey. You’re hell-bent on being a complete and utter slut …well, I’m going to write that story for you now. I can’t seem to stop you. You’re a cheating whore and can’t be redeemed, but at least from now on, you’ll cheat in the way I tell you to.”
I had never done any of this kinky master slave shit before. It just wasn’t my style. The men I was used to could never pull it off, anyway. Not like this. I had to hand it to him – bossy and domineering was a good look on him.
“Any questions?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Good. Now open it up and read the latest entry.”
With shaking hands, I picked up the book. The red dining room had been done in a minimalist Balinese style, all black wood and deep scarlet on the walls. My hands were pale. I tried to remind myself that whatever was in these pages, I didn’t have to do any of it. I could leave. At any time. I was free to walk out of this pretty red and black room, out of this cruel game of his, and out of this life. But a part of me wanted to read it anyway.
I opened the cover and flicked to the newest entry. It was short, and done in his tight, aggressive handwriting. I could recognize his slashed Ys and Gs anywhere.
“Read it out aloud,” he said.