by Ada Scott
Kevin checked the time and made an expression as if it was getting late. He tapped my arm with the back of his hand.
“Hey, you want a chance to redeem yourself?” he asked.
“In what way?”
“I’ve got a wager that I think only you would be crazy enough to accept. None of this under-the-sofa-cushions-money bullshit. Let’s make it really interesting.”
It had been a while since anybody had come up with a truly exciting challenge for me. Kevin knew better than anybody how far I’d go to win a bet, tonight being one of the rare occasions when the money had flowed in his direction. Something in his voice piqued my interest though.
“I’m listening. What did you have in mind?”
Amy
February 14th 2017
My mom gave me the kind of reassuring smile that wouldn’t have convinced the most gullible person on the planet. She said maybe she’d win big at bingo that night and this would be a big fuss over nothing.
That was a long shot if ever I heard one. I didn’t know if the top prize at the local bingo ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I doubted that too.
My mind was whirling with a million questions a second, most of which were some variation of “What are we going to do?”
All I wanted was to be wrapped up in a protective hug while somebody else sorted everything out. My mom’s defeated smile told me she couldn’t be that person right now. I couldn’t burden her with my own worries on top of what she was already feeling, so I gave her a smile that was probably a mirror image of hers.
I finished the dishes in a daze and then went to my room to call Anthony. Five missed calls and voicemails later, I shoved my phone in my pocket and leaned forward against the wall with my head resting on my forearm.
My fingers stroked the surface of the wall while something inside of me seemed to wind up more tightly by the second. A single sob burst out of me and I adjusted my position to muffle my mouth and stop any more coming out, but it was a losing battle.
This was more than just some wood and nails sitting on some dirt. There was history here. There was a photo album in the living room with some of the oldest pictures you could imagine showing my Great-Great-Grandfather building this house when he was a young man.
Some people might have thought it was stupid, but I swore I could feel the generations of memories flowing through this house. It had kept my family warm, dry and safe for over a hundred years and we were going to lose it on my watch?
I pushed myself off the wall and wiped my eyes, heading back to the kitchen and pulling the car keys off the hook. My mom looked up from the bank notice glumly.
“I need to go out for a bit,” I said. “Have fun at bingo.”
“Aren’t you going on a date with Anthony tonight?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back in time to get ready, not sure if I’ll be back before you go out with Agnes though.”
It was a lie. All my plans for my big night were out the window. All I wanted for Valentine’s Day was to be held and to have somebody to hide my face against.
One day to hide from the world with somebody who cared for me. That’s all I needed. If Anthony could just look after me for tonight, I could start thinking my way out of this mess tomorrow. I was sure of it.
He lived on the east edge of town, the side nearest our farm, and had been working at his dad’s custom furniture business for the past several months since graduation. As the boss’s son, he was allowed pretty flexible hours, and he’d said he was taking the afternoon off to make sure everything was organized for our big Valentine’s date.
The last thing I was expecting to see when I pulled into the driveway was a little sports car with the license plate number ‘SH3LLZ’ parked behind Anthony’s pickup. I recognized it, of course; it belonged to Rochelle, one of the most popular girls from my school.
I thought she was off at college living the sorority sister high life, so I had no idea what she was doing back in town, let alone at my boyfriend’s house. On Valentine’s Day.
She was always a little too friendly with Anthony for my liking, but he assured me there was nothing going on, they’d just known each other since they were five. I may have been a little unsure of myself as far as being a girlfriend went, but I didn’t want to be that type, making false accusations all the time, so I said I believed him.
The way her car was here out of the blue on today of all days made me go numb, though. Maybe all the smoke I’d been breathing for the last couple of years really did mean there was a fire.
When I stepped out of the car I didn’t close the door behind me. Something told me that this might very well be a time for stealth.
I walked up the path and had to consciously uncurl my hands, which had bunched up into tight little balls of stress that forced my fingernails into my palms painfully. After climbing the steps, I stood at the front door and I felt like I was marching into a gas chamber.
“Please don’t do this to me today,” I said. “Please, please, please not today.”
With my hand raised, ready to knock, I heard a sharp sound to my right, coming through the window that I knew looked into their living room. I took a step towards it.
Get back in your car and leave, you don’t want to see this.
I ignored my internal monologue and took another step. Inch by inch, the room was revealed to me. I saw the back of Anthony’s head, sitting low on the couch facing away from the window. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Another step showed that he wasn’t wearing pants either. Rochelle was there, also facing away from the window, straddling Anthony and bouncing on his erection.
Around her midriff was a red ribbon tied into a bow at her lower back that bounced along with her. There was some writing on it in white text, the part I could see read “ppy Valen” and I could fill in the blanks no problem.
Anthony slapped her on the ass; it was the sound that I’d heard a few seconds ago. Slowly, as if I was still in stealth-mode, I crumpled to my knees. They disappeared over the horizon of the window sill, then I leaned forward and buried my face in my hands.
Fresh tears came. My heart was broken. My life was broken. The horrific echoes of taunting and laughter from my last few days at my old school came back to me, and blasted away my illusions again, leaving me with the same self-loathing I’d been running from for the past two years.
You deserve this, you brought it on yourself. What? You thought you were worth waiting for? You’re a sick sick girl and nobody will ever love you.
I crawled back in the direction of the door so they wouldn’t see me if they’d changed positions, then stood, and returned to the car. As I pulled away, I saw their faces looking out at me from the window.
Kris
March 2017
“Here it is,” said Kevin, “I know an agency called InnocenceForSale.com that auctions off girls’ virginities, and their terms and conditions offer an interesting opportunity for me to make some money off of you.”
Daniel and I shared an incredulous glance at each other before turning back to Kevin. “You can’t be serious,” I said.
“Oh, I am. What’s the matter? Scared? I haven’t even told you the terms of the bet yet.”
I leaned back with my beer and moved my finger in forward circles, gesturing for him to go ahead and tell me, even though I was sure this was a joke.
“OK, I know that look, but trust me, it’s real. I used it myself and it was the best week of my life.”
I laughed hesitantly. “What are you doing paying for sex with some chick who nobody else wanted to get in bed with?”
“It’s not like that, man,” Kevin said. “I don’t know where or how they find these girls, but Cindy over there is a troll compared to the one I won in the auction on this site.”
I craned my neck over the back of the seat and looked at the beautiful model for a second. “She’s a troll, huh? Guess that explains why she hits so hard, right Dan?”
Kevin and I
laughed, even Daniel couldn’t resist a chuckle.
“Only in comparison,” said Kevin. “I paid a little over six hundred thousand and I’m telling you it was a fucking bargain.”
“Six hundred thousand for pussy?” Daniel spluttered.
“Yep.” Kevin took a sip of his drink.
“What does all this have to do with me?” I asked.
“There’s an auction closing tonight, in about an hour. I’ve come prepared and I’ve already had preliminary access for you approved by the owner of the agency.”
“What the fuck would I need this for?” I asked.
“You don’t need it, but you’re gonna want it. That’s what I’m counting on. The whole wager depends on it.”
“What do you mean?”
Kevin pulled out his phone and unlocked it before handing it to me. It showed an auction page with a countdown timer, a picture of an admittedly stunning young woman named Amy, listed her various physical attributes, a little sales pitch about her, a laundry list of sex acts she was willing to participate in, and showed the current bid at almost five hundred thousand dollars.
I flicked through her gallery of photos, which showed her in various poses and a couple different outfits, before the slideshow went back to the main picture, a close up of her face. She had a beautiful smile and those baby-blue eyes were out of this world. I handed his phone back.
“OK, she’s hot as hell,” I conceded. “What do I have to do?”
Kevin smiled like a fisherman who feels a nibble. “Basically, what I had in mind was for you to win the auction for a start, then the girl stays with you for a week but you have to resist the urge to fuck her, and send her back at the end of the week still a virgin. If you can do that then the agency will refund your money and I’ll match the winning bid. If you can’t, and let’s face it, you can’t, then your bid is obviously gone, but you also have to pay me whatever the winning bid was.”
My mind looked at the situation from a few angles for a second. “Pfff, easiest money I ever fucking made-”
“Not so fast, cowboy. There’s a bunch of fine print.”
“Fuck sake, how much time have you spent thinking this through?”
“A few weeks, to be honest. Once the idea came to me, it was too perfect to let go.”
“Alright, lay out the fine print.”
Kevin smirked. “Well, first of all, you can’t just meet her at the airport, tell her to have a nice week and then fuck off to the Bahamas until she’s gone. You’ve got to spend at least twelve hours a day with her, and some of that time, you’ve got to be alone. In bed asleep doesn’t count, and I’ll even cut you a little bit of slack and say you can sleep in separate rooms.”
“That’s very generous of you,” I said.
“I know. Second, and this is a big one, you can’t fuck any other girl from now until the week is up.”
“From now?”
Kevin nodded.
“How long does it take for the girl to show up after the auction closes?”
“Could be a month or more, the agency will have to check you out before they send the girl and make sure you’re not a serial killer with the clap.”
“How many serial killers’ weapon of choice is the clap?” I muttered, then spoke up. “A month?”
“Or more.”
“I haven’t gone that long without since I was fifteen,” I said.
“And then you’ll have to spend a week with what will probably be the hottest girl you’ve ever seen,” Kevin laughed.
The girl on Kevin’s phone was cute as fuck, but that was probably an exaggeration on his part. Still, even if she was half as good as her pictures, by the time I’d abstained from sex for a month, I’d probably be delirious with lust.
I took another sip of my drink and drummed my fingers on the table. Maybe something like this would be good for me. It could be like a sex-detox process. I mean, here I was in this club, surrounded by beautiful women, with a sexy girl’s phone number written on a card in my pocket and I didn’t give a fuck about any of them anymore.
If I forced myself to go without for a while, maybe I could recapture the kind of feelings I used to have, bringing home a new girl every time I hit the town. I stroked my cheek.
“So, the moment this girl is out of my sight through the departure gates at the airport at the end of the week, I can grab an air hostess and fuck her on one of those luggage scales?”
“Of course.”
“Any other fine print?” I asked.
“Just have a little class. Don’t intentionally make her despise you, and no jerking off while the girl is living with you,” said Kevin.
“Uh… how do you plan to keep track of all this?” asked Daniel. “You setting up a jerk-off cam in his bedroom?”
“Nah, I trust him. He’d rather lose the bet than win by lying about it,” said Kevin.
“OK… what about if she sucks me off, but I don’t fuck her? You should pay up double in recognition of my supreme willpower, right?”
Kevin laughed. “No! This is all about the ever-fucking Kris Lane keeping his dick out of this girl. I don’t think there’s any way you can do it. Tell you what, though. If you blow a load down her throat but don’t fuck her, I won’t pay you anything, but you don’t have to pay me anything either. I’ll leave it up to you to argue with Ada, she runs Innocence For Sale, about getting your bid back. Deal?”
I held up my hands and smiled. “You might as well write the check now, shit for brains. I’m in.”
Kevin held out his hand and I shook it. Kevin turned to Daniel. “Witness?”
“Witness!”
“Alright.” Kevin pulled out his phone again and tapped away at it. “I’ve sent you an access link”
Sure enough, the message from Kevin was there when I unlocked my own phone. I clicked it and found myself on the site Kevin had showed me. A moment later, I had navigated through to Amy’s auction page. The bid was already at five hundred and fifty thousand, and the countdown showed half an hour to go.
“You driving the price up on this auction?” I asked.
“Nope… but that wouldn’t matter to you anyway, would it?”
I shrugged. “More money for me.”
I entered a bid of seven hundred and sixty thousand in the hope of scaring off the other bidders. On the other side of the table, Kevin and Dan looked at Kevin’s phone.
“Seven sixty, that you?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah.”
For several minutes, it looked like my plan had worked, but then I saw the bid tick over to eight hundred thousand.
“Fuck.”
I put in a bid of eight hundred and fifty thousand, but almost immediately somebody countered with nine hundred thousand.
“I think this is a record, I’m not sure,” said Kevin.
I submitted a bid of nine hundred and fifty thousand, hoping whoever I was bidding against was feeling the looming pressure of the million-dollar mark. It wasn’t that much more than what we’d already committed to, but there’s just something about that number that feels different.
There was less than ten minutes left on the countdown when the bid updated to nine hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. That was a smaller increment than they’d been bidding before, so my hunch about the million-dollar mark was right.
Kevin wasn’t joking when he said he had a wager that wasn’t under-the-sofa-cushions bullshit. This was some serious money he was going to be paying me.
The bid updated to nine hundred and eighty nine thousand dollars, then a second later all the way up to nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, where it stayed until the countdown showed fifty nine seconds left.
“Is that you?” Kevin asked.
“No. Looks like there’s at least two others bidding for her.”
“You out?”
“No.”
Forty five seconds. I entered one million and ten thousand dollars, then clicked submit. The million dollar barrier was broken.
Ten seconds. I entered one million one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, feeling my heart pounding about thirty beats every time the screen flickered with the countdown animation.
Three. Two. One… Finalizing. It still showed my bid. A minute later my phone buzzed and an email had come through congratulating me on my winning bid. I slumped back and took a deep breath.
“I won.”
“It’s on?” asked Kevin.
“It’s on.” I fished the card with Lacey’s number on it out of my pocket and flicked it across the table at Daniel. “Guess I won’t be needing that. See what you can do with it.”
What had I just gotten myself into?
Amy
May 2017
The fasten-seat-belt lights switched off and sparked a commotion of metallic clacking as everybody stood and started opening the overhead compartments to recover their carry-on luggage. Everybody except me, that is.
I stared straight ahead at the little screen set into the back of the seat in front of me, which read “Welcome to New Eastport” with little fireworks animations popping off in the background. If my stomach was to be believed, then I was part of an interstate butterfly-smuggling operation.
My hands rested numbly on top of my bare thighs. The dress I was wearing was short enough to be enticing but long enough to be classy. Ada, the woman who ran InnocenceForSale.com, had it down to a fine science. For my height, this was the perfect length to drive men wild.
I’d found the site before the end of February at the end of a long night searching the internet for money-making schemes. I’d seen an article about a girl who sold her virginity for big bucks, and then tentatively looked for sites that handled those kind of… transactions.
That’s what I was now. Something that had been bought and sold for some man’s pleasure. By the end of the night a rich, possibly octogenarian, man would have taken my virginity and cum inside me.