by Ashlee Price
She looked around like she wasn’t sure if we were being listened to or not. Knowing Elie, I assumed that he would if he could, but I doubted there was any way that he could do that sort of thing here. It was too big and it was only a rental.
“I don’t know, Mariah. We can talk about it tomorrow when we get back. I don’t like talking about it around here. There’s a lot of little ears around that you may not know about.”
Elie had a way of getting information, and a lot of that was because he paid people for information. When somebody heard something that might be of interest to him, that person would go directly to him. He didn’t have to do much more than throw a few dollars their way. This left him far more informed than either one of us would have liked.
“I know. I’m just nervous, I guess, and I don’t know what to do with myself. Look, the room is thinning out, and I know that they’re going to call my name soon. What if I can’t do it? What if I pass out right there and I don’t even know who’s bought me? Oh Sasha, I don’t think I can do this!”
I was working myself up. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it without passing out. Why was I even here? What could Elie really do to me?
“You have to, Mariah. Do you see Bruno and Lex standing over there by the door? They’re there for a reason, and it has nothing to do with helping us to the stage. They’re here to make sure that nobody freaks out and takes off. You’ve brought in a crowd, and he’s not going to lose the money or the reputation. Do you know what it would look like if you didn’t go on the block? It would look like he was a liar, and trust me when I tell you that Elie will never go for that. He won’t let himself look bad.”
The men we were talking about looked our way, and I was afraid they somehow knew what we were saying. We were basically whispering, though, so our words wouldn’t have carried that far.
“What do we do?”
Sasha kind of shrugged. She had accepted it, even though I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t want to go through with it. I shouldn’t have to. This wasn’t fair.
“There’s nothing that we can do. Did you call Scott and see if he was going to be here to bid on you? At least then you won’t have to be with a stranger.”
“Scott won’t be here because of his business. I don’t think he wants to be publically linked to me and the club. I guess I can’t blame him for it, but I don’t want to see him again. I’m done trying to be something I’m not. He wasn’t for me anyway. You were right. All he would want to do is own me so he could have me all to himself. I fell in love and he fell in lust.”
The last girl besides us was called and I looked at Sasha. She didn’t look as nervous as I felt. The idea that Scott wasn’t going to be there to save me scared me. What if I ended up in the arms of someone that I couldn’t stand? It was only for a night, but what I was supposed to do in that night was too much to comprehend with anyone but Scott.
“It’s your turn next, Sasha.”
She smiled a little and smoothed out the invisible wrinkles in her dress. “I know. I’m just going to see it as a night that’s going to let me leave. You have to figure out how to make it right in your mind too, Mariah. It’s happening, whether we like it or not.”
Her name was called seconds after she finished speaking. I wished that I could look at it like she did. I knew that I was going to have to make it okay somehow. There was no point in making it any worse than it already was. I would do this and pay back Elie once and for all. I wasn’t going to be around for him to ask anything more of me. This would be it, so maybe that was how I had to look at it. This was just a means to an end. That was all it was.
As Sasha left, I had to hope that some of the parking lot had cleared out by now. I imagined that there would only be a couple of people left and it wouldn’t be so bad. I just had to get through the next few hours and then I would be able to make a change. With or without the other girls, I was getting out of here.
I heard my name and I jumped. All of the self-talk in the world was not going to help me now. I suddenly knew that the only thing that was going to make this better was to just leave. Maybe Sasha was right and I couldn’t leave, but I felt a sudden urge to try. She was just being paranoid. Surely they weren’t going to make me stay. They couldn’t do that, could they?
“I’ve decided that I’m just going to sit this one out,” I told the men who were standing vigilant by the door.
Lex smirked and shook his head like I didn’t have a clue what was going on. “Elie said you might say that, but you’re going up on that stage like every other girl.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll tie you up myself and you’re still going up on that stage. You know what kind of men are out there, and we both know that if I tie you up it’s just going to drive the price up even higher.”
He was right. This wasn’t a regular auction, and if I was tied up as Lex described, there was no way that anyone would help me. They would most likely see it as some kind of act, and it would create a bidding frenzy. Even if they did think that I was there against my will, I knew no one would come forward to help me. I was in this on my own. Sasha was right about just going with it. Why make it any harder than it had to be?
I gathered up as much courage as I could muster and I followed him out the door and down the hallway. As I got closer, I could hear Elie’s voice and a crowd cheering. My heart was pounding so hard, but somehow I could still hear through it all. What the hell was going on?
The door at the end of the hallway opened and bright lights blinded me for a moment. It was finally time to face the truth, no matter how impossible it seemed. Before I got to the stage, I was stopped and handed a drink.
“What’s this?”
“Just something to chill you out. It’s from Elie. He said you were going to need a drink.”
I needed it more than I could say. I didn’t want to be there, and instead of worrying about what was in the drink, I just drank it. I needed the alcohol before I walked out on the stage to accept my fate. I still wasn’t ready for it, but I didn’t have a choice. This was happening.
Chapter 24 – Scott
The auction was winding down, but the seats around me weren’t emptying out as fast as I would have hoped. Sasha had just been auctioned off, and from her demonstration on the stage she’d racked up a higher bid than anyone else so far. It was almost over, but there was one prize left to bid on. I wasn’t the only one waiting for Mariah.
Elie came up after Sasha was sold off and talked about Mariah for a moment. It was clear that he was pushing her innocence. That’s what the other men were here for. I couldn’t blame them, of course. I was here for the very same thing. I would like to say that it was because I was close to her and I loved her. That was true, but more than anything else I wanted to be her first. That was what kept me up at night. I was still convinced that it was the fact that she was untouched that drew me to her. I wouldn’t know until I’d had her, and this was my moment.
When she came out, the lights seemed to bother her eyes because she kept blinking. She didn’t seem like herself; she was a little off and she stumbled onto the stage. Someone had to hold her up and I caught myself getting up. Something was not right.
“Well, as you can see, Mariah is ready for this auction to be over. She has been waiting a long time for this, and you can see how eager she is.”
A chuckle ran through the remaining members of the crowd. It was clear to anyone that was looking at her that she was on something, or drunk. Guilt washed over me. I had to think that she was in that condition because I’d told her that I wasn’t coming. Had she had to get that way to deal with it? Or had Elie given her something?
“Let’s start the bidding at ten thousand. Do I hear ten thousand?”
It was a nominal fee considering what was for sale. Sasha had left with five times as much, and it wasn’t but a couple of minutes before the price was surpassing her friend’s number. I h
adn’t even put my hand up yet. I was letting the rest of them battle it out for a while. I had more money than everyone else in the room put together, and I knew that I was going to win. I would top whatever number the rest of them came up with. I didn’t have a choice, because I couldn’t lose her. I would lose my mind if I did. Still, getting into it too soon might just make the price rise for no good reason.
“Come on, guys. I think we can do better than this. Mariah, do a little spin for them in that tight-ass dress. Do you see the ass on her, men? That ass has never been touched. I think we can do better than this.”
The auction went on with Elie egging everyone on. It was starting to slow down, the increments jumping up in smaller amounts. When it got over a hundred thousand, I started to realize that I wasn’t alone in the idea of having her at any cost. Travis Marcum had been the first to bid and he just kept raising it like it didn’t matter. He had almost as much money as I did.
I kept watching the girl on the stage, but she didn’t seem to care. A tall, broad-shouldered man was holding her. I’d seen him at the club in his capacity as a bouncer. Why would she have to be held up like that if she wanted to be there?
The bidding was slowing down, and Travis was all smiles because he was sure he was going to win. When the man he’d been going back and forth with was bowing out and victory was upon him, I stood up and called out, “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!” It was quite a bit higher than Travis’s last bid, but I didn’t want to dick around with him. I was laying down the gauntlet, and I wanted him to know that I wasn’t playing. Mariah was going home with me tonight, and that was the end of it. She was mine, and after all of this, she was going to be mine for good.
He looked behind him to see who had dared to go over him. When his eyes met mine, I saw a flicker of emotions run through him. I could tell that he was not happy with my intrusion.
Mariah also looked up finally, like my voice had pulled her from whatever funk she was in. Her smile was big, and I knew then that she’d been waiting for me. The smile was a little off, as was the look in her blue eyes, but it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered except that she was going to be in my arms and in my bed in a little while.
“Do you really want to do this, Scott? That’s a lot of money for one night.”
Travis was taunting me, but I didn’t care. I’d worked with him in the past, and he didn’t get any more pleasant than he was right now.
“Then let it go and don’t raise again.”
It was a challenge, one that I shouldn’t have thrown down. If he upped the price, the only one of us who was going to be out of pocket was me. I was going to pay whatever the price was in the end, so I don’t even know what I was thinking when I said that. By the look on his face, he wasn’t quite sure either.
He did raise, though. The challenge was accepted, and it got to a point where if it wasn’t Mariah I was bidding on, I would have given in. No amount of commenting from him would have goaded me higher. But it was Mariah, and I couldn’t imagine her in his arms. Glancing up at the stage and the prize barely able to stand up, I went a little higher, preparing myself for a price that I hadn’t even imagined before I got there. The hard number in my mind had already been passed long ago.
When he finally backed down, no one else would even touch the highest bid. I could hear whispers around me, and even though I’d started out trying to stay out of the light, everyone had seen what happened and how much I paid. This was going to get around, and even as I told myself that I didn’t care, I knew that I did. How could I not? I was going to have to answer for this very soon, but not tonight.
Moving towards the stage, I handed a smiling Elie the check in my hand and took Mariah’s. It was limp feeling and there was nothing behind her eyes. Something was wrong and I wanted to know what. Before I got off the stage, cradling her under my arm, I turned to Elie and covered up the mic with my free hand.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“Got her ready for you, Scott. You should be happy that she’ll be nice and compliant for you. You paid enough to be able to do whatever you want.” He winked at me and took the microphone out of my hand.
“Well, that’s it for tonight, folks…”
I blocked him out. I blocked out everyone that I passed on the way to the car. Mariah hadn’t really even acknowledged what had happened, the price, nothing. She was three sheets to the wind, and all of the expectations that I’d had were gone. This was not at all what was supposed to be. Mariah was acting out of sorts. Even a kiss seemed wrong with her in this state.
“I was going to take you out, see if you were hungry, but I think you look like you need sleep more than anything.”
“I didn’t think you were going to come, Scott…”
Her words fell off and I looked over to see her eyes closed. Had she just passed out? Compliant indeed.
The drive back home was short and I didn’t have time to wrap my mind around the circumstances that I was currently in. I had the woman that I wanted right next to me, but she wasn’t present enough to finally have her. It felt like I was no closer to getting what I wanted as I carried her into the house and laid her on the bed.
I watched her sleep for a little while, her breath so shallow that there were a few times I was afraid she wasn’t breathing at all. I had to know what he’d given her, so I called up the club to talk to Elie.
“What did you give her, Elie? She might be overdosing.”
“She’s fine. Why are you calling me? Don’t you have something that you should be doing?”
He was taunting me for some reason, and it came to me that this was done on purpose. She could have been unwilling to participate, but maybe this was Elie making it so it was impossible for anything to happen. Was this his plan, so she’d still be untouched when she left?
“I can’t like this.”
“Sorry, Scott, but there are no refunds.”
My second suspicion sounded a little more viable as he talked. There were no refunds, but I wasn’t going to give her back. Mariah didn’t need to work with a man like that. I was going to save her, as she’d saved me from the humdrum that had turned into my life.
“We’ll see about that, Elie. That’s mostly her money, not yours. Have you paid her yet?”
“She’ll get her share of it when I see her. Let her know that I want her back by noon. I’ve got another idea in mind that I think will be perfect for her career.”
He hung up on me. I thought I was going to shatter one of my back teeth I was grinding them so hard. He had no idea what I was capable of. I wasn’t going to let this stand. I wasn’t going to let her make the same mistake that I had and give in to men like him. I’d done it early on in my own career, and it was something that would have even more dire consequences for her. I wasn’t going to let her go back to him. Not ever.
Getting up from the side of the bed, I took a long, cold shower to get myself back from the brink. All of the excitement and need that I’d tried to push down was coming forward, and it was hard for me to get it out of my head. I had no idea what tomorrow was going to bring. All I knew was that Mariah wasn’t going anywhere and we had to figure something out. I didn’t want to live without her any longer.
Chapter 25 – Mariah
I woke up with the biggest headache that I’d ever had in my life. It was almost like a hangover, but there was a blast in my head that was new to me. I sat there for a time with my eyes closed before I even tried to open them up. The light coming in from the window was too much to take, and I immediately shut them again and groaned.
There was a warm body and movement next to me. It wasn’t until that moment that I remembered the night before, the auction. It all came back in a wave, although I didn’t remember much after I got on stage and saw all of the people and the bright lights. I had to open my eyes, no matter how much it hurt. I had to see who had won me.
“I was wondering when you were going to get up.”
Scott’s
voice pushed through my foggy brain and I saw him next to me in the bed. I assumed we were in his room and the bed I was lying in was his.
“I feel like I need to sleep for a week.”
“Elie spiked your drink with something and drugged you. I don’t know what he gave you, but you seem to be doing a lot better now.”
I had to question whether he knew how I felt. If he did, I was sure that he wouldn’t suggest that I was better now. I didn’t remember before, so how could that be any worse than I felt right now?
“I don’t feel like I’m doing better.”
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital? They’ll be able to test and see what he gave you. I tried to get him to tell me, but he wouldn’t.”
“No, I don’t want to go and get poked and prodded. I feel bad, but I’m sure it will pass. I just feel like I drank too much. Did we drink after I got back here?”
“You were stumbling on the stage and you passed out before we ever got here. I don’t think you quite get how messed up you were, Mariah. I had to carry you in.”
I didn’t like to hear that. It was bad enough that I’d been drugged, but I could only imagine what had happened after that. I didn’t remember any of it, though, so I was going to have to take his word for it. That might have been the worst part of it all.
“I’m sorry, Scott. Did you at least get what you paid for?”
He sat up and gave me a weird look. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean you paid for a night… I guess I was just wondering if you got what you wanted out of it.”
“Did you hear me when I said you were passed out before we even got here?”
I’d heard that, but I didn’t know what that had to do with anything. Just because I was immobile didn’t mean much. I was still mad at him for the call and his refusal to come. Now I was even happier that it was him I’d woken up next to, but I wasn’t in the mood for games.