by Nicole Casey
Mikaela grabbed me by the arm, “Trust me on this one! I visited an auction once and one girl even earned eight thousand dollars.”
“Eight thousand, just for her virginity?” My eyes grew wide with amazement. I needed another drink so I flagged a waitress and ordered another glass. “That’s a shit ton of money just to be the first to have sex with someone.”
I didn’t think too highly of it though. Sure, a guy who gets a girl’s virginity might have that claim but wouldn’t be worthwhile to build a relationship and keep sleeping with her? I didn’t care if I would be someone’s first as long as I would be their last.
Mikaela opened her purse and showed us a brochure.
“Here,” she pointed to the images of scantily-clad girls. “Look at this one. There’s going to be an auction soon. Only the richest men get to bid here and I bet you can sell yourself for a really high price. I mean, come on! What if you get someone who’ll pay five thousand for your virginity and another two thousand each time he wants to go out and fuck you?”
“You’re oddly so nonchalant about me selling my pussy to complete strangers,” I told her with a slightly sarcastic tone.
Karen shrugged, “I’d do it. Who knows, the winner might be handsome. That means I’d get money and a handsome boy-toy.”
We all laughed but I knew I couldn’t resort to this kind of thing. It just wasn’t in me.
“Hey, I got to hit the bathroom then I have to go,” I told them with a heavy heart. “I wish I could stay longer but I got to get up early tomorrow and continue job-hunting.”
Karen grabbed my bag, “Sure. We’ll watch your things.”
Mikaela looked at Karen and they shared a suspicious smile. I just ignored it and let them have their fun. I then headed to the bathroom and fixed myself up to leave and head back home to rest.
About fifteen minutes after leaving the club, I found myself taking a detour on my way back home. I couldn’t even remember why I took that left turn. I was just so caught up thinking about my expenses when I realized I was nowhere near where I had to be. Now I had to waste time going through this countryside dirt road in order to get back to the main highway.
“I can’t auction off my virginity,” I reminded myself as I drove in the darkness of the night. “That’s just fucking ridiculous. What kind of guy would even buy me? I… I can’t be that low right now, right? I can still get a job and pay all these stupid bills. Nothing more can happen. The worst has already passed.”
Just as I said that, my car freaking broke down.
6
Preston
It was nearly one in the morning when I finally left Kim. We really took a detour – I got too anxious to get between her legs I claimed her right in my car. She was such a kinky little girl too and gave me an amazing blowjob while I drove us to her place. I never thought a girl so cute and so small could have such a sexual appetite.
To be completely honest, I was exhausted. I thought I’d had enough sex this one night that I might be good for a week… ah, who the fuck was I kidding? By tomorrow I’d be anxious to screw around with another girl yet again. Mercury Wild would be the proper place to go to pick up a decent chick.
Bump!
“Huh?” I looked around and out the window. Where the heck was I? Damn it, I was too busy thinking about Kim that I completely ignored where I was going. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Ugh… this was frustrating.
I drove around for a few minutes. Turned out I was on some back road in the countryside. I wondered how long this stretch of dirt would go on until I could find myself back at an intersection that would lead me back into the city.
“What the hell?” I told myself when I saw a car stopped ahead of me. It had all its lights on and I saw a woman standing out, waving for help. “Looks like I’m not the only sad idiot who got lost this way. Maybe she’ll know where the fuck we are.”
I stopped the car just a few feet ahead of hers. I stepped out and turned to look at her. I quickly had to shield my eyes with a hand due to her bright headlights.
“Hey, you okay here miss?” I asked as I got closer.
“Oh thank God someone passed by,” the young woman exclaimed. I didn’t get to see her face yet but I noticed she had gorgeous long hair as black as night and a firm little body. She must have stood around five-feet-two, only up to my chest.
I smiled and finally got close enough to see her face. She had a cute pair of eyes, crystal blue, which seemed to look at me with such analytical prowess it almost felt like she was studying me like a wild specimen.
“O-oh,” she suddenly stammered as soon as she got a better look at me. “What I meant was that I’m happy I don’t have to w-wait here all by myself.”
What a weird thing to say. I leaned against her car, standing right next to her, and tried to get an even better look at her. One thing I was sure of was that she had one amazing body. As petite as she was, she had a beautiful arching back, firm perky tits and a nice ass. I looked at her in her mini-skirt and black blouse but in my mind I was already trying to picture her naked.
“Waiting?” I tried to piece all this together.
“Y-yeah,” she stammered again. “My car broke down a few minutes ago but I already got a friend coming here to pick me up. You can leave though; I bet you’re in a hurry.”
I raised an eyebrow in suspicion and asked her flat out, “Why are you in such a rush to shoo me off? Have we met somewhere before?”
Suddenly she turned and looked at me hard and cold, like it was a cardinal sin that I forgot who she was.
Then it hit me.
“No freaking way,” was all I could say as I clapped my hands and shook my head in disbelief. “Wow. I thought nurses were all snarky smart-asses but I had to end up stranded here with the worst of them all.”
That guaranteed a punch and she did hit me, right in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“You asshole,” she shot back. “Now get out of here. I don’t want weird ideas popping into my friends’ heads.”
I doubted she really had anyone coming to get her. I waited around another ten minutes and not once did she open her little purse to check her phone. She didn’t say another word to me and I could see her fidget a bit, maybe hoping I would leave her alone.
Of course I didn’t. Even if she was a pain in the ass with her smart-ass mouth I didn’t want to just leave a girl like this in the dark.
“No one’s coming,” I finally told her but careful enough to not insult her. I didn’t want her to know I figured she didn’t really call anyone. “Let me take you home.”
She shook her head and shoved her finger at my face, “No way.”
“It’s freezing cold,” I tried to reason with her. “Besides, I got here by accident. I got no clue as to where we are. You can help me get back to the city and I can get you home.”
For a long while she just looked at me and I could see her think about every option she had. It was like I could picture all the thought bubbles above her head, each of them popping like a balloon as she quickly realized I was the only help she had right now.
“C-can you call a towing company first?” she finally gave in and asked. “My phone’s dead; I forgot to bring my charger.”
That was easy to arrange. I called in a towing company and let her talk to the guy on the other end. They said they’d pick it up in an hour but we could already go.
She then walked up to me, the phone still in her hand, and asked, “C-can I bug you for one more favor? They’re asking for a down payment via credit card and I left my wallet at home.”
Seriously? Even I didn’t really buy that excuse but I agreed anyway and handed her my card. She was the one who talked to the towing company. I guessed they accepted my card because she gave it back to me with a glimmer of a smile on her face.
When we were ready to go she finally hopped into my car and we got on our way.
“You know who I am,” I told her as we began on our way, “but
I still don’t know your name.”
“It’s Lyla,” she finally caved in and told me. She never looked my way, however, and always just stared out the window. “Lyla Bishop.”
As we drove, she explained to me the general vicinity and helped me figure out where we were, how to get to her place and how I could drive back to the city from there. We did try to initiate some small talk but every topic ended after just a sentence or two. Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall.
Finally, after a good twenty minutes, we reached an intersection and took a different road leading into a more residential part of town. I literally gave out a sigh of relief when I saw some houses. We were back in civilization.
“Stop right here,” she suddenly told me right as we got a few blocks into the next neighborhood. “I live just right here, thank you.”
I stopped the car and took a look around. The house she was dropping off at didn’t look like a place such an uptight woman would stay in. Actually, it looked kind of abandoned. My suspicions grew even more with each passing moment but I decided to keep quiet and let her go.
“Thanks,” she told me right before she shut the door.
Wow. She’s stone-cold.
I waited for her to just keep walking and when she turned a curve I quickly hopped out of my car and, as silently as I could, sneaked around and followed her. She didn’t head into the house she said she lived in and instead went on for another two blocks before entering a decent-looking apartment building.
Why would she lie about where she lived? The only immediate logical reason I could think of was that I was a complete stranger but come on! She asked me to pay for the towing services and I drove her home. Plus we weren’t total strangers. We did meet in the hospital a few months back. That had to count, right?
I took note of where she lived and headed back to the car. As I drove my way home, all I could think of was Lyla Bishop and how mysterious of a woman she truly was.
7
Lyla
There was nothing on my mind but crashing on my bed to sleep and rest. I took a moment to peer outside the window. When I saw Preston hadn’t followed me, I felt a little easier and took a long, hot shower to really calm my nerves down.
When I was done and dressed in a cute little pink nightgown Mikaela bought for my birthday, I took my purse and looked for my wallet. I lied to Preston – I did have my wallet with me. I just didn’t want him to know I was broke. As I rummaged through my purse, I found something stuffed inside.
“Damn it, Mikaela,” I whispered when I saw she had inserted that auction brochure. I took it and gave it one more read through.
Girls could auction themselves to the richest men in the city. Virgins would get a higher starting bid and would get other benefits as well, including a bonus just for joining and a one-month VIP entrance for some of the best gentleman’s clubs around.
All of that sounded appealing but I was still disgusted and disappointed. In the end, it still meant selling my virginity and my body to some random stranger.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” I told myself, resolving not to fall for something like this. I wasn’t a slut. I wasn’t a whore.
Still unsure on what to do, I turned off the lights, threw the brochure to the floor and went to bed.
The next morning I couldn’t even afford a proper breakfast. One cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich was all I could eat. Fuck, this was getting depressing and I needed to get a job somewhere.
I looked at my phone one last time. There was still one more person I could approach.
“Dad, I’m coming over real quick,” I texted. “I’ll take a while. I’ve got to take the bus. My car broke down.”
There was no time to wait and I quickly got dressed, settling for a pair of jeans and a pink shirt, and headed out of the house. Fortunately for me, there was a bus stop just a block away and a ride did come by just a few minutes in.
As I sat in the bus, my mind blanked out. Maybe I was just too tired or desperate for cash. For the longest while I just stared out the window and watched the houses and trees blur by.
When I got off and walked over to my dad’s house, I found him in the living room packing things in a box. I was genuinely shocked to see him clearing out his home – our home. I grew up in this house and it was disheartening to see so much of it packed away.
“H-hey, what are you doing?” I asked him.
He looked up at me and gave a weak smile. “Oh, just putting all this away. How about you? What brought you here?”
I felt my heart sink. Clearly he had some issue that he wasn’t telling me. My next words stumbled out but I swallowed my pride and pushed forward, “Dad… I’m broke. I’m weeks behind my bills and my debt is just growing. I also… uh… had my car towed last night. It broke down in the middle of the road.”
My father looked at me long and hard. I could see the gears of his mind rotating in action as he tried to think of a solution. After a moment of silence, he sighed and said, “I’d love to help you, baby, but to be honest I’m not doing so well either. They sent me an eviction notice.”
“Oh shit,” I exclaimed. “What are you going to do?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know. I only have a month to get the cash or I’ll have to move out. I think I can move into the mobile park.”
I shook my head and put a hand on his shoulder, “Dad, don’t you worry. I promise, we’ll get by somehow. We’ll find a way to solve all these problems.”
“I love you,” he told me. He then pointed to the back, to the kitchen. “You hungry? I got some apples in the back and leftover pizza.”
“No need to tell me twice, I’m starving!” I answered and headed to the kitchen. However, as I opened the fridge I realized there was a stack of papers on the counter. I took a moment to read them and quickly learned they were the bills my father had to pay. He wasn’t just late with paying the mortgage. He was also behind utility bills, credit cards and a loan.
Quickly I checked if he was looking my way. When I was sure he wasn’t, I took his bills and stuffed them into my purse.
“Don’t worry, dad,” I whispered. “I’ll find a way.”
8
Preston
“See you later, man,” Marcus bid me farewell when we departed from the restaurant. I had dragged him in along with me to help me work on the papers regarding the recent company acquisition. He was a professional banker and it was his expertise that guaranteed we wouldn’t make mistakes. I trusted him more than our company’s bookkeeping department.
I waved him goodbye and pondered for a moment where I could go next. As I sat in my car, I instantly thought about Lyla.
With a weird knot growing in my gut, I decided to just visit the auto mechanic shop. When I got there, I saw that the vehicle was already fixed but it was still there. The owner, Emilio, told me Lyla didn’t even check on her car despite them leaving her a few voice messages.
“Wait, she never came by to even look at it?” I was bewildered and confused.
“Yeah, she won’t even answer our calls,” Emilio answered. “We need to charge her card soon or the bill is going to go up. We only have enough space here, you know, and there are customers coming in everyday.”
That was understandable. “Let me look at her bill,” I suggested and Emilio complied. When I got a hold of the bill I discovered it was well over two thousand dollars. Lyla’s car required a lot of part replacements to get back up in shape.
“I’ll pay it,” I told Emilio as I pulled out my wallet. “You guys prefer cash or credit?”
“Credit,” he said with a smile. “It’s just easier nowadays.”
Emilio took my card, ran it and came back to me a few minutes later once the payment had been confirmed. I put my card back in my wallet and then told him, “Could you get it delivered back to her?”
“Sure, you know the address?”
I wrote it down and bid him farewell.
9
Lyla
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br /> “Who the hell paid for this?” I demanded.
The poor guy who brought my car back from the mechanic shop just looked at me with a broken expression of melancholy, as if I stepped on a kid’s favorite toy. He looked confused too, unsure of what to say.
“Look, just tell me and I won’t let anyone know you did,” I tried to be calm.
“I hope you mean it,” he replied and then pulled up his folder of papers. He looked through for a bit and then said, “It was billed to a Mr. Preston Maxwell… wait – that was Preston Maxwell?”
“You know him?”
He looked at me like I was the idiot this time around. “Everyone knows Mr. Maxwell. He’s one of the richest billionaires this side of the planet. Well, his company really got into the spotlight lately after acquiring Montgomery Universal Banks and now they just acquired Emerald Corner too.”
That was interesting. It was too bad all that money went to waste since Preston was a perverted asshole and a narcissist to boot. If he thought this was a good way of making it up to me, he was dead wrong. The next time I see him I’m just going to flat out and say how dumb he is. I mean, seriously, he just paid for a random woman’s car repairs! Who does something like that?
“Well, thanks for telling me and thanks for bringing in my car,” I told the driver and closed the door.
I sat down on the couch and turned off my television. At least my car was working now. However, repairing my car wasn’t going to pay my dad’s mortgage or my rent. I needed more money. I needed a damn job.
Then it hit me. A light bulb just clicked in my head.
I ran to the bedroom and scoured through the trash on my floor. There were a lot of papers, clothes and junk everywhere but I did manage to find the one piece of paper that I needed: the billionaire auction brochure that Mikaela stuffed into my purse.