“Oh, that makes sense,” Tana agreed with a solemn nod. “You’re very smart.”
“Yeah, a fucking genius,” Dylan quipped before adding with a damnable smirk that I was beginning to hate, “Can’t fight your DNA, sugar. No matter how hard you try. What you hate, you’ll eventually become.”
Fuck her, she didn’t know anything about me or my life. I would never be like my mother. Ever.
Holding Dylan’s gaze, I deliberately tossed the pill in the trash but drank the water because my mouth was dry as dirt.
Thirty minutes later, Tana was a sweet, complacent little dove, Dylan’s quips had lost their edge and Jilly clung to a sad silence. I was still sharp as a knife and scared out of my mind but I didn’t regret trashing the pill.
I signed up for this, I would take whatever was coming.
7
As I imagined, the mansion had an elevator and we were being taken straight down to a sub-basement level. Hard to hold clandestine sex auctions on the ground floor, right? What would the neighbors think?
My stomach muscles were clenched tight as a fist as we followed Olivia down a darkened hallway and into a circular room with two-way mirrors on the walls and chains dangling from the ceiling.
I stared with growing apprehension as I realized we were supposed to be hung, spread-eagle as part of the show. I looked to Olivia with a mixture of HELL NO and HELP ME in my expression and she met my fear with a smile, murmuring, “You should’ve taken the pill.”
I’d never hated anyone more than I hated Olivia in that moment. Maybe even more than the mysterious Madame Moirai because it was Olivia feeding us to the wolves with a smile.
She snapped her fingers and doors opened with strong, hard-faced, bare-chested men striding in to rip the gauzy covering from our bodies, leaving us in our corsets and little else. Then, our wrists were put in the manacles and our ankles in restraints.
It was horrifying and over-the-top with every detail designed to appeal to the sordid nature of the transaction. That this kind of thing happened beneath the noses of ordinary people going about their busy lives, ignorant to the scum seething behind the curtain of polite society was numbing.
No one cared about girls like us, which was why we were easy pickings. Every single one of us dangling like caught fish on a line were expendable. No one would truly miss us. If we disappeared, who would cry at our funeral? Hell, who would even look for us?
Lora would cry for me but she wasn’t a fighter. She wouldn’t crusade for vengeance. I choked on the reality that I’d put myself in a bear trap, willingly walked right up to the sharp jaws and offered my foot without thinking how much it was going to hurt when it clamped down on the bone.
Olivia was right — I should’ve taken the pill. DNA be damned, I should’ve downed the drug to spare myself the agony of clarity.
I strained against the pull on my arms, sweat beginning to dot my hairline. I changed my mind. I didn’t want to do this! But there was no turning back. I couldn’t if I tried. I glanced over at Tana and she was struggling weakly against her bonds but otherwise, she was too doped up to care.
Oh Tana, I wanted to cry but there was nothing I could do to help. Tears stung my eyes but I held them back. The searing pain in my wrists added an additional layer of seasoning to my fear.
Jilly hung like a tightly bound piece of meat, all trussed up like a Christmas turkey. She stared blankly at the dim mirror. Wherever Jilly was, she wasn’t in this room any longer. Maybe that was a blessing. I craned my neck to see Dylan, a defiant light still gleaming in her eyes even as drugged as she was.
Dylan, doped and roped, still had the wherewithal to say ‘Fuck you’ with her eyes even as she dangled. I envied the strength of her spirit, how she stared into the face of the unknown and dared a motherfucker to try and fuck with her. If nothing else, Dylan was a survivor.
Her spirit, however sharp and jagged, spoke to mine even if I didn’t want this kind of connection with her.
Disassociating was the only way to get through this hell. Dylan really did have a great rack, her breasts, lifted high, were on display, like an offering and I looked away when I couldn’t handle another minute of watching was happening to us.
I put up a good front but inside I was a quivering ball of fear and, if I’d had any food in me, diarrhea. Maybe that was the real reason they’d given us enemas. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to be somewhere else in my mind but there was no denying that I was hung like a human side of beef, waiting to be slaughtered.
I tried to hide my trembling. I didn’t want them to see that I was afraid. I would count that as a small but important victory. I had made this choice and it would be worth it, no matter what I had to endure.
Remember the nights of going hungry. Remember the time Carla left you for three days without food or running water when you were eight. Remember having to lock your bedroom door at night to keep her boyfriends from coming in when she was passed out drunk.
There were so many reasons I could pull from my memory why this had been the choice I took. Money was the greatest evil but ironically, it was also the way out of hell.
Fuck anyone who said money didn’t solve problems. Soon enough I’d have enough money to forget all about this awful experience. I’d bury this memory so far down in my brain that it would take a scalpel to dig it out.
When I had that cash in my hand, I’d run so far and so fast away from Carla that my shoes caught fire.
I would never go back to my mother. She could rot and die for all I cared. I wanted to go to college and make something of myself. The satisfaction of knowing I’d risen above every attempt Carla had made to drag me down to her level was the fuel to my fire.
I’d wash the stain of my childhood away with the waterfall of money that gave me a chance to change my fate. I knew the statistics. Kids like me, with terrible foundations, didn’t stray far from their roots. If chaos was all you knew, chaos was what you sought. It’s why kids of addicted parents usually became addicts of some kind, too. I was hyper-aware of the pitfalls waiting for me but I was violently opposed to falling in the same hole Carla was stuck in.
I swear to Christ, that won’t be me.
One and done, I told myself.
Everyone had skeletons. So mine danced naked for leering rich guys. Don’t judge.
Tana whimpered and I knew she was going to have a hard time with things, even doped up. I worried she might break her contract after all. Irrational anger colored my thoughts as I judged the poor girl just like Dylan had.
Tana, why did you sign up for this? For fuck’s sake, this is going to destroy you.
We were all stupid girls for taking the bait but we were truly trapped by our own hand and we had no one to blame but ourselves.
If Tana had thought she’d come out of this unscathed, she’d been desperately naive. I hadn’t lied to myself like that. I knew whatever happened this night would leave a mark I would wear forever. No one else had to know and they wouldn’t. I’d carry my shame to my grave. It was mine and mine alone.
A sultry voice sounded over the speakers and I wondered if it was the mysterious Madame Moirai, the one who was deviously and cleverly selling girls’ virginity for a hefty sum to willing buyers. A person had to be soulless to do this kind of thing. Did she spend a second thinking about the girls she destroyed? Did she lose a moment’s sleep wondering about the aftermath?
I knew the answer even if I didn’t know Madame Moirai. Fuck no, she didn’t give two shits about us. We were commodities to buy and sell. End of story.