“He has been trained in the arts of pleasure and conversation,” Momoko continued. “In music and poetry. In the delicate balance between submission and seduction. He is skilled, gentlemen, quite skilled and eager to please.”
That was no fiction. It was a lie.
I was not eager. But I would pretend.
Because that was what I did now.
Pretend.
Momoko turned to me and flicked her wrist. The signal to raise the stakes.
I reached for the collar of the sailor’s coat and let it slide from my shoulders. The heavy cloth whispered as it fell, pooling at my feet. Beneath, only the sheerkimonoremained. It clung to my body, revealing lean muscle earned from years of labor. My chest was partially exposed, and my stomach and the lines of my hips were visible through the translucent fabric.
The crowd gasped.
Then erupted.
Voices rose—in appreciation, in desire, in crude comments I tried not to hear. Hands gestured. Eyes devoured.
I stood there, exposed, and remembered every lesson Hana and Sakurai had ever imparted:Keep my expression inviting, my posture open. Smile promising things I do not want to give.
“The bidding begins at fiftymon,” Momoko announced.
“Fifty!” a voice called immediately.
“One hundred!”
“Two hundred!”
The numbers climbed rapidly. Fiftymonbecame oneryo.
Then two.
Then five.
Momoko tsked and shook her head. “Oh, my dear gentlemen, surely, one as fine as Kaneko deserves more . . . appreciation . . . than five pitifulryo, yes?”
I watched, detached, as men competed for the right to use my body, as they reduced me to a commodity worth measuring in currency.
“Eightryo!” a military officer called.
“Ten!” a merchant near the front shouted. It was the obese one who needed servants to support him. His face was flushed with excitement or drink—probably both. His eyes traced my body with unconcealed hunger.
Please, I thought desperately.Please, not him. Please.
Momoko scanned the room. “Tenryo. Do I hear more?”
Silence.
The merchant smiled, his jowls quivering. He gestured to his servants to bring him closer to the stage.
No. Gods, no.
“Tenryo, going once,” Momoko said.
My heart hammered.
My smile remained fixed in place, but inside I was fracturing. This man, this disgusting, cruel-looking man, would be my first. Would be the one to—
