The further the silent driver drove me into the belly of the beast, the shadier it all looked, until the long vehicle pulled to a smooth stop in front of a nondescript building.
The driver was silent as he came to hold the door open for me. I blinked up at his impassive face, the unmemorable features scrambling before my eyes seemingly by design. “I…are we in the right place?”
He nodded. I blinked up at him again, looking around his wide form to take in the building, the dark alley, the silence.
It wasn’t just unimpressive or innocuous.
It looked almost abandoned. If there had been windows on this side of the structure at all, I would’ve expected smashed glass and graffitied boards.
I must have looked as confused as I felt, because the man in front of me let out a frustrated breath and pointed toward a small door that blended almost perfectly into the gray stone of the wall. If it was possible for a door tolooklocked, this one certainly did.
But I wobbled my way out of the car anyway, carefully avoiding the deeper grooves in the asphalt for fear of twisting my ankle past the point of survival.
By the time I reached the door, the limo was already gone, leaving me alone in the dark alley of my nightmares, shivering without a coat.
Everything about this was a terrible idea. As I lifted my fist to rap the metal door with my knuckles, my thoughts were spiraling down and down until I’d half convinced myself this whole thing was an elaborate scam.
I was struggling through an emergency escape plan when the door opened, and I gasped.
In front of me was a lavish hallway that seemed to go on for miles. Ornate light fixtures draped on the walls, a richly patterned carpet lead toward a faint light, and the open space was filled with the rumble of distant voices.
A lot of voices.
A whole crowd of strangers, none of whom were the kind of people I’d feel safe meeting.
I was in the right—very wrong—place. This looked exactly like the kind of place where a girl could auction off her virginity. I was still in disbelief that that girl was me.
When my father suggested it, I thought he was joking. We’d been talking on the phone, his voice barely familiar to me after years of only hearing from him once in a blue moon, and I thought I’d misheard him at first.
“You…you want me to go to an auction?”
Impatience colored his response. “Frankie, I’ve worked damn hard for what I’ve got. If you want my money, you’re gonna have to work for it, too.”
All I could do was listen, slack-jawed, as he explained the situation. An annual Valentine’s Day auction of “rare goods,” he called it, organized by some “business colleagues” of his.
“I have to contribute something. They know I’ve got a daughter, and just about anyone would pay for the right to deflower my little girl.”
My stomach turned just remembering his words. Not only because of the general ick-factor of the term “deflower,” but because of the ruthless tone of his voice.
What kind of father saw his own daughter’s body, her sexuality, as a bargaining chip?
I always knew he didn’t care about me as much as he should. But I had no idea before that phone call that I was just a commodity for him to sell to the highest bidder. Literally.
“We’ll get you dolled up,” Robert Ferrara had declared simply. “Showcase the merchandise. And then the higher you go for, the more money you’ll get for yourself. I’ll take my portion, of course. So if you’re a hot button item, we both win.”
“I…” What was I supposed to say to something like that? What was the protocol for talking about selling off your first time to a stranger at the behest of your father?
“And of course, if you do this for me,” Dear Ol’ Dad continued, his tone full of a malevolent power I’d always suspected he had under his charming facade, “I’ll be more willing to negotiatemore help for you. School tuition. That little house of your mother’s.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. In an instant, my pulse was racing loud enough that I heard it above the ringing in my ears. How was I supposed to turn him down if this, this one little thing, no matter how scary it was, could solve all of my problems? Could solve some of Mom’s problems, too?
So I’d agreed.
Now I was reminding myself of the stakes here, the possibility of saving my childhood home and getting back into school again hanging in the balance, as I walked toward the auction that shouldn’t exist.
When the hallway opened up and spit me out into a large, low-lit space glittering with gold and crystal and diamond jewelry, it sunk in that I was entering a whole world I’d never known existed.
All around me were polished, confident people with the kind of money I couldn’t fathom, decked out in tuxedos and gowns not unlike my own.
