I swallow, my throat thick and my palms sweaty.
What’s happening? What is this?
I blink, taking off my glasses and haphazardly ripping out my tucked-in button-down to wipe them off. When I put them back on, I expect to see better, to not have this stark beacon in the center of the stage calling to me. But …
The red lingerie strapped to her is glaring against her skin, and on her forearm, a dark design mars what my brain conjures as smooth skin. A quick jolt of anger rips through me—what could be so important that she’d tattoo it to her body permanently?
My insides feel as though they’re rearranging. The air in my lungs turns heavy, and I fumble for my drink as I assume her number is called because she steps forward. I fist the glass, hoping the cool liquid can do something to help me, but it only warms in my hand as I stare.
Men scramble to get their hands in the air at the first few bids, but I can’t function.
“Isn’t your thing the new ones?” Graves’s voice sucker punches me.
I nod.
“… fifty thousand. Do I have fifty thousand?”
I startle into action and roll my shoulders, trying to undo the past several seconds of reaction.
Stay focused.
But as the EV member on stage motions toward me, the girl’s eyes dart to mine and my pulse slows. An odd sensation drags like fingertips down my spine in a relentless and teasing way. I almost miss the next bid.
“Sixty-five thousand over here. Do I have sixty-five?”
I raise my hand.
“That’s the highest bid tonight!” My grandfather slaps his hand near my glass on the bar. “DuPont money is going to get whatever it wants.” A wiry, gurgled chuckle rattles from his throat, stuck between a laugh and something akin to wet gravel.
My body prickles with his words, and I don’t realize I’m stepping farther away from the bar and weaving through the tables closer to the stage.
“Seventy thousand. Do I have seventy?” The man looks directly at me.
I nod.
“Seventy-five!” A businessman yells out from somewhere to my right, and I glare at him.
The girl looks at him and snarls.
Don’t. Don’t do that. They like it too much. Want it too much.
“Eighty?”
I nod again.
“Eighty-five.” The businessman smirks.
Irritation slithers in as I flash an open palm twice.
“I have one hundred thousand. Do I have one hundred five?”
The businessman looks around, then down the line of remaining girls on stage. He must decide he’d rather pay less for his sick fantasies because he waves the announcer off.
“Sold! One hundred thousand.”
A wave of disguised pleasure washes over me, and I wrinkle my nose in disgust. What the hell is wrong with me? It’s transactional. I don’t feel anything toward these women. Means to an end. I’ve lived without this for years. Without temptation. Limited curiosity.
I berate myself as I try to strip her down to the numbers, to the logic of the evening, but it doesn’t help. She’s not quantifiable.
