Even though I know—I just know—I’m like a cow they’re fattening up before the slaughter, a part of me prays to never leave here. For the first time in a long time, I’m being treated like a human being. I’m not deluded; I know it’s only because they want to use me. They get a massive cut if some millionaire decides I’m worthy of their bed. It’s not noble, but at least there are mutual benefits now. They’re using me, but for the first time, I’m getting something back.
The hope in my chest that says I’ve actually escaped my traffickers stays muffled, though. I can't let it breathe. It couldn’t have been this easy—just selling myself in a different way to buy my life back.
The auction is forty-eight hours away.
This paradise is an illusion. I’m trying like hell not to be positive, to keep my guard up. But it’s hard to imagine how anything in these upcoming three months could be worse than the decade of filth I just crawled out of. I’ve been a communal toilet for the dregs of the earth. I’ve been a punching bag for men who wanted to see if a giant could cry. What could these rich bastards possibly do that hasn't already been done to me?
The people here gave me a pen and a piece of paper and asked me what my "hard limits" were for the contract.
No men.
All the power to the gay community, but I find men as sexually appealing as a fucking boiled potato. Back in the hole,the traffickers tried to force it. They’d shove so many pills down my throat I could taste the chemicals in my sweat, but my dick would always go limp the second a man’s hand landed on me.
Truth is, it’s been years since I’ve looked at a woman and felt a spark of anything other than exhaustion. There’s something fundamentally wrong with me. The wiring is fried. But I’ll never tell them that. If they knew, they’d haul me back to the brothel and let the traffickers finish me off. A toy that doesn't play is just trash.
I added more.No cutting. No burning.I’ve got more than enough scars; I don't need any fresh ones. If the buyer wants to hurt me in other ways, let them. I’m numb to it.
No anal on me.
That was it. The sum total of my dignity on a single sheet of paper.
In two days, I’ll be standing on a pedestal in front of the world’s most polished monsters. I’ll be naked or close to it, waiting for someone to put a price on my misery.
I’ll find out if there’s a level of hell I haven't visited yet.
I’m betting everything I have left—which is nothing but muscle and a broken name—on the idea that I can survive ninety days of whatever sick fuck buys me.
Chapter three
Valentina
The ballroom’s stench sticks to the back of my throat. Even five-thousand-dollar perfume can’t mask the filth of this place. I sit in the front row, watching the meat rotate.
I’m not a good person. I wasn't raised to be. I inherited my father’s empire—in all its filth and glory. That’s why, when I watch men and women sold for parts, for three months of a rich man’s fantasies, I’m usually bored.
I don’t need any of the fuckers here. I don’t need the "connections" of these bottom-feeders. But if I don't show my face, they think the Ice Queen is melting. And when they think you're soft, they try to take a bite. So, I show up to remind them, or else they’ll learn the other way.
The auctioneer’s been parading these poor things out for hours. These "assets" sign papers, sure. They agree to be used. But in the end, they’ve been pushed here because of their environment; most of them had no other option but to say yes. Lot 398 was a beautiful girl; she went for six hundred thousand to a man who I know has a kink for tears. Lot 399 was a boy, barely twenty, who looked like he’d already forgotten his own name.
"Lot 402," the auctioneer rasps. "Viktor."
He’s hauled out, and the room goes quiet for a few seconds. He’s a mountain of scarred, pale meat. They’ve slathered him in so much oil it’s dripping off his elbows, almost pooling on the stage. He’s wearing nothing but black boxers that strain againstthe huge weight of his cock. His muscles are corded like bridge cables.
The auctioneer purrs, flipping through a folder. "Hard limits: No men. No anal. No cutting or burning of the flesh."
The women in the crowd titter, their eyes raking over his skin, already thinking about where to sink their teeth.
I don’t feel the usual boredom when I look at him. Instead, something violent happens in my chest.
I don’t feel for people. But as I catch his eyes—hazel and utterly vacant—a suffocating sadness drips off him and onto me.
It’s a grief so dense it tastes like sucking on a copper coin. I feel like I’m choking on it. Every breath I take feels like I’m inhaling his misery, and it’s making my stomach turn. He’s not even there. It’s like he’s in another world in his mind, far away from here.
The bidding starts at four million. The women are foaming at the mouth, and I can sense the disappointment of some of the men here that he isn’t into their sex. They want to own the brute.
I feel a pressure in my throat. It seems like the only thing that will get this sheath of depression he’s spreading off my skin is to take him off the stage.
"A million!" a woman shrieks to my right, clearly drowning in a lust so desperate she’s willing to bid even more.
