When Jayne gestured for all of us to stand and follow her, I was almost too moody to register what the fuck I was about to participate in.
I whispered to a potential ally beside me—a short, skinny man wearing big hoop earrings and lots of body glitter. “This is lowkey fucked up, right? Like, fantasies are fantasies, and that’s cool, but you know, the wealthy are already under scrutiny right now, and the nod to human trafficking—talk about a PR nightmare, at the very least?—”
The man panned toward me. “Girl, I do not care about all that. Rent’s due.”
I stopped my anxious ramblings. “No worries,” I said, raising my hands in defeat.
I glanced around at the group of mostly women and a few men. Clearly, in addition to the charitable donations, some of them were also getting paid on the side. Were they all sex workers? Or submissives indulging in a dark fantasy? What did everyone else think they were auctioning off? I would be an asshole to judge them whentheyweren’t the ones pulling the strings, right?
I felt a headache coming on, and even stone-cold sober, I was lightheaded and clammy by the time Jayne led us through the curtain into a room full of wealthy bidders.
Many were seated at tables while others lined the back of the room, standing. A hush fell over the crowd.
I was back to feeling like a slab of meat. Everyone stepped onto a dais, forming a line that ended withme.
Jayne met Archer in front of a microphone, holding her sheet of paper with our biometric information. Archer found my eyes immediately. When he smiled, it felt like I’d lost. I’d willingly walked right into another of their orchestrated power plays.
I scanned the room. At first, I was looking for Lorelei, but soon, I found myself searching for Wes.
No Lorelei. No Wes. I didn’t even see Roman.
I hadn’t been paying attention to another of Jayne and Archer’s self-indulgent, pseudo-spiritual speeches about freedom, authenticity, and connection. I only caught the tail end.
“What we are doing here in The Circle is revolutionary,” Archer said. “We are indulging our shadows in accordance with only the highest possible code of ethics and virtue. We are animal and soul. We are bloodthirsty and we are selfless. We are lustful and we are merciful. We are relentless and we are generous. Everyone here is radically free to explore even the darkest depths of their fantasies safely and sanely. We always have a choice. And here, we choose to be good to each other and do good for this broken world. Every dollar raised at tonight’s auction will go to human trafficking relief. It is our duty not only to take care of each other, but also to be custodians of the planet. Binaries do not exist in The Circle. Wealth is not the antithesis of virtue, nor is power the antithesis of justice. Here, power is our greatest responsibility. The Circle is not an exclusive kink community. It is a solution to the oldest human dilemma: how do we maintain balance between our essential light and darkselves, our yin and yang, our masculine and feminine? The Circle is wholeness. The ouroboros.Eternity.”
Graceful clapping spread across the space. I studied faces in the crowd. At one table, an older man and woman in masquerade masks held hands—both wearing wedding rings—clearly moved by the speech. Another table was full of stoic men in royal garb, clapping politely. Another sat a group of women in powerful, conservative attire, smiling with cool confidence as they clinked glasses. Dommes, if I had to guess. At another table, a group of men with golden animal masks laughed.
They were staring not at Archer, but atme. A chill crawled down my spine.
Jayne called the first volunteer on stage, a curvy woman with long black hair and an infectious smile. I swallowed down a shocked noise when the first bid came in at fifty thousand dollars. More people entered the room, crowding the back. Still no sign of Wes.
My eyes stung, feeling betrayed and confused. And worse than that, silly for feeling those things to begin with. I had to start preparing myself for Wes finally telling me the truth: that all of this had been for the woman he found tonight.
And I needed to find Lorelei so I didn’t leave this place empty-handed.
“Sold, for one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars,” Archer declared.
I paled. The woman left the stage. A man greeted her, bringing her hand to his lips, and the crowd clapped.
Archer’s speech rattled around in my mind as the line of volunteers thinned and the bids only grew higher. My lightheadedness wasn’t helped by Archer’s next words.
“Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars.”
Maisy took the stage.
“Our princess in pink is twenty-six years old, five feet five inches, one-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds,” Jayne said.
Maisy grinned and twirled for the crowd, showing her ass that already sported red marks from an impact scene.
This did not deter the bidders.
When Archer called out three hundred thousand, I was close to fainting.
Maisy sold to a man seated with Jeffrey for four-hundred-thousand dollars. Jeffrey didn’t look displeased at being outbid; if anything, his eyes were hooded with lust.
My heart pounded. Three people stood in front of me. I scanned the crowd again for a mask with ram horns.
Still no Roman, and still no Wes.
