At last, an unremarkable guy took center stage, standing a few feet to the right of the one-way glass. He didn’t have a podium or a gavel, but something about his countenance made it clear that he was the auctioneer. Perhaps it was the pince-nez glasses he wore, or the way his chin came to a long point, as though nature had forcibly stretched it downwards, or the boutonnière in his lapel. Were it not for the surroundings, I probably would’ve assumed he was a food critic, or something of that ilk.
“Welcome,” he said in a gravelly voice. “We’ll begin the auction in a moment. Does everyone have their paddles?”
Nods of assent around the room.
“Good. I run a clean auction here. I ask that you engage in no poor conduct — no violence, no temper tantrums. Should you lose the bid, rest assured, there are always future sales.”
That got a dark chuckle from the crowd.
“Very well then.”
He cleared his throat and angled his body to the glass, even as his eyes went somewhere above our seats, as though he were looking to a stage manager.
The auctioneer made a signal with his right hand and said, “Maestro, if you please.”
Just like that, the overhead lights in the theater went down. For a moment, we were in pitch darkness.
Then the room behind the glass was illuminated and the lights in the theater rose a little so we could see who else was bidding.
My eyes took a second to adjust to the sudden change in light. Through the spots in my vision, I could make out a woman standing in the middle of the room, on some kind of podium, her milky skin bare except for a bra and thong.
And that’s when I saw it:
A forest fire of bright, true red hair.
My heart caught in my throat, and with a start, my vision finally resolved.
Beyond the glass, selling her virginity to the highest bidder, was Kiki.
CHAPTER 16
Kiki
“SIT! Still!”
It was Friday evening, around ten, and Sonia was helping me get ready for the auction. Or, rather, she was morally supporting me for the auction. I’d gone out the evening before and had a full… grooming. I usually only got my eyebrows done, but I had taken the man’s advice to heart and blew a week’s worth of tips on everything he said I should do. I’d never had so much done, but at the end of the evening I felt that I looked good — and confident, which was what I really needed.
Though Sonia was bustling around me with fan brushes and different shades of foundation, her make-up hand was a little wobbly. I was turned away from the mirror, partly so that she could have the satisfaction of a big reveal, and partly so I couldn’t complain about every misstep.
“You moved again!” she cried, lowering the eyeliner pen with a frustrated sigh. “Your wing is gonna be stubby if you don’t stop fidgeting.”
“Sorry, sorry, I know. I’m just anxious.”
She threw the pen into her enormous but theoretically portable toolkit, which rested atop my desk.
“I know you’re nervous, sweetie,” Sonia said, crouching down to my eye level and putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s an intense thing you’ve got yourself into.”
“It’s for my father,” I replied mechanically, more of a reminder for myself than for her.
“Yeah.”
“Without this, our house will get foreclosed on.”
“You told me.”
I scrunched up my face. “I just… honestly, I wish there was some other way to make this amount of money this quickly.”
“It’s unfair,” she agreed. “You didn’t get into debt. This is in no way your fault. And I’m sorry it’s become your responsibility. Kiki, you deserve better.”
“Thanks,” I replied, putting my hand over hers. “I only hope it doesn’t make me feel cheaper.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You mean, you hope they bid enough? Girl, look at yourself. I bet you pull in one hundred thousand, easy.”
“No, no, I mean… never mind. It’s fine, it’s only one night, right? I can feel not great about for a night. This isn’t how I imagined losing my virginity, but virginity is just a thing, it’s not like it defines me.”
I paused, and looked to Sonia for reassurance.
“Right?”
She nodded vehemently. “Duh.”
“And at least this isn’t online,” I continued. “It’s in-person, so it’s not like anyone needs to know.”
In the interim between last Friday and this one, I’d done some research on virginity sales, as a kind of precautionary measure. I suppose I was searching for some kind of reassurance that I’d be the same person afterwards. Instead, I found a whole litany of Google articles about young women, like myself, in piles of debt selling themselves on the World Wide Web in the interest of saving their families. While it was comfortingly familiar, there was no “before and after” piece, nothing following up with the girls to see how they felt once the deed was done.