1
I’m losing my mind. That’s the only thought that sears through my brain as I crouch on the ratty, threadbare couch, staring at the website open on my ancient laptop. The screen is cracked in one corner, but unfortunately the distorted pixelation hasn’t gotten bad enough to hide the hideous pink-and-gold banner at the top of the page.
Sugar Babies. The internet’s notorious one-stop-shop for rich guys looking for hot young things, and vice versa. Now known for something else, too. A little side business that started trending among the profiles on this site.
This is what I have sunk to. Listening to Erin’s utterly insane suggestions.
Hell, she hadn’t even meant this one seriously—and Erin once in all seriousness suggested that I try selling my kidney, because she’d heard you only really need one, and the black market value was through the roof.
Her voice from the night before still echoes in my head. “You know there’s a website where you can sell your virginity? I read this HuffPo article—one girl made two million dollars. Can you believe that? For one night.” She’d laughed, and paused to toss back another healthy gulp from the water bottle-turned-wine flask she’d taken to carrying on nights out (because San Fran isn’t like living in the backwaters of NoCal, and the bartenders always card). “I always learn about this shit like, four years too late, y’know?” She’d smirked around the lip of the bottle. “Hell, I bet even the kind of creep who’d buy me would’ve been better than fucking Jason McSwindle.”
I’d raised an eyebrow, grinning back at her. “Don’t you mean Jason McThimble?”
“Sure as hell felt like it!” she’d crowed, and then we toasted to bad first times and terrible dates and shitty kissers, and the whole conversation derailed. I’m sure by now, as she sleeps off her post-party hangover in the closet she rents (it literally used to be a walk-in closet, until our landlord Pano punched a hole in the wall, stuck a window pane into it, and called this a two-bedroom instead), she’s already forgotten all about virgins-for-sale.
But why would she remember? Why would she even think it was relevant to tell me? As far as Erin, my best friend since sophomore year of high school, knows, I lost my V-card to Aaron Zimmerman behind the bleachers after senior prom.
I never had the heart to tell her the truth. That we got as far as his hand up my shirt and his somehow thicker-than-usual tongue down my throat and the hardwood gym floor absolutely killing my ass, not to mention a horrible cramp in my side from dancing my heart out with the girls earlier, when I asked him to stop. He was a total gentleman about it, which made me feel bad about being completely disinterested in banging him. I wasn’t that naïve—I knew my first time would probably suck. I just wanted it to be a little less . . . Well. High school.
But Erin was so damn excited that I’d “finally joined the deflowered club,” I didn’t have the heart to admit nothing actually went down.
And now it’s too late. Now I’m a nineteen-year-old virgin, living in Sin City as my grandmother calls it, and I’m too shy to even flirt back when a cute guy chats me up at work because I feel like it’s written all over my forehead.
Never been fucked.
Virgin for life.
I first clicked open this website because, frankly, while Erin was exaggerating about some girl making 2 million dollars on here, she wasn’t exaggerating by much. And God knows I need the money.
But the longer I stare at this homepage, the crazier I feel, because I’m starting to think it might be a good idea for more than just the cold hard cash.
I mean, yes, 99% of me wants the money. But that little 1% in the back of my mind is thinking, I could rid myself of this brand for good. I could be a normal 19-year-old again.
Not to mention I could finally satisfy my raging hormones. It’s not for lack of desire that I’ve never gone to fourth base. I’ve got a hardcore imagination and a serious relationship with my vibrator, that’s for sure. Finally stripping down with a real guy and letting him take control, touch me wherever he wants, position me any way he likes, and then thrusting his hot, thick dick inside me . . .
Shit. Am I actually getting turned on by the idea of selling myself?
Shy and paranoid as always, I shoot another quick glance at Erin’s door. But it’s still closed, and through the thin wood, I can hear the vague rhythm of her snoring.
“You’re just looking, Bonnie,” I murmur under my breath. “You aren’t committing to anything.”
I click through a couple of sample profiles to reassure myself. There are some hot guys on here—unless the samples are totally imaginary people. Which I guess is possible. But damn, if the real guys look anything like the blond hunk of half-naked on the first page, I could totally be down with letting him fuck me senseless.