Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Did I check that box?
I can't remember. I can't fucking remember.
My hands are shaking. I clench them into fists, trying to ground myself, but it doesn't help.
The door opens.
Severe woman. Clipboard. That same expression like I've personally disappointed her just by existing.
"Scarletta Mae Desmond."
She uses my real name.
My actual, legal, real name.
Not a fantasy novel name. Not code name whatever. Just me. My legs don't feel attached to my body.
She doesn't wait. She turns and walks.
I follow.
The hallway is longer than I expected. White walls. Soft lighting. Classical music playing from speakers I can't see.
It should be comforting. It's not.
We stop at a heavy wooden door.
She turns to face me. I expect to see something—anticipation, maybe contempt, the faintest flicker of humanity—but her voice arrives perfectly flat and mechanical. Rehearsed to the point of automation.
"Enter the stage. Walk directly to the raised platform. Stand precisely in the center on the marked position. Remove your robe completely—no hesitation, no false modesty. Once naked, turn slowly in a full circle so the prospective buyers can assess you from every angle. Pause at each quarter turn for approximately three seconds."
She pauses, studying my face with that same clinical detachment. Waiting.
"Do you understand these instructions?"
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
"Do you understand?" she repeats.
"Yes."
"Good."
She opens the door.
Music swells. String instruments and something else I can't identify.
I step through.
The room beyond is massive. Theater-style seating rises in curved rows, all facing a raised platform with a single spotlight aimed at its center.
Masked men fill the seats. Dozens of them. Maybe fifty. Maybe more. They're wearing masquerade-type masks. The black kind that only cover your eyes and do nothing to actually hide who you are. They're all wearing tuxedos. All watching the door I just walked through.
All watching me.
My feet move. I don't tell them to. They just move.
One step. Another. The platform is three steps up.
I climb them.
The spotlight finds me immediately. Hot and blinding.
I can't see the men anymore. Just shapes in the darkness beyond the light.
There's a marker on the floor. A small circle of tape.
I stand on it.
My hands find the silk tie at my waist. I pull.
The robe falls.
I'm naked.
Completely, totally naked in front of fifty strangers who paid to be here.
Who paid to see me.
I turn. Pause. Turn. Pause. Turn. Pause. Last turn. Stand.
A voice comes through speakers. Male. Smooth. Professional.
"Lot Number Twelve. Scarletta Mae Desmond. Age twenty-two. Five feet six inches. One hundred eighteen pounds. Measurements thirty-four, twenty-four, thirty-five. Bachelor's degree in English Literature from Boise State University. Currently unemployed."
Currently unemployed.
Like that's a selling point.
"Miss Desmond's hobbies include writing original erotica on the popular forum DarkDesires under the pseudonym ScarletSins. Her portfolio contains forty-seven completed works exploring themes of captivity, psychological dominance, and forced confession."
No.
No.
"Notable titles include 'Prey,' 'The Arrangement,' 'Captive,' and 'See Me, Spank Me, Cure Me.' Her work demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of power dynamics and submission psychology."
This isn't happening.
This can't be—
"From her story 'Owned by the Slave Trader,' Chapter Seventeen: 'His hand wrapped around my throat and I stopped breathing. Not because he was choking me. Because for the first time in my life, someone saw the dark parts and didn't look away.'"
He's quoting me. Actual lines from my work. On, and on, and on… He's reading my actual words to a room full of men who—
"Miss Desmond's intake questionnaire reveals fantasies including twenty-four-hour Total Power Exchange, forced confession, verbal degradation, and permission for her buyer to weaponize her own writing against her."
My face is burning. My whole body is burning.
"Buyers should refer to page twelve of your programs for complete details regarding Miss Desmond's selected activities and boundaries."
There's rustling. The sound of pages turning.
They're reading about me. About what I want. About what I'm willing to let them do.
The announcer's voice softens. Almost intimate.
"Gentlemen. What you're bidding on tonight isn't just a body. It's a mind. A rare and remarkable mind that understands submission not as weakness but as the ultimate act of trust. Miss Desmond doesn't just write about surrender. She craves it. Studies it. Dreams about it."
I'm going to be sick.
"The bidding begins at one-hundred thousand dollars."
Chapter 10
Caleb
Iwatch from my cabin's control room, leather chair angled toward the wall of monitors, Macallan Twenty-Five in a crystal tumbler resting against my thigh.
My helicopter dropped me here thirty minutes ago, then returned to the club for Scarletta. She'll be delivered to me like a package. Gift-wrapped in humiliation and fear.
Exactly as planned.
Six screens show Scarletta's auction from different angles. Close-ups of her face. Wide shots of the theater. Overhead view of the platform where she stands naked under that spotlight, trying not to shake.
She's shaking anyway.
The other nine screens cycle through the other auction rooms. Sixteen girls total tonight. All of them already owned. All of them thinking this is real.
It's theater. Expensive, elaborate, legally binding theater that was specifically designed for them.