Squaring my shoulders and setting my chin, I looked him in the eye. This was my deal, and I was in control until the money was exchanged. I wasn’t about to let Scott Christopher think he was anything other than the middleman he was. “I said I’d be here, and so I am.”
He stood and walked toward me, not even trying to hide the fact that he was checking me out from head to toe. “That’s a very good thing. I might have had to send out a search-and-rescue team to track you down if you hadn’t shown up. You’re going to make me a lot of money tonight.”
“Can we please just confirm the terms of my contract?” I said with a sigh. I didn’t trust him, and with good reason. He sold humans for a profit without an ounce of remorse. How could I trust anyone who did that for a living? If I’d had any other alternative, I certainly wouldn’t have been standing there at that moment.
“Right,” he said, going back to his desk and opening a manila folder with my name written in bold black letters across the top. “I can personally guarantee that the clientele for this evening will have no issue with discretion. In fact, it’s a prerequisite for all who visit my establishment. They’re the big ballers, the elite league of gentlemen … a real no-nonsense sort with more money than they know what to do with. Their reasons for being interested in the type of merchandise that I deal in are their own, and I don’t pry as long as they’re paying.”
The only solace I took in agreeing to this, other than the fact that I’d be saving my mother’s life, was that I knew someone with enough pull could guarantee the payout required to make sure my mom got the surgery she needed and keep his mouth shut about it in the process. No one with that much money wanted the world to know about his involvement in such an operation. And I most certainly didn’t want my parents to find out about it. That knowledge alone would be enough to send them to their graves, thereby totally negating what I was trying to do for them.
The other perk, or at least I hoped so, was that anyone who could afford to do this would also be refined enough not to make my life a total living hell. I wasn’t naïve; I knew there were some twisted people out there with some sick fetishes, but I held out hope nonetheless.
“I assume you’re still cool with my twenty percent cut?” he asked, shuffling the papers.
“Nice try. We agreed on ten percent,” I said, not one bit amused by his attempt to hustle me.
“Right, right. Ten percent. That’s what I meant.” He gave me a wink that made my skin crawl, then he pushed the contract across the desk and handed me a pen. “Just sign here … and here.”
I scrawled my messy signature above the lines he indicated, fully aware that I was signing away the next two years of my life. It was a small price to pay.
Shortly afterward, I was ushered into another room where I was told to strip down and put on the skimpiest bikini that I’d ever seen. It really left nothing at all to the imagination, which I gathered was probably the point. The men wanted to see the merchandise before they paid top dollar. I got that, but it didn’t make me feel any less exposed and vulnerable. From there, a hair and makeup stylist did her thing, making me look simply elegant and, surprisingly, not trashy.
After that, Scott secured lucky number sixty-nine to my stomach. I kept my head held high as I joined the other women in front of the two-way mirror. The worst part was that while God only knew who or what was on the other side of the mirror looking at me, I couldn’t see them. What I could see, though, was myself. I wasn’t conceited by any means, but I had to admit that I looked good compared to the other women.
I had never considered myself drop-dead gorgeous, but I was good-looking. My blond hair was long and thick. My eyes weren’t anything special, a dull blue, but once upon a time they had been full of life. That was before my mother’s illness had taken a turn for the worse. I wasn’t perfect in the body department, but I wasn’t too fat or too skinny, and I had curves in what I always imagined were the right places. All in all, a good showing, I hoped.
One by one, the women were pulled out of the room. At first, I thought it meant they were being chosen over me, and I felt like the fat kid in gym class who was always the last one to be picked. But then they called my number and I made my way toward the same black door I had seen the others before me disappear through. Once I stepped inside, I was led to the center of the room. All around me there were smaller areas with glass walls. Each room was furnished with one dimly lit table lamp, a telephone, and a cushy red velvet chair. It was obvious that the only thing the occupants of the rooms had in common with each other was money—and lots of it.
The first room was occupied by a sheik with dark sunglasses, a long white headdress, and a business suit. Two of the women who had been in the hallway with me earlier were on either side of him, showering him with kisses while rubbing his crotch and chest. I averted my eyes in embarrassment, only to be faced with a man in another room.
This guy was huge, like big-as-a-house huge. He reminded me a lot of Jabba the Hutt. A picture of Princess Leia chained next to him flashed across my mind, and a shiver ran down my spine. I had never been one to imagine myself as Princess Leia as a child, and I most certainly wasn’t going to start now.
In the room next to him was a tiny guy with two huge bodyguards standing next to him. Their hands were crossed in front of them, and I imagined that was probably the closest they had ever come to being relaxed. The little guy had his legs crossed all dainty-like and was sipping on some fruity sort of drink with an umbrella sticking out of it. His white jacket hung casually over his shoulders like he was just too cool to actually put it on. I guessed the male variety was more his type. I couldn’t imagine he’d be that threatening. He was probably there to score some pretty young thing to keep up pretenses in the public eye while secretly sneaking someone in the back door, if you get my drift.
I looked toward the last room and sighed inwardly when I saw that the light was out. Apparently whoever had been in there had already made his selection and left, which didn’t give me much hope about the remaining assortment.
And then a small orange light flickered from the darkened room like the ember on the end of a recently puffed cigarette. I looked closer and could faintly make out the lines of a body sitting casually in the chair. The figure leaned forward a bit to readjust his position, granting me a better look at him, but not enough to be able to make anything out.