At Any Price

“What about the other guy, is he an alpha wolf, too?”

“Sweetie, they’re millionaires. They’re all alpha wolves. For what it’s worth, his behavior with you was very different from what I saw with him when we spoke both times. Maybe it’s just a façade he uses around women. It would explain why he’s participating in this—what did you call it again?—‘new paradigm’ in the first place.”

The knot in my stomach twisted again. “It’s a bad sign if he can’t behave himself around a woman. How do I know I’ll be safe? What if he’s into some sadomasochist shit?”

“Yeah, that’s all in the paperwork. No fetish. No bondage. Nothing unusual. You’re a virgin for chrissakes, it’s not like you would be into any of that. He knows. He was the one who wanted it put into the language of the agreement, kept saying it was important to protect you.”

I remembered what he said when we were alone. That it was his sole interest to ensure my safety, physically and legally. Was this some sort of sting? Was he an undercover cop, in reality? Could Heath have been able to find that out?

We had arranged for this entire transaction to take place overseas, in countries where sex in exchange for money was legal. The web server had been stationed in Brazil, the auction run by proxy by Heath’s contact there. The actual act would take place in a legally friendly country.

Money would not actually change hands. Overseas bank accounts would affect the transfer. Heath’d had a gay banker friend set up an account in the Cayman Islands for me. It made me feel so clandestine and mysterious. Drake had one too (probably long before this transaction). And the money would soon be resting in a holding account before the transfer was made.

The only thing that was marginally illegal was our meeting on US soil to iron out the details of the deal. However my pride at the neatness of this deal was beginning to fade in the face of Drake and his alpha wolf asshat personality. As Heath and I got into the car to return home, I shot him a veiled look but was quiet the remainder of the way.

I had a decision to mull over. I had to learn more about who Adam Drake really was. But further than that, the reality of my ideals had just slammed me in the face and I had to see if I had the courage to continue with this plan. The way my nerves were tied up in knots, I doubted if I could.

Chapter Three

I Googled him the minute I got home and turned on my computer. Read a brief Wikipedia entry on him and spent the next hour with my mouth open in shock as I read article after article. I knew a whole lot more about him but I also had tons more questions.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d thought the name Adam Drake rang a bell. A distant bell, but a bell nonetheless. Adam Drake was founder and CEO of Draco Multimedia Entertainment, the parent company of one of the most successful and popular Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), Dragon Epoch. I played it regularly and wrote about it in a regular column on my blog. In fact, I was due for a new DE update sometime this week.

Something prickly formed in my throat. I saw pictures, press releases, reviews, interviews, write-ups. Pictures of him on panels at the San Diego Comic-Con. He was some kind of prodigy with programming and had developed a unique artificial intelligence engine within a game called Mission Accomplished before he’d graduated high school. He’d sold the program to Sony at the age of seventeen. For 3.2 million dollars.

A millionaire at seventeen years old by his own doing.

From there it just got worse. He’d attended the California Institute of Technology but had dropped out after a year and founded his own company, Draco Multimedia, out of a warehouse in Irvine. Eventually that company built its own multi-complex campus in the same city. They produced several games—the culmination of which was currently Dragon Epoch, a subscription-based fantasy environment that millions of players worldwide paid for the privilege of playing. Including me.

Now I knew exactly what Heath had meant when he’d said that Drake and I had things in common. Or maybe it was his own starry-eyed gamer worship that had gotten in the way. If I was a hardcore gamer, Heath was worse. He was the one who’d gotten me into the whole thing in the first place.

Now I was growing skeptical about Heath’s judgment. No doubt he was fan-geeking during those “multiple interviews” where he and Drake had spoken for hours both in person and on the phone.

I brewed myself a pot of tea and glanced at the clock. I had hours yet before work, no desire to study and tons of blog posts to write—at least three reviews, one interview and a couple of spotlights.