Page 3 of Maksim

She nods and cries when he slaps the side of her head.

“Yes,” she says.

He moves to the next, and when he gets to me, I hesitate. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I think it matters, it just feels like it does. Like I should keep everything hidden that I possibly can.

“Nuk flas anglisht.”

“What?” Driver’s eyebrows bunch as if he thinks he didn’t hear me correctly.

I shake my head like I don’t understand. “Nuk flas anglisht.”

When he slaps the side of my head, I cringe and raise my hands. “Nuk flas anglisht! Nuk flas anglisht!”

Driver takes a step back to address the two new men. “All but that one.”

“Is she a virgin?” the man who smiled at me asks. I don’t see him point or look to see where his eyes land, but I know he’s referring to me.

My skin crawls hearing that question, little bugs worming their way beneath the surface. I can hear my mother’s voice again.

Be a good girl, Elira. You know what men want.

“Can’t exactly ask, now can we?”

“You didn’t check for a hymen?” He sounds disappointed. I can hear the frown in his voice.

“She’s fresh off the boat, my guy. She hasn’t been checked for shit.”

“What about you?” the other man asks, grasping the Filipina’s chin.

I don’t see or hear how she responds because when a warm finger snakes beneath one strap of my dress, I jolt upright, my head snapping to face my unwelcome admirer.

He glides his finger up and down, sending the bugs beneath my skin squirming, and it takes all my willpower not to scream or try to run. We’re already out in what must be the middle of a desert. It would be too easy to kill me if they wanted to.

His finger moves to my mouth next, and instead of recoiling, I close my eyes and hold my breath while letting him brush my chapped bottom lip. When he stops, I open my eyes.

“Hmmm.” His lips twist to one side like he’s thinking while his eyes trail me. He looks like I’m a menu and he’s trying to decide what he wants to eat. “My boss might be a little ticked, but I think you’ll make a nice addition to his collection.”

He smiles at me, revealing a slightly chipped front tooth that would be endearing if he wasn’t a monster.

“I think you’ll be a nice addition to my collection,” he says, his voice quieter as he tucks my hair behind my ear.

I don’t recoil, nor do I respond to words I’m not supposed to understand. I don’t know why he says them. Maybe to scare me, maybe to hear himself speak.

“How much?” he asks the driver who’s been speaking with the other man. He turns his head my way while I bow mine. Blood rushes past my ears.

This is it.

This is the next step. The first step, really.

I am about to be this man’s whore. This man’s boss’s whore.

When my eyes sting, I close them, telling myself it may not be that bad. That in a way, I was coming here prepared to be someone’s whore, even if it was under the guise of marriage.

It could be okay. It could be… It could be…

It could be worse than death.

“Thirty thousand.”

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