Page 14 of Motorycle Daddies

“Well, aren’t you a pretty one?” she says as she looks me over. The first words I’ve heard from anyone since the nurse, at least words I can understand.

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” I dare ask. It just pops out. Apparently my fight-or-flight response is broken and going from freeze mode to just plain fight. Leave it to me to have a smart mouth while kidnapped.

“I’d watch my fiery mouth if I were you,” she says, but there’s a smile on her face. “The ones who pay the most usually don’t like that kind of attitude. And it’s my understanding you are meant to fetch a pretty penny, my dear.”

She starts dancing circles around me, looking me up and down, like I’m a fossil or some other kind of specimen in a museum. Then, she goes over to the rack and starts sifting through it while mumbling to herself.

“What’s so special about me?” I ask her, hoping she might be more forthcoming than anyone else. “I don’t even know why I’m here. So, why should it matter how much money I can fetch or how beautiful I am?”

She raises a thick eyebrow at me as she holds a corset in her hands. Probably one of the most feminine and least sexy-looking articles of clothing on the rack. It’s white with a little bit of lace detailing in the back and pink flowers dotted all over it.

“You and I both know I won’t be answering that question. But I do think there’s someone who will answer your questions, at least one or two. What you do need to know is that fighting won’t get you anywhere. Just like most of these girls here, you’re stuck. In fact, you might be even more stuck than the rest. So, I suggest you prepare yourself to make the best of it.”

She nods as she starts to wrap the corset around me, and I raise my arms. As she said, there’s probably no use fighting any of this. I’ve known it the whole time. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing there was a way out.

She fits the corset on me and starts pulling it tight around my waist.

My waist is almost nonexistent when she starts out. I’ve always had a bit of a boyish figure, but people tell me it’s cute. Now, the full-length mirror across the room, as I watch her work, shows a different picture. I look voluptuous, older, and sexy. Curvy even. She’s trying to create an illusion, one that will fetch that pretty penny she thinks I’m here to get.

But if I know anything about this kind of shit, I know that money has nothing to do with me. I will never hold it in my hands. I’ll be little more than a slave by the time this is all over.

“So, how did you get stuck here, then?” I ask, trying to make a connection here. It will either make me feel better, or it could give me an in with someone who might just have the empathy to help me out when I need it most.

She doesn’t look at me as she goes back to the rack and sifts through for something to put on my bottom half. None of it looks like it’s going to cover enough to make me even remotely comfortable.

“That’s a long story. Not one I’m sure you’d even understand, girl. It involves family, money, lies, and a lot of trouble I used to get into. You’re not going to be here long enough to hear it.”

She finally comes back with more white and lacy fabric. Only this is a thong. It has little jewels all around it—probably the most expensive thong I’ve ever seen.

She makes me step into the ridiculous piece of cloth and then points to a pile of shoes on the other side of the room. “Find your size. Take your pick. They should be white, black, or pink. Do you understand?”

I nod and do as she says. I find the lowest heel I can, a pair of white heels. Very basic. But I’m sure they’ll have the same effect regardless.

“Now, I train you,” the woman says.

“Train?” I ask. “What do you mean?”

The woman puts her hand up to stop me from saying anything else. “You need to get out of your head and listen to me. The more you fetch, the better off you’ll be. They want to see perfection. They want to see a Victoria’s Secret model they can take home and do whatever they want with. Do you understand? So, I must teach you to walk, how to look, how to pose. I have to get your angle right. Are you going to look sweet and innocent or be a naughty vixen?”

She’s not actually asking me these questions, she’s just demonstrating the problem she has to solve for herself.

I want to throw up. As if on cue, my stomach vaults backward and flips forward again. It makes this horrible crumbling sound that fills the room.

I nod, not able to get anything else out with without puke coming up with it. And I let her train me. I let her show me how to walk, and every time I get it wrong she smacks me on the forearm or yells at me. It turns out by the end I’m not half bad. At least, that’s what she says.

“That will have to be good enough,” she says. “I have to send you off with the other girls now.”

Suddenly, I want to cling to her, as if she’s my grandmother or my aunt, or even my mother. Of everyone, she’s been the most forthcoming—and the kindest, in a weird and twisted way. I know if I leave this room and go with the other girls like she said, I’m going to my doom. To my own personal hell.

But even if I could run and cling to her, she would just push me right off.

So, I follow her directions out of the room and into the hall.

How am I going to survive this? How am I going to get out? When am I going to wake up and find out this is all a nightmare?

The answers don’t come.

7

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