Page 81 of Their Cruel Love

The cheering is loud, and people turn and raise a glass to me and Razor. Eyes beady and expectant. Smiles glued on. They know they have us fucked. I smile back—a smile hopefully less ghoulish than theirs.

“This is bad,” Razor says.

“Yes. If we run in and take her back?”

“I’m sure that’s in their expected results. It might precipitate a violent response, earlier than we need to see one?”

I decipher his words and fume. I want to get violent. I want to poke out their eyes, the vultures.

“Ladies and gentlemen! As you know, each of these contestants will be offered to you, and the highest bid will win them for the night. Any of you can win! You can thendoanything to them! Choose wisely. Spend wisely.” He gestures broadly at the hall. “May the best whatever you are win!”

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Anyone can bid for her.”

“But how much will they bid?” he muses.

“She’s gagged. If she safewords, we won’t hear it unless we get over that barrier.”

“Violence is our last resort. We are outnumbered.”

I grunt my unmentionable answer.

The bids on the first woman, a blonde, reaches ten thousand and more before it peters out and someone wins her.

“I can afford this. You can,” Razor says, calmly.

“I am not letting anyone else have her. We should just leave.”

“Weshould,” he repeats. “But we probably can’t. I don’t think any of this, tonight, is meant to be fair. She did not consent to be in that restraint. Theoretically, a safeword should set her free.”

“Then let’s try?”

“And we’d fail. They want something else from us.”

“Money?” I venture.

“Our fear. I’ll bet they want to scare us shitless.” His hushed tone makes snakes spawn in my gut, joining the worms.

“I don’t fucking like this.”

The second, third, and fourth women are bid on and won. Phoebe is next.

I step forward, elbowing through to the front next to the mesh barrier. “Can we check if she wants to safeword, please.” I raise my goblet and am wishing I could shove it, broken, down Bastion’s neck, when he grins.

“No. We asked her already, sir. Phoebe Bartholemew, daughter of our esteemed board member, Queen O, agrees to being bid on and then fucked etcetera, by whoever wins her.”

Even from this distance, I can hear her groaning out some unintelligible sound. Her head and neck are locked down, as are her arms, hands, and legs.

“I need to get over there and hear this myself!”

“Sorry. No. You may however bid on her?” Bastion bows, almost fucking curtseys at me, the fuckturd.

“Thirty thousand!” A man yells.

“Fifty!” And that is the woman we saw at the pool. The one stitching red ribbon and metal into her girl.

“Ninety!” Another man.

“And we are off to a great start!” Bastion stares. “Your bid, Mister Marcus Thompson?” Every syllable is enunciated.

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