If it weren’t for the risk to the innocent young women up on stage, I would go through with it, but I can tell by the looks on their faces that none of them have so much as seen a drunk, belligerent man, much less be held up like a piece of meat for a crowd of them.
“Here they are!” Oskar announces, striding around, eyeing each one of the ladies up and down. “Each of them unspoiled, each of them eighteen, each of them very eager to please! Here,” he says, stopping at the girl with the “#1” placard, reading off a card in his hand, “we have a lovely young lady from out west in California! She’s a lifelong hiker and health nut, and it’s clearly paid off!” He gestures up and down the woman’s legs as the crowd cheers.
Oskar goes on in such a fashion, introducing each lady and getting the crowd whipped up into a lustful frenzy. As he goes down the row of women, I start to turn my eyes away in disgust when I notice the woman standing towards the far end of the stage.
She stands out from the rest of the women on stage like a ray of warm sunshine. Clad in nothing but a simple white bra and panties, her knees are turned inward as she uses her placard, #7, as if trying to hide behind it. Her luminous blue eyes are full of fear they should never be exposed to, and two blonde braids hang over her shoulders, gracing pale skin that’s pure as porcelain. She’s small and fragile-looking, even more so than the others on stage, like a doll being held up before a pack of wolves.
She’s the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
“And here,” Oskar says as he reaches her, taking her by the arm and dragging her in front of the other girls, snapping me out of the trance I’d been in gazing at her, “here we have a real gem from the north part of our very own state! Azure eyes, golden hair, and a body you can toss around the bed as long as she lasts!”
Hearing Oskar talk about that angel as he did makes me forget my post. I stride forward, pushing past some of the crowd as easily as if I were wading through tall grass. I want to get up on stage and throttle him, but I notice Sergei and his friends up front, and I use every ounce of my strength to restrain myself.
“She’s domestically trained, a true angel of the house,” he croons, stalking around her like a demon as she shrinks away from him. “Never so much as felt a man’s touch before, and the only condition of this perfect servant being yours and yours alone is a wedding ring! That’s right, gentleman, the highest bidder gets this little doll sent away to her parents for a few days to get dressed and groomed for you and nobody else, for life!”
The men go wild, obviously ravenous with lust, and I can see a few of the more affluent-looking men looking poised, ready to pounce. For many of them, I realize, this woman would be the deal of a lifetime — a perfect wife to legitimize their images, and one who won’t pry or ask questions, either.
Oskar moves through the other women, but I can already hear men around me chattering over #7.
“I’ll deflower that pretty little rose.”
“Not like my kid’s going to college, I’d cough up those funds to fuck that little bitch!”
“Looks kinda like my daughter, gimme a piece of that ass to tear up!”
The poor girl looks absolutely terrified, her eyes flitting from man to man as they shout at her, and she tries to back away, but Oskar casts her a dark look, and she bites her lip nervously, knees shaking.
“Hey! Hey, #7! Want a real man to help you stretch those pretty lips of yours?”
The last man at my right makes me forget my restraint, and I turn to grab him by the scruff of his neck, taking him off-guard and terrifying him as I pulled him close to me, about to knock him to the ground when Oskar’s voice boomed.
“Alright, boys, alright settle down! You’ve seen the ladies, now let’s see the offers! Start the bidding!”
Both of us were distracted by the shouts we started hearing from around us, and I dropped the man to listen.
“Gimme #7! Fifty thousand!” cried a desperate-looking man who looked like he could barely afford the counterfeit watch around his wrist.
“Our first bidder in at fifty grand,” Oskar shouted, and two-thirds of the crowd groaned at the lowball offer. Most girls can net over a hundred thousand a year as a sex slave, wedding ring or no.
“Seventy-five!” shouted a man wearing a high-collared coat and wide-brimmed hat as not to be seen. The girl is looking at each bidder in alarm. The poor woman has probably never even faced a date with a man, much less this animalistic show.
“One-fifty,” comes the calm, firm voice of an older man in a tailored Armani suit.
“One seventy-five,” cries another man I recognize as a human trafficker. I can’t let this go on any longer. Any of the men in this room bidding at this threshold are with the likes of criminals too wealthy to know kindness anymore. They’re not buying her for their own pleasure, and I know what this is going to lead to. The wealthy men in fine outfits are no less crude than the mongrels that were jeering at her earlier — they only have the power to go through with those words.