Madness - Contract Marriage With the devil

Do you want to do that?" Lanka Camet, my dramatic friend, asked for what felt like the millionth time. She shook and played the role of a wench in this underground club, a dark, seedy labyrinth of velvet and secrets.

Lanka was my rock, my lifeline to sanity when the world was going to fall apart at the seams. And it was falling apart with terrifying speed. Her real name was Princess, but she'd switched it the day she reached the age of maturity. No one called her by that name except her parents unless they were seeking a fight. She was breathtakingly beautiful-a goddess with long, silky black hair, an hourglass figure, and legs that seemed to stretch on eternally. But she strutted like a biker queen and her motto was "test-drive all the models." I loved her with an ardor as fierce as blood. And as for what I was going to do for my blood, that was something.

"No, I am not sure, Lanka," I spat, the shake in my voice giving away my bravado. "But I have to. So keep questioning before you caution me out of it and I am running out of here like the cowering little girl we both know that I am really being."

She never let my biting retorts get to her, not because she was immune, but because she was just as full of passion. "And you're really going to lose your innocence to a total stranger? No dinner, no candles, no. other types of pleasure?" Her pushiness irritated me, but I understood that she was coming from a position of love and wanting to know that I had weighed every risk in my mind.

We'd gone over every plus and minus with a fine-tooth comb, but the unknown hung in the shadows.

I was a sex slave-a human being a slave to someone else's ownership, completely at the mercy of a domineering influence. "Whore" is a more appropriate term to describe what I was becoming. I had made myself completely available to one man, one man, for financial gain. This included my loyalty, discretion, and utilization of my body in every possible shape, form, and way that it was required.

The irony was that I had not been forced into this life; I had chosen it. Not that there had been a better opportunity in time, but I had volunteered anyway. He did not make me do it. He did not find me. I had not been kidnapped or beaten into submission.

I did everything to keep a life. My brother, Jackson.

For my brother's life?" I asked, as she led me down a hidden passageway into the actual underbelly of the club. This was the point of no return.

Jackson Volkova was dying. He had a diseased heart, a condition that had grown with the passage of time. He had been brought to the brink of death following a bungled operation, and though he had recovered earlier, there could be no recovery this time. His light was burning too fast. And to add to his woes, his ill-conceived investments had accumulated a gigantic debt against him with people who would not accept failure. They needed the money, or else they would make him pay a pound of flesh. Jackson was so weak and frail that he was confined to bed, and my dad, Teo, lost his job because of the illness. He hadn't left his son's bedside, giving up his job to care for his child. I never blamed him. Jackson was his son, and Teo was a serious parent. But no work meant no health insurance. It was a question of living on the meager savings my father and mother had planned for retirement.

We were not even able to purchase health insurance.

Things had worsened again when Jackson's condition had deteriorated to the point that a heart transplant was his only option. The news had hit us all, but none harder than our dad. I had been witnessing my father day by day, wasting away, more worried about his son than himself. The purple circles under his red-rimmed eyes obviously indicated that he wasn't sleeping. However, he always put on a brave face for Jackson.

Whereas my brother had embraced the fact that he was going to die, my dad still had hope and it was destroying his very soul to see Jackson die a little more with every passing day.

I caught him one night after my brother had finally retired to bed. He slumped in his chair, face hidden in his hands, shoulders shuddering with jerky sobs. He hadn't wanted anyone to witness this. But I had.

I had to intervene. I was desperate to reunite them.

Lanka, my dearest friend, was aware of the situation. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and after seeing how desperate I was becoming, she finally shared with me the more scandalous activities that went on behind the scenes of the club. Michael Liloe, the owner, was what can be described as an overbearing businessman. He ran a classy game, not an open house auction, but a series of secret trials where women were swept up by the highest bidder power brokers. The club was the public face of his business, but the trials were his bread and butter. The first floor was a facade of loud music and inebriated debauchery, perfect cover for the classy game below. From what I understood, some of the women-myself included-did it willingly, and others had an obligation to Michael.

We were all selling our bodies as a matter of last resort to cover debt or save a life. Lanka told me the clients were guys with deep pockets. The world's most powerful people had a hunger for fantasies they would never want to be seen in the daylight. For a sufficient amount of money, they would have willing flesh without concern over their secrets being exposed. But chance would have it. I might find myself with someone generous and kind, or a dictator who reveled in dominating his possession.

My fortune had never been better, so I anticipated the latter. My brother's illness had required constant sacrifice, not just from my dad, Teo, but from me as well. Instead of going to college, I had stayed at home with Jackson. With my dad off work, they didn't have a reason for me to remain. I'd never had the desire. Jackson was my brother, and I loved him. In addition, I still hadn't made any decisions on what I was actually going to do with my future in the first place.

You'd imagine that a twenty-four-year-old woman would have her act together by this point, but no, not exactly. So I was able to successfully deceive my family into believing that I had been awarded an all-expenses-paid, super-generous scholarship to a prestigious university. Yes, I knew that it was not going to be possible at this point in my life, but my family did not know that, and it made all the difference in the world.

Being as far away from home as I was meant that I would not be able to come and see them as often, and as much as it hurt to stay away from my sick brother for so long, it was necessary for my plan to work. If only I was so lucky, they'd never learn the truth.

But you remember what I told you about my luck, don't you?

The deal that I had struck with Michael was that I would live with my "owner" for two years. No more, no less. After that, I would be free. Two years was a small price to pay to ensure Jackson proper care, and for my family to be able to hold out hope for the first time in years.

The bass of the club music pounded against the walls, but I worked hard not to wish I were upstairs adrift in oblivion like all the others who didn't know about the clandestine mission under their feet. These women down here were drowning in something completely different. We dodged a massive man with a clipboard. He identified us and the reason we were there, so he quietly let us in. I was about to lose my courage as we passed through a group of women down the hall. They were an eclectic bunch, some with a snooty air about them, others that appeared to be not their first rodeo.

Each woman had a number taped to her bare stomach, and they stood in front of a mirror that lined the opposite wall.

"Two-way mirror," Lanka explained. "Each client has a dossier on every girl in the trials tonight. Then we're herded in here and put on display for the high rollers to look over the merchandise and decide which desperate girl they want to claim."

"Thanks, Lanka. That doesn't offend me at all,"

"Oh, shut up. You get what I'm saying," she said, trying to calm me down. "You're too good for this, and you know that. You're not them." She waved her hand at the other women. "But I get it. You're doing it for Jackson, and that is the most selfless thing I've ever heard of."

Those other women could just as easily have had their own Jackson to contend with at home, I considered, as I averted my gaze to avoid eye contact.

We reached the end of the corridor, and Lanka knocked on a door. A voice from inside, muffled, asked us in, and when Lanka moved aside to allow me into the room, I panicked. Pure-blown hyperventilation was going to strike in seconds, I was sure of it.

"Hey, look at me." Lanka pushed me around to face her. "You don't have to go in there. We can turn around here right now and walk away."

"No, we can't," I said, shudders wracking my frame no matter how hard I tried to calm my nerves.

"I can't go in there with you. You're on your own from here on out," she said, not able to fully cover up her regret and concern.

I nodded in understanding and ducked my head so she could not see the tears welling in my eyes.

Lanka hugged me tight and squeezed the breath from my chest. "You can do this. You may even get some good sex out of it. You never know. Don Juan might be on the other side of that mirror waiting to sweep you off your feet.".

Ha! Not chance, I taunted, struggling to maintain a meek smile before slipping out of her embracing hug. "I'll be okay. You just make sure the beast that ends up with me lives up to our deal. If he doesn't, you call the feds and let them know where to send for me." "Girl, you already know.". And you've got the numbers, so you'd better call me with news or I'll be coming after you. I've got to get back to the bar now, before I get fired and lose my inside scoop on you. But do remember that I sort of like you and stuff." Lanka did not enjoy mush, but I knew that was how she said she loved me. She bussed my cheek and murmured, "Give 'em hell, babe," before she slapped my butt and disappeared.

I noticed the way her shoulders curled up and she wiped at her eyes when she thought I wasn't looking.

"I sort of like you too," I grumbled under my breath since she was already gone.

I walked towards the door, bracing myself. Just thinking about Jackson, I knew I could never go back again. So I pushed open the door and went marching into that office to sign away the contract of my agreement. Michael Liloe's office was something straight out of a Mafia film. Soft carpet covered the floor, a beautiful chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, and fine artwork hung on the walls. Classical music wafted from invisible speakers in a bid to coax me into complacency. The music and upscale decorations gave the impression of a fine establishment, which could have put the patrons at ease, but I was not so easily deceived.

You can dress a pig up in a suit, but it was still a pig.

Michael was sitting at his desk with a cigarette between his left hand and a lowball of liquor in the right. His feet were on the desk, leaning back, waving an imaginary baton with his fingers.

He turned and looked at me with a smile, then sat up and extinguished his cigarette in a marble ashtray. "Ah, Ms. Volkova. I wondered if you'd honor us with an appearance tonight."

Standing my ground and bracing my jaw, I gave him a stare. My deal, and I was in the driver's seat until money passed hands. I was not going to let Michael Liloe think that he was anything but the intermediary he claimed to be. "I said I'd show up, and that's what I've done."

He got up and came over to me, not even trying to hide the fact that he was sizing me up. "That is a good thing. I might have had to send out a search-and-rescue unit to locate you if you hadn't showed up. You're going to make me a great deal of money tonight."

"Can we just check my contract terms?" I sighed. I didn't trust him, and rightly so. He profited from selling human beings and didn't have a shred of guilt about it. How could I possibly trust someone who made a living selling them? If I'd had any other option, I wouldn't have been there then. Right," he replied, returning to his desk and opening a manila folder with my name scribbled across the top in bold black letters. "I can personally vouch that the clients this evening will not have a problem with discretion. Indeed, it's a requirement for everyone who comes into my place.". They're the big ballers, the top league of gentlemen. a real no-nonsense kind with more money than they know what to do with.

Their reasons for desiring the goods that I make available are their own, and I don't pry as long as they pay. The one consolation I took in following this along, other than the fact that I'd be rescuing Jackson, was that I thought that someone with enough pull could guarantee the payoff and shut his mouth in the process. Nobody with that type of money needed the world to understand his role in such a transaction. And I certainly didn't want my family to find out about it.

The fact that I was doing it would be enough to send them to their deaths and totally turn around what I was accomplishing.

The second perk, or at least I hoped it were so, was that whoever managed to do this would also be classy enough not to make my life an absolute living hell. I wasn't stupid; I knew there were some crazy people in the world with perverted kinks, but I still held out hope.

"I assume you're still comfortable with my twenty percent stake?" he inquired, arranging the papers.

"Good attempt. We talked about ten percent," I said to him, having no sense of humor whatsoever over his attempt to con me.

"Ah, yeah. Ten percent. That's what I was going to tell you." He winked at me, and I felt a shiver run down my spine, and he pushed the contract across the table and offered me a pen. "Just sign here... and here."

I scrawled my messy signature over the spots he indicated, fully conscious that I was signing over the next two years of my life. It was a deal. Soon after, I was taken to another room where I was told to strip and put on the skinniest bikini I had ever owned. It was transparent, which I guessed was the point. The men did not want to cough up the cash until they saw the products. I could appreciate that, but it still didn't put me any less at risk and vulnerable.

A hair and makeup artist then worked some magic, making me simply elegant and, miraculously, not trashy. Then Michael taped my number to my stomach. I walked into the group of women facing the two-way mirror with my head held high. The worst part of it was that God only knows who or what was on the other side of the mirror looking at me, and I couldn't see them. What I could see, however, was me.

I wasn't conceited, but I have to admit I looked decent compared to the rest of the women. I had never considered myself drop-dead gorgeous, but I was good-looking. My blond hair lay long and thick down my back. My eyes were a dull blue, but they had sparkled once. Before Jackson's sickness took a turn for the worse. I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't too heavy or too thin, and I had the proper curves in what I always imagined as the proper areas.

Generally, a good try, I'd hoped. The women were taken out one by one from the room. I thought at first that it was because they were competitive with me and were chosen in my stead, and that I felt like the fat kid on the gym team who got chosen last. But then they called my number and I went to the same black door that I had seen the other past individuals enter through. When I went in, I was taken to the center of the room. There were smaller rooms surrounding me with glass walls. Each room contained one table lamp in the lowest light, a telephone, and a red velvet chair.

It was obvious that the sole commonality between the individuals in the rooms was money-and lots of it.

The sheik wore dark glasses, a headdress that was as long as his face was wide and white, and a business suit. Two of the women who stood with me in the hallway were standing on either side of him, fawning over him. I turned away, embarrassed, to be faced with a man in another room.

This dude was huge, like house-huge. He resembled a walrus. I felt a chill run down my spine. Beside him was this small guy with two enormous bodyguards standing beside him. They had their arms crossed over their chests, and I thought that was as good as it got for them letting go. The little dude had his legs crossed all dainty-style and was imbibing on some fruity kind of drink that had an umbrella. His white coat was loosely thrown over his shoulders.

I thought the male variety was more his thing.

I looked at the last room and sighed inwardly as I realized that the light was out. Whoever had been in there already seemed to have made his decision and left, leaving little hope for the remainder of the choice. And then there was the dimmest orange flash from the blacked-out room like the end on the tip of an just-exhausted cigarette. I leaned in closer and could dimly see the outlines of a body taking the shape of a reclined position in the chair. The figure curled forward slightly, giving me a clearer view of him, but not enough to be able to distinguish anything. The man stood up, and I got a glimpse of his face.

The room chilled further, and the air became thicker.

A voice, hoarse and filled with a power that shook the floor and vibrated through my bones, called out of the blackness.

"You have been taken."