Auctioned to the Prisoners (Auctioned #4)

3

LORY

SELFLESS LOVE

“I need to take a month off.”

My boss, Dirty Doug, rears back like I just slapped him across the face. I haven’t taken a vacation in two years, so my request is a big surprise. Plus, it’s a month, so there’s that.

“You can’t take a month off,” he sneers. “We don’t have anyone to cover that kind of time.”

“It’s a family emergency.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He runs his fat sausage fingers over his bald head, already looking over my shoulder like he’s done with the conversation. “But I can’t help. Not right now.”

I take a deep breath and slick my tongue over my teeth as the pulse of anger I’m trying to contain flairs dangerously.

“I’ve given two years of uninterrupted service. I make the most tips in this place. I’m asking for an unpaid vacation to help my sister, not go to Lake Tahoe.”

“I get all that, but I have to keep this place running, and I can’t give you the time off.”

The chair beneath me is hard plastic, and when I curve my fingers around it, the sharp edge of the seat digs into my flesh. “Doug, I have to take this time off.”

“Lory. It can’t be done.”

I close my eyes, and swallow thickly, as frustration surges inside me. This asshole. This fucking asshole. I’m so done with working shitty jobs for shittier pay, trying to exist on money that never stretches no matter how many compromises I make. I’m tired of reporting to men who think they rule the universe because they’re in charge of a few desperate people and a business that’s barely making enough bank to stay afloat.

I need this job, but Kennedy is more important. She’s all I’ve got in the world.

I stand suddenly, and the chair skitters over the tiled floor, clattering against the wall. “I quit.”

Doug’s eyes widen like I grew a second head or told him I won the lottery.

Maybe I should play today. The universe owes me like a billion favors.

“I want my money, Doug. Everything you owe me right now. And my share of the tip jar.”

“Lory.” He holds out his hands, the tight gold wedding band that means nothing to him constricting his ring fingers as though it’s trying to amputate. It’s just another reminder of the bullshit in this place. Maybe I should tell his wife he fucks half the staff in here in exchange for them keeping their jobs.

“Just give me my money.”

His mouth flickers with the smile men get when they think women are acting hysterically, and my right arm twitches with the urge to swing for his fat meathead. He really is a dogshit person, through and through.

“My money, Doug.” He snort-chuckles and my final nerve snaps. “And a bonus for two years of excellent service, or I’m talking. I’m sure Carrie will be interested in your extracurriculars. Or maybe the health inspector…” I leave the threat to trail. He knows he’s in breach of half a dozen requirements, and no one wants their food prepared where Doug’s been sticking his filthy dick.

“Fuck you, Lory.”

“No, fuck you, Doug.” I place my hands on my hips and lean over his desk, spearing him with my furious gaze. “Fuck you. Give me what you owe me, right now.”

He fumbles around his desk, as sweat beads across his giant, wrinkled, never-ending forehead. I mentally calculate what I’m due, getting ready to rage if it’s not that or more. When he hands me a bundle of cash, I make a point of counting it. A measly fifty dollars extra for my silence isn’t going to cut it. “And the rest.”

His mouth curls, and his eyes go black with hatred, but I don’t care. This is too important. Every dollar counts.

He passes me another two-hundred, and I stuff the bundle into my jeans pocket.

“You could have kept a hard-working member of staff if you had an iota of compassion. It’s people like you that make this world such a cesspit.”

He places his hands on the table to haul his bulk into a standing position, and I take a step back. “Just get the fuck out of my sight,” is his parting jab.

With a racing heart, I stride from the back office, and through the restaurant that has been my second home for too long.

“Lory.” Destiny steps into my path. “You okay, sweetie.”

“I’m done.” I twist to look over my shoulder, but Doug hasn’t followed. “That man is one of those worms that lives in assholes and only comes out in the dark.”

She wrinkles her sweet button nose and presses her full, red lips together. “Graphic but not untrue. You seriously leaving?”

“I’m seriously leaving.”

“Well, don’t be a stranger.” She’s sweet for saying it, but we probably won’t hang out again. Sometimes work friends become real friends, but sometimes they’re just great people to make the grind less painful, and that’s Destiny. She pulls me into a warm hug that’s scented with vanilla, and I pat the braids that tumble down her back.

“Keep studying,” I say, as a parting thought. “You hit those books hard, so you don’t end up like me, needing this minimum wage gig so I don’t starve to death.”

Her brown eyes widen with sadness. “I will, sweetie. And you take care, okay?”

“Okay.”

As I walk out of the diner, I stare up into the never-ending sky, feeling as untethered as I’ve ever been. If I disappear right now, the only people who’d miss me are my sister and Evelyn. If I died right now, I’d end up in an unmarked grave, barely remembered. This isn’t the life I used to dream about when I was a kid filled with hope and a driving need to do better so I could escape a home life that left me feeling trapped and scared most of the time.

I pull my phone from my pocket and find Josh’s number.

“Hey, Josh. It’s Lory, Evelyn’s friend.”

“Right,” he says gruffly.

“You still on for later?”

“Sure. I’ll pick you up at four p.m.”

I glance at the time on my phone. I have two hours to get ready. Two hours to wrap up my life for a month, and for Evelyn to polish the piece of coal that I am into something less dull. It doesn’t seem enough.

“I’ll be ready.”

He disconnects the call.

***

It was the beer , I tell myself. The beer and Evelyn’s relaxed talk about all the seedy ways a person can make money. That’s how I ended up in this place, dressed like a teenage hooker, with so much make-up plastered on my face, I can barely smile. She was so happy with her work that I didn’t have the heart to tell her I look awful. Then again, it’s probably what the men here are looking for.

Josh is standing behind me with his beefy tattooed arms folded across his partially bare chest, and his leather cut hanging open around his trim hips. With his legs spread wide and his head held high, he’s not a man anyone would challenge voluntarily. I’m grateful Evelyn asked him to come with me. She’s working tonight and couldn’t get out of her shift.

I’ve been watching girls get up on the stage for the last fifteen minutes, listening to the bids, focusing on the shadowed crowd, and trying to make out the men crowded like hyenas around a carcass. It’s a mixed bag of suited types and those who look like they’ve just emerged from the local pen. When they’re sold, the women aren’t even given time to gather their things. They’re lifted from the stage and carried off like pieces of furniture.

“You sure you want to go through with this?” Josh asks. It’s the most he’s said to me since we got here, but he’s always been a person of few words. Even when he was a scrawny kid, he barely spoke. In homes like ours, having too much to say usually resulted in a blow to the back of the head or worse. A few of those tend to knock your tongue right out of your mouth.

“There are a million places I’d rather be,” I admit. “But I’ve got to do this.”

His nod is the end of the conversation.

In the darkness, waiting for a fate I can’t predict, I’m swamped by a tsunami of loneliness. Life isn’t supposed to go this way. I saw what my mom’s life was like and I swore I’d do better.

I pictured myself with a good kind man, but they’re not easy to come by, at least, not in my circles. I pictured myself in a nice house, with children and maybe a pet or two. A bustling bright place filled with warmth and laughter. I held onto that image, like it was trapped in a snow globe, and I shook it only when the walls around me felt too dark or tight. Sometimes, I could escape into that scene and keep despair at bay, but today, it’s beyond my reach.

A stressed-looking man, in a crumpled brown suit jacket and yellowing shirt, waves frantically at me. The stage is empty. The auctioneer reads the content of the form I filled out about myself: my age, twenty-six; my occupation, server; my vital statistics, which amount to short with a narrow waist, big butt, and flat chest; and my hobbies which I tried to make appealing to men—sports, cooking, dancing.

I guess it’s my turn.

When I’m up on the stage, my heartbeat drowns out the rumble of male voices and the auctioneer’s frantic commentary. My palms are sticky, and my dark brown hair clings to my temples with sweat. Looking at the sea of faces before me terrifies me. Knowing my luck, if I fix my eyes on a particular man, he’ll be the worst one in here, and he’ll be the one to win. So, I don’t look. I leave it to fate, and when the auctioneer bangs his gavel, and I’m ushered into the arms of a military-looking man in his fifties, I have no idea what I sold for or where I’m going. Until we get outside.