Carmen heard, around the blindfold, the garage door close behind them and shivered in anticipation. The car door opened and she turned to get out. Strong arms pulled her from the back seat and lifted her up. For a moment she was afraid he would carry her across his chest, like a bride over the threshold but instead he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her hanging head down into the house. That was right.
It had been a very successful auction. As she'd danced, stripping, between the tables the bidding went on and on, the bids getting higher and higher. Now someone 'owned' her and would claim her virginity. Everything had gone just as she'd dreamed.
*****
Six months before, Poppy Trevethlyn had handed the Jeep keys to the valet of the Hotel Gentian and stepping into the elevator used a very special key to send it to the sixth floor. When she emerged into the tastefully reserved luxury of the family-owned bordello she saw her mother Camellia and grandmother Azalea sitting in front of laptops with bone china tea cups at hand.
"Ah, Poppy darling!" Azalea exclaimed happily, "I was about to call you over. Something has come up."
"Nothing bad, I hope," Poppy replied removing her wedding set from her finger and carefully locking it in the safe behind her thrice great-grandmother's nude boudoir portrait that graced the lobby. It was just normal business practice and had been for over a hundred years at Asphodel's. Of course, there was the odd client who got really excited about 'renting' a married woman but that was an extra charge and required advance reservations.
Her mother chuckled. "No, not bad, just a little—odd would be the best word possibly. I believe it may have started with your friend Mary Jane."
"MJ? What's up with her? I thought she was settling into the 'hobby whore' mode rather well. She doesn't even gossip about the clients and when she's in Papa Andrew's law office she's the very model of industrious discretion."
Azalea smiled benignly. "MJ is turning into quite a valued member of the staff, dear, even to the point of having the beginnings of a repeat clientele but I've been wondering if I need to have a little talk to her about the value of discretion. Of course, I don't know that she spoke out of turn but this letter," she lifted a piece of very upmarket stationary, "makes me wonder if someone has. And MJ is, of course, the newest courtesan in the 'stable', so logical deduction would suggest she may have."
Poppy sat down at the table and smiled at Clarence the muscular, bisexual barman as he poured a cup for her and silently retreated. "A letter?"
"Mm-hmm," Azalea gracefully lifted her reading glasses and placed them on the bridge of her exquisitely chiseled nose. "Without going into the details the writer is asking for training in the sexual arts so that she can auction off her virginity to the highest possible bidder. Now that has only happened once around here and even then the 'auction' was restricted to one bidder."
"Yup," Poppy grinned mischievously, "my father-in-law, Papa Andy. He broke me in good, just like Mama, here, did his son Stevie. We must have been the best-trained newlyweds in the state. And you're right, I did tell MJ I was 'auctioned off' but since that was a private arrangement I don't think it's what the writer has in mind. Does she say?"
"No," Azalea lowered the glasses and left them hanging from the gold chain around her neck, "she does not. What she seems to be doing is making a case for a business arrangement. We train her; she pays us and then puts herself up for auction. It seems rather cold, actually."
Camellia looked skeptical. "Before we take this seriously, I believe we really need to know more. I would say an interview is in order. I don't have creepy feelings about it yet but I can certainly imagine developing them quickly. I repeat—we need to know more."
Azalea nodded sagely in agreement. "And I believe I know just who to hold the interview."
*****
A lithe brunette with a puzzled look in her flashing black eyes compared the address on the letter in her hand with the list of offices on the marquee of the lobby. There was no question. The street address and suite number matched perfectly but why she was being referred to 'Feinberg, Goldman and Ohuru, Family Counselors' passed understanding. However, the return address on the envelope clearly stated 'Asphodel's, Hotel Gentian, Sixth Floor' so this must be the right place. With a shrug she took the elevator to the top and walked down paneled halls to the door with the proper brass plate.
The silver-haired receptionist smiled at her pleasantly with questioning eyebrows.
"Carmen Torremolinos to see Dr. Feinberg at 10:00," the brunette stated, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.
"Ah, yes. And right on time, too. Go back out into the hall. Her office is right across from this one."
Following directions, Carmen opened the door somewhat tentatively and stuck her head in to see an attractive, fit and greying woman smile up at her. "Vell, good morning, Ms. Torremolinos," she said in a rich Austrian accent. "Do zit down here, please. would you like coffee?"
"Yes, thank-you, black."
Once both women were settled comfortably in their chairs Dr. Feinberg winked at Carmen. "Ms. Torremolinos, you are no doubt wondering why you have been sent here to discuss your letter to Asphodel's. Zer are a couple of good reasons but ze most important one is that here you fall under doctor/patient confidentiality. What you tell me about zis interesting proposal of yours is completely confidential und will go no farther zen zese walls. Ms. O'Malley, ze owner, is intrigued by ze idea but wants clarification as to your intentions and goals. Zo—what makes you interested in being auctioned off?"
Carmen blushed. "I know it sounds strange, even completely bizarre but—well psychiatrists always want to know the background so let me just say that while most little girls around here are raised on soccer, softball, Barbie dolls and Disney princesses, I was raised on yoga, symphonies and art museums. My mother is really big on them and was always taking me around to see the latest exhibition of great art. Her main interest was Impressionism and the Fauves but I always loved the Orientalists. I could sit and look at the odalisques and the bathers for the longest time. They were so pretty and they looked like they were enjoying themselves. Mother used to show me the pictures of the slave girls being sold to swarthy, lustful looking Arabs or Romans and lecture me on the evils of patriarchy but I use to get all shivery and excited at the thought of the girl being sold and then taken home and ravished. I never daydreamed about a big church wedding with me all in white, just about being sold to some masterful stud."
"Ah! Zo instead of wedding fantasies you had slave auction fantasies, no?"
Carmen giggled. "Really, I did. I still do. Mom took me with her to 'Mommy and Me' yoga classes from before I can remember so I'm fit and really flexible. I guess it was around when I was twelve that I started thinking about what I could do being that flexible. Then when I turned fifteen my Mexican grandmother told me that for my
