Paraded before the Billionaires by Aphrodite Hunt Page A

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arm creeps around her and her arms go around his waist. They hold
each other like this for what seems to be an eternity. The scene
would be really tender had they both not been naked and clutching
one another like they are the only two people left in a world that
is about to terminate.
    My own thoughts are a dark raincloud.
    Greg espies my face and creeps closer to me.
I can’t help staring at the dome-shaped barbells on either end of
his penile head. I vividly remember that luscious rod – embellished
thus – spearing me. The full recollection of Alice’s cruelty comes
tumbling back into my repressed psyche.
    Alice.
    With my boyfriend, Max.
    Her brother.
    I shiver.
    “Don’t worry,” Greg whispers, reading my
mind, as always. “Whatever they had, they had it a long time ago
before you and I ever came onto the scene. We can’t undo it, and
neither can they. What’s important now is that they don’t revisit
whatever . . . it is. Was .”
    I nod guardedly. I can only hope.
    “Have you ever been in an auction?” I
ask.
    “No.”
    “Do you at least know what to expect? I mean
. . . you’ve been kinda doing this slave thing for a lot longer
than I have.”
    He flinches. “I’ve heard rumors of what
really went on in those auctions. And from people who came back,
though I never really got to talk to anyone firsthand.”
    Ice creeps down my spine. I blame it on the
lowered temperature of the cell. The walls and stone floor are cold
after all, even though it’s Indian summer out there.
    “What happened?”
    “One guy was auctioned off to the Middle
East. He never came back.”
    “Why?”
    Visions of a handsome male sex slave being
tortured and thrown into an eternal prison pretty much like Abu
Ghraib swarm in my fevered brain.
    “I don’t know if he wanted to stay on his
own accord or if they offered him something beyond whatever he can
get here . . . but he never came back. At least, that’s what we
would like to believe. His family never raised a fuss because . . .
we believe . . . they were compensated handsomely in a separate
secret arrangement.”
    I clap a hand to my mouth.
    “He’s not dead or mutilated, is he?”
    Suddenly, my fear rises to panic pitch
levels. My throat feels choked and an invisible collar gags me.
    Greg’s eyes glaze over and there is a slight
furrowing of his brow to suggest he doesn’t know either. But he
quickly recovers.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “You don’t think so, but you don’t
know for sure.”
    “We have it in our contracts. They’re not
supposed to hurt us.”
    Yeah, I want to say, but accidents happen
all the time. What if they don’t mean to hurt us, but something
inadvertently goes wrong anyway? What happens next? When
billionaires are involved, it would have to be a cover-up with
large sums of money being exchanged.
    I’m scared now. I sort of knew what I was
getting into with Russell and his family, but this is a whole
different ballgame altogether. I’m not prepared for it.
    Oh help me, I think I’m
hyperventilating!
    Max turns to me, concerned.
    “Gina, are you OK?”
    No, I’m not. I can’t breathe. I’m
claustrophobic and I need to get out of this cell. I’m clawing the
walls, raking my fingernails against the hard brick. I want to
scream but my vocal cords are frozen.
    “Oh God, she’s having a panic attack,” Greg
yells. “We shouldn’t have discussed the auction.”
    Both men are at my side as I restlessly
struggle against their grasps, against myself, against everything I
have put myself into. This is it. I want out. I just have to say
but the word and I can forfeit everything I have earned so far. I
can tear the contract up. I don’t have to go through with this.
    “Gina?”
    I can hear Max calling me from very far
away, but my vision is obscured by a pink film. I can feel their
hands grabbing my arms and my shoulders, but it’s as though it’s
happening to another person. I’m swimming through primordial goo in
some