Sold To Strangers by Anna Fock Page B

the options.”
    “Wait, how is that even an option? I can’t
believe...”
    He pulls me to him. “I know,” he says.
“Jesus, it was really stupid. I shouldn’t have even brought it
up.”
    I’m too enraged to be comforted by him. This
is as mad as I’ve ever been at him. I stand up from the couch and
look down at him. He seems completely pathetic now. Just some guy
who will never be able to separate himself from his parents.
    I hear a car door slam outside.
    I look at Daniel. His eyes have grown
wide.
    “Fuck, Daniel ... Is that them?”
    Now my anger is off the charts.
    He throws out his hands, stands up and says,
“I didn’t know what to do.”
    I’m getting ready to, I don’t know, punch him
or something, when the door opens and I turn to see a man in the
doorway who isn’t bad looking at all. Tall, dark, muscular, wearing
expensive clothes. I assume this is one of the people Daniel has
been dealing with and I turn to the man in the door, not even
knowing how he knows me, and say, “I’ll do it.”
    “Jennifer!” Daniel says.
    I blink away the tears and look at the man as
he half-smirks.
    “On one condition,” I say. “I want Daniel to
be there.”
    I want Daniel to be there more for
humiliation than comfort. I want him to see every filthy thing I
have to do. He covers his eyes.
    “I don’t have to do that,” he says.
    “It’s what the lady wants,” the new arrival
says.
    “But I don’t need this place. I can just go
back and live with my parents.”
    “Ah, you could,” the man says. “But we’ll
still need five thousand dollars and it’s going to be hard for you
to make that money if poppa doesn’t give it to you and you find
yourself unable to work.”
    “Unable to work?” Daniel says, clueless.
    “Ever tried working in a coma?” the man
says.
     
    He seems really sleazy and I get a terrible
vibe from him. I wonder if it’s too late to back out.
    I almost think anything would be better than
going through with this. I try to excuse myself and leave.
    “Not so fast,” the man says, grabbing my
arm.
    “Let go of me,” I say.
    “You’re not exactly exempt from this either.
You know, you’ve been living here. You owe me, as well.”
    I try to shake my arm away but he has a
pretty good grip. “My name’s nowhere on the lease. I didn’t even
know there was a lease.”
    “Yeah ... but you’ve been living here. You
think things are free?” With his free hand he turns and picks up a
piece of mail from the table near the door and says, “Jennifer
Adams. That’s you, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be getting mail here if
you didn’t live here. You’re as responsible as Daniel.”
    “I wonder what my lawyer would say about
that.”
    At this he laughed. “You can’t afford a
lawyer. So come on with me. Daniel can ride along and I’ll make
sure he keeps his eyes open and then you two can live here like a
couple of lovebirds for the rest of the year. That’s a pretty good
deal. It’ll make it pretty easy to forget about what you had to do
to get it. Besides, it’s just sex. You might like it.”
    I still didn’t even know the specifics but I
thought this was highly unlikely.
    Now he’s dragging me outside.
    I feel gross. I can’t believe he wants to
take me anywhere looking like this. I know it’s not the
greatest time to be self-conscious but, well, maybe it is.
    He drags me out the front door to a van
running in front of the palatial estate. A van might seem like kind
of a funny thing for a rich guy to drive but it’s a really nice
van. Daniel shuffles along behind us and says, “I think I’m gonna
be sick. Jennifer, don’t do this. I’ll call Dad. He has to
help.”
    “A little too late,” the man says.
    I find it really hard to take Daniel’s
side.
    The man throws open the side doors of the
van. It has a king-size bed in back. Jesus, this might be happening
a little too quickly.
    “Oh, man,” Daniel says.
    The man motions me inside. If I’m going to
run now