CHAPTER EIGHT: Nicky
“The fun begins,” Tony said with a devilish glee to his voice. The girls had taken off the transparent nighties and lined up side by side like contestants in a beauty pageant. Some of them were striking sexy poses (or trying to), some looked a little uncomfortable, and Katrina, the gorgeous girl with the pleading smile that I couldn’t take my eyes off of looked like she literally wanted to run screaming. I could tell she was doing her best to hold it together, but she kept bringing her arms up to cover herself then forcing them down, fidgeting from one foot to the other, and tugging at the long blonde hair draped over her left shoulder, as if she thought she could cover herself with it.
I recognized the woman who ran the auction. Her name was Lois Perkins, a former stripper from back in Uncle Gino’s day. She was giving them instructions and talking with her hands, like a quarterback in a huddle.
I sipped a fresh glass of champagne and glanced around the room. There were probably thirty or forty men there now, eyeing the women and grinning like wolves before a slaughter. The big Russian prick and his fat fuck of a lawyer were standing on the other side of the room, eyeing me and whispering. When the Russian caught my eye, he gave me a grin and held up his middle finger.
“Who is that?” I asked Tony, nodding in the Russian’s direction.
“Dimitri Popov,” Tony said while masking his words behind the glass. “They call him “The Shiv” because he likes to cut things up. A real psycho cocksucker, an enforcer for the Russian mob. Steer clear of him. He’s like a disease. Spend enough time around him and you get sick and die.”
“I think he’s going to bid on the blonde,” I said, turning toward Tony so the Russian couldn’t see me speak. “Does he hurt girls?”
Tony sighed and glanced at Jimmy Fist, who uncharacteristically broke his silence to say, “He hurts everybody.”
“Good to know,” I said, turning back toward the girls. I glanced the Russian’s way one more time. He and his fat buddy were looking at Katrina with evil thoughts in their eyes.
I said to Tony, “Tell me how this works.”
“Lois will call the girls up one by one to stand on the podium,” Tony said, pointing toward the girls and the single podium in front of them, which was a couple of feet tall. “The starting bid is a hundred-grand with minimum raises of twenty-five-thousand. There is no limit on the dollar amount of raises, so you can go over twenty-five at a pop, if you want. Lois conducts the action until the bidding is done, then highest bidder gets the girl for the weekend.”
“Then what?”
“The bid includes the use of a suite upstairs for the weekend where the deal in consummated, so to speak. The girl is yours until midnight Sunday night. If the girl wants to leave with you afterward she can, but she has to stay here over the weekend so we can ensure her safety. If she leaves before Sunday midnight without a valid reason, she forfeits the money.”
I gave him a sideways frown. “Has that been a problem in the past? The safety of the girls?”
“We instigated the rule when the Russians started coming to the auction,” he said bitterly. “They would bid on a girl and nobody would ever see her again. Or she’d pop up working as a whore or a dancer in one of their clubs. It’s bad for business when a girl ends up sucking cock in a Russian brothel in Pittsburgh.” He glanced at the Russian and shook his head. “Fucking assholes.”
“Gentlemen, welcome,” Lois said, turning toward the crowd and clasping her hands together between her breasts. “If this is your first time to The Virgin Auction, welcome. If you are a repeat customer, welcome back.” She extended her arms and gave us all a sweeping clap. When no one clapped along with her, she let her expression go serious and reeled her arms back in.
“For our first-time guests, here are the rules.” She told the crowd basically what Tony had told me, ticking off the rules on her skinny fingers and leaving out any mention of disappearing girls and Russian brothels. When she was done, she went to the first girl in line, a skinny redhead with tits too large for her thin frame and a thick bush the same color as the hair on her head.
Lois extended her hand to the girl and led her to the podium, then held the hand as the girl stepped onto the podium and came to stand completely naked before the crowd with her hands held behind her back and her chin held proudly in the air.
“Gentlemen, if you will refer to the brochure for details, this is Candace. She is twenty-one, a natural redhead as you can see, and is ready to offer her virginity to the highest bidder. The bidding starts at one-hundred-thousand dollars. Who will give me an opening bid?”
I was shocked as controlled chaos broke out around me. Hands were thrust high in the air by men willing to spend cold hard cash for hot virgin pussy. Lois continually scanned the room with her arms outstretched in front of her. Her right hand was open and drifting across the crowd looking for the next bidder. Her left hand was balled into a fist and held in the direction of the highest bidder thus far. For the life of me, I didn’t know how she kept up. She would recognize a bidder’s amount (one-hundred-fifty-thousand, thank you, sir) then immediately ask for a higher bid (who’ll give me one-seventy-five?). The bidders laughed and kidded one another, as if it was all in good fun. Finally, at a high bid of two-hundred-thousand dollars, the redhead was auctioned off to a short, balding man I recognized from Wall Street, a guy I knew to be married with six kids and a couple of mistresses. He beamed as he approached the girl with his hand out to help her down from the podium.
“Congratulations, sir, please see the gentleman at the door to cover your bid and get the key to your suite.”
“Pretty fucking interesting, huh.” Tony bumped me with his shoulder. “It’s a fucking adrenaline rush when you’re bidding.”
“I’m sure,” I said, keeping my eye on Katrina, who was the fourth girl in line, one behind the black girl with the fitness model body. I casually sipped my drink and pretended to be disinterested as the next two girls went for even more than the redhead. The fitness model brought half a million dollars, going to a guy wearing an Armani suit and black keffiyeh on his head like an Arabian sheik. When Lois led Katrina to the podium, I gave my empty glass to a passing waiter and rubbed the sweat from my hands.
“I knew you would bid,” Tony said happily, bumping me with his shoulder. He glanced at the Russian. The humor left his voice. “Dimitri is going to bid.”
I kept my eyes on Katrina. “How do you know?”
“Because he knows you’re interested.”
Sure enough, I glanced over at the Russian and he was smiling at me. He held up two fingers this time and slathered his tongue between them. It was at that moment that I knew that I was going to take Katrina upstairs to spend the weekend with me no matter the cost.
One, because I found her sexy as hell and could only imagine the delights I could derive from her luscious body.
Two, because the Russian was going to try to win her just to spite me, and if he won he would take his anger with me out on her and God only knew what else he would do to her.
And three, when I gazed into Katrina’s eyes I saw a girl who didn’t belong there any more than I did. She was beautiful and smart and funny and sexy as hell. She wasn’t some gold digger selling her body for money. She needed the money to build her life, not to blow it on vacations and cars and frivolous shit that girls like her didn’t care about.
Her eyes were pleading with me, begging me to win her and whisk her off to safety. She gave me a little smile as if she had read my mind. We both knew that before the night was over she was going to be mine, no matter the cost.
* * *
Katrina stood naked on the podium with her arms behind her and her eyes turned toward the floor. Her large breast heaved as she struggled to keep her breathing steady. She squeezed her thighs together as if she were trying to keep some invader from burrowing its way inside her.
“Gentleman, this is Katrina, a natural blonde, twenty-one years old, certified virgin in every way.” Lois grinned and held a hand to the side of her mouth as if she were telling a secret. “That means she’s never had a cock in any hole, boys.” The men chuckled. I wanted to punch her teeth down her throat, where I was sure my Uncle Gino had deposited his seed many times back in the day.
She held up her hands like a conductor. “Now, let the bidding begin at one-hundred-thousand dollars. Who will bid one-hundred-thousand dollars?”
A flurry of hands shot up and the bidding quickly reached two-hundred-thousand dollars. I was about to put my hand up when I felt someone grab my wrist from behind.
“Not yet, cuz,” Tony said quietly, holding onto my wrist. “Wait until the old bat starts calling for final bids, then swoop in. Otherwise, you’re just running the price up.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him and nodded my head. The bids kept going higher. I watched Katrina as the amount grew. She glanced up at each bid, then glanced quickly back down.
Two-hundred-fifty-thousand…
Two-seventy-five…
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the bidding stopped. My heart clenched in my chest when Lois directed her fist to the Russian and said, “You, sir, have the highest bid at two-hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.” She swept the room with her right hand. “Do I hear three-hundred thousand? Three-hundred-thousand? I have two-seventy-five, do I hear three?”
“Fucking end it, old woman,” the Russian growled, stepping out of the crowd with his glass held high in the air like a champion gladiator. He turned to face the crowd with a threatening look on his face. “It is done, yes? Nobody will bid against Dimitri anymore. Clear?” He wasn’t asking if anyone else wanted to bid. He was telling them not to. He was declaring the auction to be over and himself as the winner.
Lois had a nervous look in her eye. I saw her glance at Tony, then she quickly looked away. Her first was cocked back, pointing in the air. When the first came down with one finger extended at the Russian, the bidding was over. Katrina was his.
“Now,” Tony said, releasing my hand.
“Three-hundred-thousand,” I said, nearly shouting the bid, thrusting my hand in the air like Braveheart leading his men into battle. Lois couldn’t help but smile briefly as her fist came down and fixed on my direction. “I have three-hundred-thousand from Mr. D’Angelo. Do I hear three-twenty-five?”
“You bid against me, cocksucker?” the Russian growled. His fat lawyer was trying to tell him something, but the Russian pushed him away and stood to face me. We were ten feet apart, facing each other down like old-timey Western gunslingers. The crowd took a step back as if they didn’t want to get caught in the hail of bullets. The Russian gave me his hardest look and upped the bid.
“Three-twenty-five,” he said.
“Four hundred,” I shot back without hesitation. My eyes were fixed on the Russian, but I thought I heard Katrina gasp at the amount.
“You motherfucker crazy cocksucker,” the Russian said. He put his hands on his hips and pulled back the leather jacket he was wearing. There was an empty holster clipped to his belt. I supposed guns weren’t allowed inside the auction for this very reason.
I glanced up at Katrina, who was staring at me with wide eyes filled with tears. Call it adrenaline, call it bravery, call it thinking with my cock and not my head, I stepped closer to the Russian until I was just out of his reach. We were the same height. He was broader at the shoulder than me, but thicker around the waist. He had ten years on me and I had twenty pounds of muscle on him. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy to fight fair. Still, I doubted he would start anything here.
“Gentleman, do I hear four-hundred-twenty-five?”
I gave him a stony look. “Well, comrade? Bid or fuck off.”
His shark-like eyes narrowed and he worked his jaw back and forth. What little brain he had was weighing his odds. Finally, he waved a hand at the old woman and spat on the floor.
He swept a hand between us. “This between us, this is not done.” He turned with his fat friend in tow and pushed his way out of the room. I saw him say something to Tony, who followed him out the door.
“Four-hundred going once,” she said. When I went to the podium to take Katrina’s hand, she closed the bid without further call. “Sold, for four-hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Nicky D’Angelo.”
Katrina took my hand and carefully stepped down. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. I tugged the lapels tight across her breasts. The look of relief on her face made me smile.
“Come on,” I said, nodding toward the door. “Let’s get you upstairs. You look like you could use a hot bath and a cold drink.”