I follow the tall man out of the main room and into another warren of heavily draped hallways. I didn’t have a chance to alert Hannah when the man came to get me, so I walk behind him alone. All sorts of crazy ideas pop into my head. The guy at the front had validated our invitations, but I still have the feeling that I am somewhere I am not supposed to be, like getting the invitation was the result of some clerical error that they have now just caught. I’m ready to be told that I need to go home, be placed in a cab, and cut off forever from this elegant, strange world that I have just gotten to taste.

I nearly run into the brick wall of my escort, who has come to an abrupt stop. He turns and motions for me to go through a curtain he is holding open. Without another option that I can see, I walk through.

On the other side of the curtain is a makeshift office, behind the desk is a professionally dressed woman in her mid-fifties. Her reading glasses are balanced on a thin nose that lends her face a vulpine aspect. She raises her head and regards me with her chin in her hand.

“Ms. Taylor? Please have a seat.”

I pull back the chair, grimacing slightly as it scrapes against the raw concrete floor. She waits for me to sit and arrange my dress as best I can and then pulls a sheaf of paper from a desk drawer.

“This is your first time at one of our parties, Ms. Taylor,” she states, not asks. It is clear that whoever is putting on these parties is highly organized and takes a lot of care in their preparations. It doesn’t surprise me that they know their guest list well.

“How much do you know about what happens here?”

The question takes me by surprise. Hannah had been a little vague about the party, but from everything I saw, it looked like a normal, if exclusive, party. I wonder if Hannah got me invited to some kind of sex club, like an Eyes Wide Shut kind of thing. I don’t want to make any assumptions, though, so I don’t suggest anything.

“Umm, not much, I guess. I have a friend who…”

“Hannah,” the woman cuts me off. “Yes, Hannah was with us last month. She didn’t tell you what to expect?”

I shake my head.

“Ok, not a problem,” she says in a tone that indicates that it is definitely a problem. “Ms. Taylor, you have been personally invited by one of our members to take part in an auction.”

“Well, someone must have made a serious mistake, I don’t have any money to bid on anything.”

The woman’s hard, lightly lined face cracks a wry smile.

“My dear, you aren’t here to bid. You are one of the lots.”

My jaw drops down to the floor. I attempt to recover my composure, but find it difficult to process what she just said. Why had Hannah not told me anything? How could she keep something like that quiet? She must have known that I would never have agreed to come if I knew I was going to be auctioned off, but I am shocked and hurt that she would bring me here under false pretenses.

The woman across from me sits quietly, giving me time.

Then it hits me. Hannah’s purse. She said she had come into some money. She must have been auctioned off last month! Why hadn’t she told April or me?

“So, what happens in this…auction?”

“It’s quite simple, really. Our members have the opportunity to bid on the woman, or man, that they desire and then the winner gets to spend the night with them. The bid is then given to the lot, minus our fee, of course.”

I sit quietly for another few moments. My stomach is filled with butterflies turning cartwheels. I feel like I should be incensed, insulted, scandalized. After all, I am not accustomed to taking money for sex. I mean, I sometimes like to split the check on dates just so that there is no quid pro quo implied. But here, there is no implication, it is right out in the open.

My emotions are roiling like a storm-tossed sea. Part of me wants to just get up and walk out, call a cab, and go back to my apartment. But somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice is asking how much I might go for. There is something thrilling, in a weird way, about being bid on, having a room of people desiring me. And then, there is the money.

“Umm, what are the…I mean, how much…”

“It is impossible to predict, of course.” The woman seems to know exactly what I’m stumbling to ask. “Though I would say it is rare to see bids fall below twenty thousand.”

My eyes nearly pop out of my head.

“Twenty thousand dollars?”

“We have a very exclusive membership.” The woman smiles. “Now, you will need to decide whether or not you agree to the terms.” She hands me the sheaf of papers. “Of course, there is a non-disclosure agreement we will need you to sign, regardless of whether you stay or go. There is a description of the payment terms. We can have the money wired directly to your bank account or, if you prefer to use an offshore account, we can have payment ready in a number of different currencies.”

I shake my head. “Umm, dollars are fine, I guess.”

“Good, good. Now, will you be staying with us, or should I arrange for a car?”

I take a deep breath, trying to settle my nerves. I am standing at a precipice with the landing below me uncertain at best. But at the same time, I feel drawn to the void. Besides, in the brief time I was in the main room, I saw a bunch of guys that I would probably gladly spend the night with if I had met them at a bar. Why is this so different? And if it comes with a little something extra, well, that isn’t bad either.

What the hell. It’s just one night.