Chapter 23 – Mariah
“Everything is going to be okay, Mariah. I promise that it’s not going to be as bad as you think.’
“How do you know, Sasha?”
“Because Elie has done something like this before, when I first started with him. It wasn’t as big as this has turned into, but there’s going to be a lot of money thrown around. I made so much last time. That’s why I told you this could maybe be my last night.”
I looked to Elie and asked her if she’d told him that yet.
The look she gave me told me that she wasn’t that stupid. It wouldn’t be hard to guess what he would have to say about everything. He was not going to let Sasha go, just like he didn’t want to let me go. I knew from my last meeting with Elie that he was not above threats and possible violence to get his way. He’d made that clear with how he’d handled Greg. I knew where I stood, and although Sasha still talked like she might stay around, I hoped that she wanted to leave the area, because I would go with her. Kimmie was getting closer with her boyfriend and might want to stay, but I was thinking that getting out of New Orleans was the best thing for the two of us. That was because of Elie. We both needed to get away from Elie.
“When you’re ready to get out of here, Sasha, I think I will be too. I don’t think that New Orleans is really the place for me. I’ve tried it here, but I need a change.”
“I don’t want to go back home, Mariah.”
“Neither do I. Not after what happened with Greg and everything else. There’s no way that I’m going back home. I don’t have anything else there.”
“We should wait for Kallie. She’s going to be here next week or the week after.”
I hadn’t heard that, and I asked Sasha when she’d talked to her last.
“She called a couple of days ago, but it slipped my mind. With everything going on around here and Elie getting more demanding than ever, I just forgot all about it.”
“Is she coming to stay or what?”
Sasha shrugged. “I don’t even think she knows. She broke up with that guy she was seeing, so I think she’s ready for a change.”
“What would it be like to get us all back together for a while, get out of here?”
“It would be nice, but Kimmie likes it here.”
She did, and I knew that her coming with us might not be an option. She was at her boyfriend’s house more than she was home these days. I knew it was only a matter of time before she moved in with him officially. Sasha and I didn’t have that option, or that much time. We’d gotten wound up with the wrong sort of people and now we had to leave. Elie wasn’t someone that I wanted to tangle with any more than I had to. Look what a couple of months had brought me.
The girls were departing the back room one by one, but we were far enough away from the stage that I couldn’t really hear what was going on. I hadn’t had time to go down to the stage and look out, see what was going on. Most likely that was a good thing, because I’d seen the full parking lot.
“This is going to be the last time I do this kind of thing, Sasha. I think I’m getting out too, and when you do, I think we should just go. If the other two want to go, great, but one way or another I’m getting out of here. I think you should too. Elie scares me.”
“You don’t even really know the half of it, Mariah. You should feel that way. Elie was a guy that I thought the world of, but everything changed a couple months in. Since then, I see him for what he is.”
“Then come with me, or let me come with you. I don’t want to keep doing this, and I can tell you don’t want to either. There are tons of places to set up a little store. I’ll have enough saved up to go anywhere. If tonight is good, then I’ll be ready for it.”
She looked around like she wasn’t sure if we were being listened to or not. Knowing Elie, I assumed that he would if he could, but I doubted there was any way that he could do that sort of thing here. It was too big and it was only a rental.
“I don’t know, Mariah. We can talk about it tomorrow when we get back. I don’t like talking about it around here. There’s a lot of little ears around that you may not know about.”
Elie had a way of getting information, and a lot of that was because he paid people for information. When somebody heard something that might be of interest to him, that person would go directly to him. He didn’t have to do much more than throw a few dollars their way. This left him far more informed than either one of us would have liked.
“I know. I’m just nervous, I guess, and I don’t know what to do with myself. Look, the room is thinning out, and I know that they’re going to call my name soon. What if I can’t do it? What if I pass out right there and I don’t even know who’s bought me? Oh Sasha, I don’t think I can do this!”
I was working myself up. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it without passing out. Why was I even here? What could Elie really do to me?
“You have to, Mariah. Do you see Bruno and Lex standing over there by the door? They’re there for a reason, and it has nothing to do with helping us to the stage. They’re here to make sure that nobody freaks out and takes off. You’ve brought in a crowd, and he’s not going to lose the money or the reputation. Do you know what it would look like if you didn’t go on the block? It would look like he was a liar, and trust me when I tell you that Elie will never go for that. He won’t let himself look bad.”
The men we were talking about looked our way, and I was afraid they somehow knew what we were saying. We were basically whispering, though, so our words wouldn’t have carried that far.
“What do we do?”
Sasha kind of shrugged. She had accepted it, even though I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t want to go through with it. I shouldn’t have to. This wasn’t fair.
“There’s nothing that we can do. Did you call Scott and see if he was going to be here to bid on you? At least then you won’t have to be with a stranger.”
“Scott won’t be here because of his business. I don’t think he wants to be publically linked to me and the club. I guess I can’t blame him for it, but I don’t want to see him again. I’m done trying to be something I’m not. He wasn’t for me anyway. You were right. All he would want to do is own me so he could have me all to himself. I fell in love and he fell in lust.”
The last girl besides us was called and I looked at Sasha. She didn’t look as nervous as I felt. The idea that Scott wasn’t going to be there to save me scared me. What if I ended up in the arms of someone that I couldn’t stand? It was only for a night, but what I was supposed to do in that night was too much to comprehend with anyone but Scott.
“It’s your turn next, Sasha.”
She smiled a little and smoothed out the invisible wrinkles in her dress. “I know. I’m just going to see it as a night that’s going to let me leave. You have to figure out how to make it right in your mind too, Mariah. It’s happening, whether we like it or not.”
Her name was called seconds after she finished speaking. I wished that I could look at it like she did. I knew that I was going to have to make it okay somehow. There was no point in making it any worse than it already was. I would do this and pay back Elie once and for all. I wasn’t going to be around for him to ask anything more of me. This would be it, so maybe that was how I had to look at it. This was just a means to an end. That was all it was.
As Sasha left, I had to hope that some of the parking lot had cleared out by now. I imagined that there would only be a couple of people left and it wouldn’t be so bad. I just had to get through the next few hours and then I would be able to make a change. With or without the other girls, I was getting out of here.
I heard my name and I jumped. All of the self-talk in the world was not going to help me now. I suddenly knew that the only thing that was going to make this better was to just leave. Maybe Sasha was right and I couldn’t leave, but I felt a sudden urge to try. She was just being paranoid. Surely they weren’t going to make me stay. They couldn’t do that, could they?
“I’ve decided that I’m just going to sit this one out,” I told the men who were standing vigilant by the door.
Lex smirked and shook his head like I didn’t have a clue what was going on. “Elie said you might say that, but you’re going up on that stage like every other girl.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll tie you up myself and you’re still going up on that stage. You know what kind of men are out there, and we both know that if I tie you up it’s just going to drive the price up even higher.”
He was right. This wasn’t a regular auction, and if I was tied up as Lex described, there was no way that anyone would help me. They would most likely see it as some kind of act, and it would create a bidding frenzy. Even if they did think that I was there against my will, I knew no one would come forward to help me. I was in this on my own. Sasha was right about just going with it. Why make it any harder than it had to be?
I gathered up as much courage as I could muster and I followed him out the door and down the hallway. As I got closer, I could hear Elie’s voice and a crowd cheering. My heart was pounding so hard, but somehow I could still hear through it all. What the hell was going on?
The door at the end of the hallway opened and bright lights blinded me for a moment. It was finally time to face the truth, no matter how impossible it seemed. Before I got to the stage, I was stopped and handed a drink.
“What’s this?”
“Just something to chill you out. It’s from Elie. He said you were going to need a drink.”
I needed it more than I could say. I didn’t want to be there, and instead of worrying about what was in the drink, I just drank it. I needed the alcohol before I walked out on the stage to accept my fate. I still wasn’t ready for it, but I didn’t have a choice. This was happening.