I sit back in my barstool and munch on chips and salsa. It’s fun to hang out with my besties, even if it isn’t exactly what I had planned for the evening. Victor had said he wanted to go out with some of his friends, though, and just sitting at home by myself on a Saturday night didn’t exactly sound like an awesome idea to me.

“So…what is it like to be someone’s sex slave??” Ashley asks, wiggling her eyebrows at me lasciviously. 

I shrug. 

“I thought it was going to be a lot more exciting than this,” I admit. “I mean, the sex has been good – amazing, really – and it’s fun, but…exciting? Not really. We had buttsex the other night and that was awesome. We can’t have vagina sex ‘cause of the auction, of course. But…I just thought we’d do more things, like handcuffs and swinging from the rafters—”

“Swinging from the rafters? You thought you guys would, what, rent a warehouse for the evening?”

I laugh at the thought. “No. I just…I don’t know. Something more than what we’ve been doing. No spanking, no dirty talk, no vibrating toys…it’s just all been rather vanilla. He is supposed to be training me, although god only knows what I’m supposed to be learning from this training. All I’ve learned so far is that he doesn’t like The Real World on MTV. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help me when they put me up for auction.”

I panic for a moment at the thought of going up on stage and being auctioned off. What if it’s some old man with nose hair who buys me? And his dick is all wrinkly and he can’t keep it up long enough to fuck me anyway?

I push the thought away. I can’t focus on all the what-ifs or I’ll go crazy. In the meanwhile, I need to focus on the final goal: What I’m going to do with the money.

“So I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I want to start a bakery with the money that I get,” I announce. “I mean, other than paying off all my debts. But I’ll have a lot leftover and why not use it to become my own boss? I’ve been experimenting in the kitchen lately ‘cause even I can’t handle twelve straight hours of MTV and I have nothing else to do, except for read of course, and I actually really like cooking.”

“You do?” Carla asks, eyes wide with surprise. 

“I know, right? I never would’ve guessed that. I think my marketing degree is actually pretty worthless, which is a sad statement about this economy if you ask me. But I’ve been trying for forever now to get hired, and I can’t even get a first interview. And who wants an awful boss anyway? Why not become my own boss? The money could keep me afloat for a while until the bakery is self-sufficient. After all, most of the cost of a business is the start-up costs, right? And I could just pay those out of pocket. I made this gluten-free strawberry muffin the other—”

My phone began vibrating on the table, distracting me from finishing. Victor’s name flashed up on my lock screen. 

“Ohhhhh…there’s your master,” Ashley says, grinning naughtily at me. “Aren’t you going to read what he sent?”

I unlocked my phone and skimmed the text message.

Kitten, time to come home. Hurry, or you won’t like the consequences.

What the hell?? I stare at my phone, my stomach jumping up into my throat, and then I flash a huge grin at my friends.

“I think Victor has finally taken my seven hundred hints to heart and is reading my Kindle.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, I kept turning on and leaving it laying around the house, hoping he’ll pick it up and read it. You guys know Dark Angel, right?”

Everyone nods, of course, because they’re my besties for a reason. Saves me from having to explain shit, like who is the absolute best dark erotic romance author out there. “Well, that’s what I kept expecting from Victor. I even told him the other day that he should be more like the heroes in Dark Angel’s stories. He just gave me a weird look. 

“Anyway, I better get going. He says that if I’m not quick enough, I won’t like the consequences. Somehow, I think that I would, but I should play it safe and hurry anyway.” I give everyone hugs and air kisses, and head out into the cold night air.

It’s time to get treated like the bad girl I am.