“How is that legal?” I ask, reaching across to try to grab the computer. She jerks it out of my reach and starts to type in an entry. A name. Candy.
I snort. “Really, stripper name?”
“Let’s do it properly, then,” she counters, deleting that name. “What’s your stripper name? First pet and street you grew up on?”
I purse my lips, shaking my head. But the wine has gone to my head, and Violet won’t stop laughing at the profile questions, and hell if this isn’t pretty entertain
ing. What’s the harm in making a fake profile and playing along?
“Kitty Queensville,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.
“You named your first cat Kitty?” She sticks her tongue out at me, even as she types in the name, slightly edited. “Kitty Queen, that’ll work.”
“I sound like a crazy cat lady,” I smirk.
“Then it’s even more perfect,” she counters, nudging me.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, finally giving up on snatching the laptop back and settling onto the carpet beside her, scanning the screen. “Tell us why you’re still a virgin?” I read from the computer. “Intrusive much?” I shake my head.
“‘Because I have not found my one true Prince Charming yet–or at least, not anyone charming enough to charm my panties off,’” Violet reads as she types.
With every question, our laughter grows. For some questions, like “Tell us your deepest fantasy,” I wrestle the keyboard from Violet to put in my own ridiculous answers. For that one, I answer “A tall, dark, handsome older man seduces me in the backseat of a limo, then serves me champagne after.”
We’re both nearly hysterical by this point, even more so when Violet answers some of the more personal history-type questions–questions about everything from my favorite movies/TV shows/books, to my favorite sex position I imagine when I masturbate (“if you masturbate,” adds a caveat at the bottom of this ridiculous website). For that one, we put doggy style, and we’re joking, but I don’t mention to Violet that it’s true. I’ve never really imagined a specific guy when I masturbate–just nameless faceless hotties a few years older than me, more experienced, and willing to teach me the ropes.
I almost balk when Violet hits the button to add photos to the account. After all, I don’t want this coming back to haunt me. What if my boss stumbled across this website?
But she tells me to relax and trust her, and she selects only photos where my face is mostly obscured. One of me in a dimly lit restaurant, where I’m wearing a sexy little black dress, my legs crossed and unusually exposed for me. But my hair falls across my eyes and you can really only see my lips curved in a smile. There’s another with me wearing a mask at a Halloween party, and another where I’d covered my whole face in paint. You couldn’t tell who I was if you already knew me, so I relax and let Violet add those pictures to the account.
By the time she hits post, we’ve both refilled our glasses another time or two, and then our favorite episode queues up on the TV, the one where Mr. Big comes back yet again, and we both squeal and toss the laptop back onto the couch, settling in for our favorite dramatic reunion scene.
After Sex and the City, we switch to movies with a side of popcorn and ice cream, and by the time we start playing It’s a Wonderful Life, we’ve gone through an entire tub of Ben and Jerry’s, which is the only proper way to eat B&Js anyway, so it’s fine. I drift off on the couch, enjoying the sound in the background, feeling full and happy. Nothing like a girls’ night to relieve tension from a long day at work, I think, as I fall asleep to the tune of My Wild Irish Rose.
My first thought the next morning is Oh god, why did we have to open that second bottle?
My second thought is to wonder what time it is.
My third is to glance at my phone, thanking god that it’s Saturday. Then I squint across the room at Violet, out cold on the other couch, and remember that unlike me, my friend does not work a 9-5 office job.
“Vi!” I whisper-shout. Even that hurts my throat, and I groan, clearing it hard, blinking through my hangover. “Violet.”
“Hmm?” she asks, her voice groggy as she stretches lazily.
“It’s 11am.”
“That’s good,” she replies, draping her arm across her eyes.
“On Saturday,” I add.
“Fuck.” She sits bolt upright, eyes wide. Violet works brunch at a restaurant a few subway stops away on the weekends, a shift that pulls in really great tips. Unfortunately, it’s also a shift that starts at 11:30 in the morning.
“Can I borrow a black shirt?” she asks as she races around my apartment, finger-brushing her teeth and splashing water on her face, then sprinting into the kitchen to chug a glass of water.
“Of course.” I lever myself off the couch and hobble into my bedroom to find her a suitable shirt. I have just enough time to toss it at the back of her head, and for her to catch it over her shoulder, before she waves and vanishes out the door, racing down the street.
Not for the first time, I feel immensely grateful for my boring office job that lets me have my weekends to myself. I sink back onto the couch, then slowly wilt sideways, sitting upright feeling far too difficult at the moment.
Half an hour later, I’m debating standing up long enough to fry some eggs for breakfast when my laptop catches my eye. On the other hand, I could delay making food and just poke around the internet mindlessly for a while…
I reach across the carpet to where we’d tossed the laptop and flip it open, yawning as I navigate to the browser. But it’s already open, and I pause, blinking, at the screen.
“First Times for Sale” is blinking across the screen, still as hot pink and crazy looking as ever. I forgot about that site, between all of Violet’s Mr. Mommy stories and the movies we watched after.
I scroll toward the corner of the screen, about to close it, when I notice that the little inbox attached to the site has a notification. Just one notification. I click on it, figuring it’ll be a welcome message
Then my eyes widen at the subject line.
$50,000.
No way. This has to be a joke.
2
I click the message open, and my mouth drops open, too.
Your pictures intrigue me almost as much as your coherently written profile. I have to admit, I never expected to find a woman like you on this site. Tell me something about yourself. My name is Declan,
Declan. I snort. Right. What kind of a name is that?
But still, it doesn’t look like the kind of message an automated bot would send. This sounds like an actual guy replying to me. Bidding on my virginity. And bidding $50,000, no less.
No harm in looking at how bad the damage is, right? I tap open his profile page.
Shit.
Okay. This has to be wrong. Some kind of prank or something. Or maybe some loser using someone else’s photos.
Because the man staring back at me from “Declan’s” profile page is one of the hottest men I have ever seen.
He’s older than me, probably in his early 40s judging by the touch of silver in his dark black hair and dotted across his beard. It isn’t so much a thick beard as it is about a week’s worth of stubble. His chiseled jaw and high cheekbones are exactly my type, and his light gray eyes bore into the camera, piercing. I swear it feels like he’s looking at me. I swallow hard, trying to regain my composure. Calm down, Joyce. It’s just one response on a crazy website for weirdos.
But to be honest, this guy does not fit the type I expected. I assumed the guys on this site would be creeps, unattractive pervs who could never get a real date or please a woman in bed. After all, why else go for virgins, unless you know that you couldn’t satisfy an experienced woman?
Having convinced myself that this guy isn’t worth freaking out over, I manage to go back to his page and scroll through his profile. Every photo, I have to admit, is hotter than the last. And I can’t help myself–I linger over his response to the question about his deepest fantasy.
“I fantasize about teaching a woman the full depth and breadth of pleasure: pleasure of the mind and the body. I want to take control of her body, take my pleasure from her, but also give her ecstasy in equal measure…”
It’s weird that those two sentences make me breathe a little harder, imagining the gray-eyed, sharp-jawed man in those photos doing that to me–taking control of me. I can picture him throwing me roughly across a bed; the way he’d look parting my knees, kneeling between my legs, his rough stubble scraping my inner thighs… r />
Pull it together, I scold myself. It’s one stupid profile. And, admittedly, one crazy high bid on me. Should I reply? Or just let this joke die the way it clearly needs to?
I slam my laptop closed, convinced I’ll forget about this soon. But as I go through my morning routine, all I can think about is his picture. Those serious, piercing eyes of his burning into mine as if he sees me through the computer screen. In the shower, running my soaped-up hands all over my body, I can’t help imagining they’re his hands. I trail them up my inner thighs, brush the spot where my thighs meet my hips, trace them along my hipbones, almost touching, almost brushing my mound, but not quite. Teasing myself. I circle my nipples, watch them harden even under the hot stream of water, and I picture his mouth closing around them, his tongue toying with me. I picture him watching me as he tastes every inch of my body, those eyes of his unable to tear away from mine.
Fuck.
Okay, fine, I think, as I climb out of the shower half an hour later than I intended. I’ll email him back. But nothing long or complicated. Just what he asked for, nothing more.
I sit back down in front of my laptop, wrapped in a towel, and type out a message as fast as possible. I don’t give myself time to second-guess or overthink this–I just hit send.
Kitty: Something about me: I never expected to be on a site like this. So no wonder you didn’t expect to find me. But what makes you bid that much money on a girl like me? I’m just curious…
I leave the computer open and step away to start throwing on clothes. To my surprise though, the computer pings just a few seconds later. I check the site to find he’s replied already. That was fast.