Best of 2017

Dear Mr Henley,

You are too generous.

Thank you, but please enjoy the bottle yourself.

MM.

I laugh a bitter laugh.

Of course.

She doesn’t want the wine.

She doesn’t want to fucking know me.

She’s just a woman doing her job, and I’m a fucking imbecile.

An imbecile who’s too much of a fucking addict to think straight. This cold turkey is sending me fucking nuts.

It has to stop. Right fucking now.

I fire off an email to the New Start volunteers, telling them poor Ted can’t be there tonight.

And then I call up Claude’s messages.

It’s time to put a stop to this craziness.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MELISSA

WALKING AWAY from him breaks my heart.

I feel it shatter into pieces, my belly churning as I rush down to the underground and away from there.

I want nothing more than to change my mind, turn on my heel and batter his front door down, apologise for my rudeness and beg his forgiveness.

But I can’t.

Because in a couple of hours’ time he’ll be seeing my naked body on a screen somewhere, if he hasn’t seen it already.

I’m all in, committed to staying the course, committed to whoever wins this auction tonight.

Please God, let it be him who buys me.

Please God, let him show mercy on his rude cleaner and let her keep her job.

My cuddles with Joseph soothe my heart enough to breathe through the panic.

Dean makes me a coffee and joins us on the living room floor, resting his head on my shoulder without words, knowing just as well as I do that my fate is about to be decided somewhere across the city.

I’m glad he’s my best friend, my constant in this craziness.

We put Joseph to bed together after dinner, and I slump down exhausted on the sofa, beyond hope that my mastermind plan is going to work out well. I snuggle up to Dean and he puts his arm around my shoulders. There’s a difference in him, an acceptance. I guess he’s as exhausted as I am.

And that’s when he says it, just a whisper in the darkness.

“I get it,” he says. “I get why you’re doing it. You’ve been through so much, lost so much.”

“I’m scared,” I admit, and he sighs.

“If it’s not him, you get out of there, fuck the money.”

I nod, but I know it’s not going to be that simple. There’s no way it will be that simple. You don’t just walk away from crap like this, not from people like this.

“Would you do it,” I ask, “for twenty grand?”

His breath is on my hair. “Henley?”

I nod, and feel him smile.

“Hell, Lissa, I’d probably do Henley for free.”

ALEXANDER

I’M CONTEMPLATING Candice or maybe Elena. Maybe even that perfect little slut Britney Jane if she’s available.

It doesn’t really matter, I just need to pound my cock into some tight little pussy and wrap my fingers around her throat.

I’ve got a backlog of messages from Claude, some new girls, some older offerings whose exclusivity agreements have expired. None of them interest me in the slightest.

I sigh and check out the auction listings. Five pieces of hot new pussy ready to go to the highest bidder.

A pretty dark-haired girl with blue eyes, nice, but literally every single fucking box has a tick in it.

A chubby little redhead with a cute smile, she’s a definite maybe, but the app tells me there have been ten pre-interest bids on her already, and she won’t do anal. Fuck that.

A natural blonde with ridiculously unnatural tits. No. Definitely not.

A girl who’s going for the sexy librarian look but failing miserably. She’s no fucking librarian. No fucking way.

And the final listing. The hot piece of the evening. A certified virgin with hundred grand reserve, Jesus Christ.

I click on the link and up comes her image.

It stops my fucking heart.

She’s young, maybe early twenties, big pretty eyes staring up at the camera. She’s in pink underwear that doesn’t fit very well, a soft innocence on her face that belies her surroundings.

Her light blonde hair is cut in a jagged style, her body petite and pale.

Like Debbie Harry.

She looks like a young Debbie Harry.

My cock twitches and I’m smiling.

I’m a teenager again, jerking myself crazy over the tatty posters on my bedroom wall. Fuck knows how many times I’ve come thinking about fucking that woman. I’ve still got the posters somewhere, folded up in a storage box for prosperity.

And here she is, a good enough replica that my cock’s already pulsing.

I need this. I really fucking need this, virgin or not.

I call Claude and he answers after a single ring.

“I was wondering when you’d grace me with your voice,” he laughs.

I’m not in the mood for jokes.

“I want the virgin,” I tell him. “How much? I’ll get it transferred.”

He ums and ahhs, acting like he’s in a real fucking corner. “No can do, I’ve got pre-interest. A lot of pre-interest.”

“Fuck the pre-interest,” I snap. “Just give me a fucking price, don’t be a prick.”

“Bidding starts at eight,” he says. “I’ll see you there.”

I haven’t got time to argue before the cunt hangs up. I curse the fuck out of him and then I check my watch.

Twenty fucking minutes to get to fucking Chelsea.

I grab my fucking coat.

I PULL into Claude’s bastard saleroom car park, piling out of the car with a haste that revolts me.

A doorman lets me in when I rap on the front entrance, then locks up behind me.

“Mr Henley, sir.”

I wave him away and pace on through to the back.

Everyone is already assembled, at least fifteen men from my social circle with their crappy bidding cards in the air for the librarian girl. Fifty grand she’s going for.

They are welcome to her.

I ease myself into the back of the room, hoping that nobody gives me a second glance, but old man Kennedy, one of the senior players at the House of Lords, clocks me in the corner of his vision. A nudge to his associate and a smile in my direction, and the whole room is alive with whispers.

My father turns his head, and the grin on his face makes me sick to the stomach.

He heads in my direction and I bristle when he clamps a hand on my shoulder.

“Good call, boy, I knew you’d make it. You here for the librarian, nice piece of pussy, isn’t she?”

“I’m not here for the librarian,” I sneer, and his eyes light up.

“Of course, Blondie, yes.” He tips his head. “You’ll be going up against your old man, Alexander. I’ve got my

eye on that one.”

The idea makes me seethe. “Back off,” I hiss. “I get first choice, remember?”

He shakes his head. “Not this time, boy. Not when there’s a pretty pink hymen on offer.” He laughs and slaps my back. “May the best man win.”

There’s no best about it. I try to shrug off the disgust as he heads back through the crowd.

I’m about to walk away on principle, fuck this whole fucking spectacle, but the hammer comes down at sixty-five grand on the brunette, and the next lot flashes up on screen.

Amy.

Twenty-one.

Virgin.

No limits.

I have to look twice at the screen to make sure, but it’s right, Claude confirms it in his summary.

No limits, not a single one.

My throat is bone dry as they play her intro video, and I know the girl shouldn’t be here, she’s too innocent, much too innocent. The nervous sparkle in her eyes, her shy smile.

I can barely look, but I can’t turn away.

She’s absolutely fucking beautiful.

She tells the camera she has no limits, none at all. She tells the camera she’s a virgin. She tells the camera she wants this.

Claude zooms right in on her untouched pussy like the seedy cunt that he is, and she’s perfectly imperfect, her pussy lips puffy and uneven. Her tits aren’t perfect either, natural and fleshy with tight little pink nipples.

There’s an intimacy about her that makes me uncomfortable as I watch her play with herself on screen, as though she’s staring right into me, right through me.

I have to swallow a weird lump in my throat as she wraps her fingers around her throat and tells Claude that’s what she likes, and I nearly come in my fucking pants, right then and there in this disgusting fucking place with these disgusting fucking people.

The bidding starts before I’ve even regained my fucking clarity.

One hundred grand.

One twenty.

One two five.

My father comes in at one fifty.

I head him off at two hundred grand, my eyes meeting his and hoping my stare burns him to fucking death.

He nods. Two twenty.

Two fucking fifty, I say.

Another bidder, some idiot who can’t see what’s going down here. Two sixty.

Three hundred grand, my father says. And let that be a fucking end to it.