She shivers and stays silent. Lucien removes an envelope from inside his jacket and slides it towards her. She doesn’t look inside to see if all ten thousand euros are there. She just flees.
“You’ll have to pretend to be a whore,” Lucien says. Not the first time we’ve had this discussion.
I nod. “Yes.” I’m not afraid of anything or anyone, but this thing causes panic every time I think of it. The lust of men sends terror through me. There has been no one since I left Abeokuta. I hoped my fear would evaporate as my strength grew, but it hasn’t. I’m ashamed of myself. So I hide this truth from Lucien. He doesn’t need to know.
“You have your knife?”
I nod again. Ivan’s ending will be messy and painful. I’m ready.
***
When I woke up in the morning, the sun was streaming through the windows and the sheer white curtains were fluttering in the breeze. The door to the courtyard was open and I could hear Alexander’s voice in the distance, speaking a language I couldn’t quite make out. Not French and not Thai either. How many languages did he speak?
I didn’t know what to make of Alexander. So far, he’d been perfectly kind to me. He’d made me feel desired, but he’d also wanted me to feel at ease. Everything he’d done yesterday had been designed to achieve that. The casual trip to the night market, the dancing at the club after. I’d been a bundle of nerves and he’d calmed me down.
It could have very easily been different. He could have ordered me to blow him off at the BDSM club right after the auction. He would have had every right to expect me to be eager to please him. He’d just purchased me for three months and he’d paid a million dollars, money that was vital in saving my imaginary sister. I would have been grateful. I would have done it if he’d asked.
He could have done more than that. He could have ordered me to parade around Bangkok in that sheer robe, enjoying my humiliation. He could have shared me with Salim and Rachid. He could have punished me for dancing with another man. He could have believed that a million dollars was expected to buy a lot of cooperation.
But he’d sensed my nerves and observed my fear. He’d acted to reassure me. Personality-wise, he wasn’t a different person from the man I’d slept with in Paris. Then too, he waited for my arousal and need to overrule my fear. Then too, he’d been kind.
I couldn’t reconcile this facet of him with his association with Dylan and Sylvia. Where was the empathy then? Could he not feel it for the children that Sylvia arranged to tear from their homes so they could serve in the brothels of her choosing? Could he not see that Dylan was a full, active participant in the rape and torture of one young girl after another, all lasting a two to three year period before he tired of them and sold them, condemning them to a different kind of hellish existence?
Don’t go there, I told myself firmly. I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on the horrors that Alexander tolerated, even abetted. Ellie wasn’t able to understand, but Jenny didn’t know anything. All Jenny saw was the charming man who had treated her with impeccable consideration and care last night. Jenny would have quite the crush on Alexander Hamilton by now.
I didn’t need to pretend to be eager to please. I couldn’t deny being turned on by his nearness. My body prickled with lust when I gazed into his eyes. And I hated myself for it.
***
“You are up.” He was in the bedroom when I returned, still naked, from the bathroom. He was dressed casually – navy blue linen pants, a white cotton shirt and sneakers on his feet.
I nodded. Everything was going to begin today, he’d said. A strange, heady sense of anticipation filled my blood.
He looked slightly amused. “Use your words, Jenny.”
“I’m up,” I obediently parroted.
“And are you ready?” Again, that amusement.
“For what, Alexander?” I asked him boldly, and he shook his head at me.
“For what, Sir.” His hand gestured, and I knelt on the plush carpeted floor immediately. My heart pounded and moisture pooled between my legs. Everything wasn’t just going to begin today. It was going to begin now.
“Part your legs wider,” he ordered, and I nudged my knees apart. My head was lowered automatically. “Still wider. Show me that cunt of yours.”
Heat filled my entire body. But I did as he asked.
“Link your hands behind your back. Grasp a hold of your elbows.” I obeyed, and my shoulders strained.
It wasn’t the lewdest position he could have put me in, though I remained flushed with shame and burgeoning desire. But as I knelt there, I felt the cool air of the air conditioning waft around my cunt. The effect of my hands, clasped behind my back, was to push my breasts out as twin offerings to him.