Free Cherry (A Taboo Short) by Sam Crescent, Jenika Snow

Sasha
    T he lights were so bright, and right in my face, that I couldn’t see anyone below the stage. And I had a pretty good feeling they’d made it like that so the women couldn’t see all the men appraising them. But I felt their gazes on me, scanning over my naked body, taking in every single part of me. I should have felt more nevous than I actually was, but the truth was I felt a little high from it all.
    I’d gotten the information for this auction by chance, overhearing some people talking about it at a club. They’d been drunken men boasting and bragging about sleeping with gorgeous women, taking their virginities, or on some occasions, dominating them until they screamed for more, begged to come. I admit I shouldn’t have listened, but I was transfixed by the very idea something like that actually took place. It seemed like something out of a movie, or even a book. It was barbaric in a sense: men bidding on women, paying for one night to have them in any way they saw fit.
    I was intrigued, curious, but most of all, I was desperate.
    After losing my job because of company cutbacks, and going through my savings to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, I had gone to that bar to drink some of my stress and worries away. That wasn’t the answer, I knew that, but it helped at the moment. I was tired of staying at home crying, trying to find a job, but coming up empty- handed. I was tired of wondering when I’d be evicted.
    And so, it was then, for the first time in my life, I found the strength to actually go after what I wanted. I’d asked those men about the auction, gotten the information I needed to “audition”, and here I was, selling myself like I meant nothing at all.
    No, you mean something. You’re important, or they wouldn’t have chosen you. You have something of value, and they know that.
    I brought myself back to the present, and pushed my thoughts out of my head.
    Standing on a stage, naked and waiting to get bid upon like some kind of art piece, was pretty degrading, but I needed the money, and I was desperate enough to do anything to get it.
    I followed the announcer’s commands: Turn. Lift your arms up. Bend at the waist. Touch your breasts.
    The commands went on for what seemed like forever, but in truth, they had to be only a few moments. This little bit of time was like I’d been sucked into a vortex, like I’d been transported into some parallel place where a woman could sell her virginity—her cherry—to someone who was the highest bidder.
    But this isn’t a fantasy. This is reality.
    The room seemed so silent, far more silent than was comfortable. Aside from the announcer, the only thing I heard was the occasional shuffle hidden by the lights, and that seemed far from funny.
    When my time was finished, I was led off the stage, taken to a back room where other women waited for their turn, or had already presented every intimate part of themselves to strangers. There I waited until the final hour, until a man came in and started taking us girls to the bidders who had won. I was nervous, my hands shaking, my body tense. Every part of me was on alert, and the feeling of being pulled in different directions waged war inside of me.
    This is wrong.
    It’s what I have to do.
    It’s only for the night.
    Telling myself that didn’t help, but it didn’t matter, because I’d been bought for the night, and I’d have to submit in every way, in any way he saw fit.

Felix
    A s soon as I saw her on that stage, I knew I had to have her. With hair the color of wheat, and eyes the brightest blue I’d ever seen, I couldn’t stop myself from bidding an exorbitant amount on her. It would only be for the one night, but she’d be mine in every way imaginable, in any way I wanted.
    So I’d bought her, spent a fortune on the virgin I’d be fucking tonight, that I’d claim. It didn’t matter who she was or what her name was. Tonight, she would be mine, and that’s all that