by Ana Sparks
I slammed my laptop shut, threw on some clothes and flip-flops, and raced out of my apartment, down the hallway to the elevator. I jammed the button about ten times, but the elevator came as slow as ever, and I took the stairs instead, thundering down to the lobby.
Once out of the lobby and outside, I set off down the street, towards the nearest newspaper stand, which I was sure was two blocks or so down. There is was, in front of some dumpy houses and weedy lawns. It was a half-scratched yellow box. A cheery yellow, the yellow of lemon cake and sunshine. Hell, if happiness had a theme color, this would be it. It was, certainly not the right color for what lay inside. The last newspaper of a bunch, the rest already lifted out, read, absorbed. The rippled newspaper with the still-clear headline, the same as the online news article: Local Woman to Auction Virginity.
For one stupid, desperate second, I considered leaving right then and there, not looking at it this time. But before I could look away I caught a glimpse of the picture, the picture of the sexy woman in the red skin-tight dress, beside the nice girl picture of me taken at a work gala.
I sank to the ground as the realization that my world was over descended upon me.
“Do ya mind?”
Looking up, I saw an old man scowling over me, his neck wrinkles shaking irritably.
“No, it’s mine,” I managed to sputter out as I took off back towards my building, pressing the horrific paper to my chest.
Shit, shit, shit, SHIT.
Every person I passed was staring at me. They knew, I was sure of it. I walked as fast as I could, making sure I always had something to fix my eyes on, a chipped-off corner of a building, a half-peeled-off ad on a bus shelter. There was always something to fix my gaze on, had to be. Anything was better than looking anyone in the eye.
Inside my building, instead of waiting for the elevator and risk being seen by more people who would know, I raced into the stairwell and up, up one floor, the next and then the next. By the time I got to the sixth floor, I was out of breath and crying, shoving my key in the door and ripping it open. Immediately I flung myself on my bed, Romeo and Juliet hissing at me as they leapt off it. But I didn’t care; I didn’t care about anything anymore. My life was over.
I shifted my gaze to the window. I might as well jump out of it, there was no way I could come back after this. Everyone—my family, my friends, everyone, was going to see this and know. Dating? Ha? What man would ever want me once he found out what I’d done? And that website, that goddam website. How could I have been so stupid?
My eyes streaming, I clawed open my laptop, slapped the mouse pad until I was back on the page. The website coding, of course. I’d forgotten to remove my personal information.
A mistake, that was what it was. A stupid, life-ruining mistake made by a pathetic drunk 28-year-old virgin. I rubbed my eyes and that’s when I noticed it: there were a hell of a lot more bids on the page now. There was something close to forty, with the prices rocketing up more and more: $12,000; $25,000; $57,000.
But that was nothing compared to the latest offer, the one made mere minutes ago. I stared at it for a long time, squinting and rubbing my eyes, unable to believe that it could be true. But no matter how many times I refreshed the screen and adjusted the brightness, the same crazy amount was there, impossible as ever: one million dollars.
Chapter Four
Kristin
I fell asleep crying and woke up shaking. My phone was ringing.
“Am I speaking to Kristin Blair?” a deep male voice asked.
“Uh, yes. Who is this?” I asked.
“Ms. Blair, I am with the Sacramento Star and I was wondering if you had time to answer a few ques—”
I hung up, staring at the phone for a few seconds before bursting into tears. I’d shut the site down but it was way too late already; I had made headlines and was now I was even getting phone calls.
I hurried over to the window. As I opened the curtain, the furry coil of Romeo and Juliet on the sill cast me unimpressed looks. But I wasn’t looking for them. No. Out the window, six stories down, waiting outside my building were what looked to be several teams of journalists, their video cameras and microphones at the ready.
Sinking to the floor, another wave of anguish crashed over me. So, this was how it was going to be now. A pariah of society, a famous freak, I couldn’t even leave my building now without being accosted.
My life as I knew it was ruined.
The memory of the insanely high bid returned to me, but I needed to eat first. A look in the fridge revealed that I could, if need be, hide out in my apartment for a few days—there was yogurt, ham and bread galore. What I was looking for right now, however, was in the freezer and in a pink and green tub marked Strawberry Mint Ice Cream.
I took the tub in my arms and grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and sat on the kitchen floor and dug in.
It was a slow, miserable sort of eating. The kind that you can only half enjoy, since you fear that when it ends, there will be no more frozen sugar to numb the pain. As I ate, the memory of the million-dollar bid returned to me. It couldn’t have been real, could it?
I brushed my hair out of my eyes. Well, now that my life was basically ruined, what exactly did I have to lose?
I stood up, and carrying my ice cream tub with me, I made my way over to my laptop. It was still on my bed; the hated thing had been shoved to the far corner. When I opened it, my recently deceased site popped up, along with that crazy impossible bid: one million dollars. Spooning myself some more ice cream, I stared at it. Even though I had shut the website down, I could still contact the bidder.
Yeah, contact the bidder, and have whatever 14-year-old sent it start trolling me. Or, maybe, just maybe, talk with a real man, a real interested man who actually was willing to give me a million dollars for a night with me.
My spoon scratched the bottom of the ice cream tub. Sure, the bid might be—was almost definitely—a joke, but I had to find out. I had to at least try.
Besides, what else was I going to do? The press waited like piranhas outside my building, and the thought of all the disapproving stares that would surely come my way filled me with terror.
I clicked on the respond button and typed out a reply: Is this a real bid?
I clicked send, finished off the ice cream, and, when I checked again, the buyer had responded: Yes. Would you care to meet me at Golden Era tonight, around 9? I’ll get a table under your name. No pressure, I just want to talk.
I gaped at the response, while my spoon scraped at the bottom of the ice cream tub in vain. There were still nine hours to go until 9 pm. I could definitely make it. I should definitely go. But, as I sat there, a cold wash of fear rolled over me. What if it was still a joke—just some teenaged girl and her friends taking it too far? Or worse, what if it was one of those tabloid journalists down there outside my building, eager to get a juicy story and a big upset? Setting me up to be sitting alone at a table in a fancy restaurant so they could take my photo and laugh at me some more.
I inhaled, and then exhaled slowly. All those things were possible, but what was also possible was that this bidder, this man, was real, ready and willing. At this point, it wasn’t like I had a reputation to maintain anyway.
I clicked Respond, typed in “Okay,” and then shut my laptop.
As I sat there, the ridiculousness of the situation once again occurred to me. Before I could stop myself, I was looking up the bar’s phone number and dialing it.
“Hello, this is Golden Era, how may I help you?” a high-pitched female voice answered.
“Hi,” I said, “Do you have a table booked for a Kristin Denton?”
There was a pause, and I fretted as to whether the woman was wondering if I was the (now-infamous) Kristin Denton. But her voice came back as smooth as before: “Yes, Ms. Denton, are you calling to change your reservation?”
“No, no,” I said, “I just wanted to check, thank you.”
I hung up and put my phone face
-up in my lap. So, the bidder, whoever they were, was serious. This was really happening.
Lying in one ball of limbs on the floor, Romeo and Juliet were eyeing me warily. I walked over to the mirror and made myself smile at the pathetic mess I saw. Her hair was sticking out in five different places on her head, as if she’d been electrocuted, while her face was still red from crying, all puffy as if she’d been beaten up. There was pinky green ice cream smeared around her gaping lips, mascara smeared around her red eyes, which looked ready to cry again at any moment. But they would not cry again, no.
I opened my laptop, searched for an “Uplifting anthems” playlist, and clicked on the first one that popped up. As an irreverent fuck-you of a punk pop beat blared on, I got to work. First was throwing out the ice cream tub, cleaning up the moderate mess I had somehow made in only a few depressed hours. Next was the harder job: cleaning up myself.
A long shower worked wonders. Thirty minutes of spurting nice-smelling shampoo on my head then equally nice-smelling conditioner did the trick for my hair, while an after-bathing dose of vanilla skin cream all over my body helped combat the redness. Sticking my head out of the window on the opposite side of my building (away from the nosy press brigade) calmed me down enough to attempt the colossal task that was deciding what to wear.
I didn’t want to wear the red dress from my website photos, that dress had betrayed me; now even the thought of it made my stomach turn.
Opening my closet revealed that I had quite the job ahead of me. My closet was almost like a diary of my life these past few years—of slowly but surely giving up. It was made almost exclusively of shapeless drab shirts and ill-fitting pants and leggings. There were a few skirts, sure, but they were all either outdated or baggy. My old prom dress was even stashed in there somewhere, although there was no way I wanted to look at it, let alone touch it.
I flipped through hanger after hanger, hoping that despite everything there would be one nice outfit I’d forgotten about, some too-fancy top or nice-fitting shorts that I had never had the occasion to wear. But the longer my search extended, the more hangers I shoved to the left with all my other failures, the more reality sunk in: I had nothing decent to wear, I shouldn’t even bother going. And yet, I continued searching, even as I knew there was no point.
The possibilities dwindled until I was at the last hanger, the last failure wrapped up in a garment bag. I didn’t remember what was inside, but it hardly mattered. The past had already proven what would be in there: another unfortunate reject, another pathetic piece. I almost turned away. There was no point, really, in checking, but I did.
I unzipped the garment bag and my jaw dropped. Hanging there innocuously, as if it wasn’t the only beauty in a sea of ugly, was a dress. A silver-sequined, glistening vision of a dress.
Taking it off the hanger with trembling hands, I quickly undressed and slipped it on. Walking over to the mirror, I froze. The girl in the mirror was not me. She was rosy-cheeked with bright blue-eyed, porcelain skin, slight curves and was, undeniably, beautiful.
I stared at the girl for a few minutes as, slowly, the two images coalesced into one: the pretty one in the mirror and the me I was used to seeing. Yes, that girl in the mirror was me. This dress was more than perfect; it was a life-saver.
With this dress on, figuring out makeup was a breeze. I looked up a few online tutorials on how to do a smoky eye, dabbed and blended some black on my lids, put on my usual concealer and pink lips and bam, I was ready.
Once I was done, I sat in front of the mirror for a few minutes, smiling at myself, at the pretty brave woman pictured there—the pretty brave woman I was.
I could do this. Yes, I was going to do this.
Chapter Five
Clark
I was late, but once she saw who I was she’d see that I had been worth the wait. Or not. What if Kristin didn’t forgive me?
A pointless question, look at the amount I was offering her, after all. And I had arrived anyway. Walking in, I saw just how busy the place was. The Gold-Rush-themed bar was packed with people who look appropriately ritzy—gentlemen with cigars and tall tipping drinks, ladies with beadwork dresses and charcoal stares. Perhaps I should’ve asked what Kristin would be wearing, but…in the corner there, that couldn’t be her, could it?
That silver sparkling dress, those big blue eyes that are looking at me… Why yes, yes it was.
As I sat across from her, poor Kristin Blair was speechless. It was cute, so I waited, gave the girl time to collect herself.
“It’s you…” she said in a low voice, which sounded surprised but not angry.
“I’m sorry for keeping my identity a secret,” I said, “But I figured if I did tell you, you probably wouldn’t come.”
Her eyes narrowed, then she nodded, laughed.
“You’re probably right.”
I took her hand and gazed into her eyes.
“I know it’s ancient history, but I have to apologize, Kristin. I am truly sorry for what happened at prom. For standing you up.”
Kristin nodded, drawing her hand away.
“Thank you.”
Our gazes met, then hers flicked away. Then, silence. It was weird; I would’ve thought she’d have been happier to see me. Most girls would kill for a date with Clark Denton, but maybe Kristin was still resentful about what had happened at prom.
“Well, what have you been up to?” I asked.
“I’m an IT contractor,” Kristin said, “Looks like all those computer science classes paid off.” She laughed. I had forgotten how pretty she was when she laughed.
“And I don’t have to ask what you’ve been doing,” she said, with a shy, admiring smile.
I waved my hand and shrugged, the magnanimous picture of humbleness.
“Let’s not talk about me. Tell me more about yourself, you certainly have more going on than just your job I presume.”
Irritation flickered through Kristin’s eyes, and then she shrugged.
“What, other than the fact that I’m now an infamous tabloid celebrity?”
I laughed.
“Well, I was going to wait until dessert to mention that but…”
At this, our waitress glided up.
“Can I get you two anything?”
“Two glasses of Pinot Grigio,” I told her, and the pert little blonde zipped away. Kristin was eyeing me steadily.
“What if I didn’t like wine?”
I grinned.
“More for me, then. Now, tell me about this website.”
Again, Kristin’s brow crinkled. I was about to tell her to forget it, when she said, “It was a mistake. I’m horribly embarrassed about it.”
“So, what? The offer’s off the table?” I asked, and now Kristin looked downright angry.
“What about you, Clark Denton? I presume you have more going on in your life than just work.”
Her tone was sarcastic, so I give her an equally sarcastic answer.
“Oh, you know. The usual, tropical vacations, a new girl about every week, a scrawny cat who doesn’t love me.”
The last part came out accidentally, so I paused. Kristin was tilting her head at me, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of me. Then, she burst out laughing.
“Really?”
“Really what?” I asked.
“You have a cat who’s indifferent to you, too?”
I found myself grinning.
“What, do you have one as well?”
Kristin shook her head.
“No, I have two. Two completely in love, completely indifferent to me cats.” We laughed and she continued, “I even spayed them, but that only made it worse: the hours-long cuddling sessions, the intense licking sprees. Though they were named Romeo and Juliet when I adopted them, so I don’t know what I expected.”
“Here you go,” our waitress said, her fake nails flashing as she placed our wine glasses on the table with a clink.
“What about you,” Kristin asked as she took a sip of
her wine, “What’s your indifferent cat like?”
I took a drink, then shrugged.
“Just a scrawny princess, really. Can hardly stand to be in the same room as me, though it was my mother who got her for me, so she must have learned it from Mom.”
Kristin nodded.
“How is your mom?”
I took a longer drink of my wine.
“Oh, you know, about the same. My sister even has a kid now.”
Kristin’s face lit up.
“Oh yeah? A girl or a boy?”
“A boy, really cute kid. His name is…” I paused, as I tried to picture the name of the fat-cheeked kid I saw on Yvonne’s Facebook. “Sam. His name’s Sam.”
Kristin was looking at me oddly, but she only nodded.
After another silence and sip of her wine, she finally asked, “Why did you come here, Clark?”
As her blue eyes scanned my face I smiled.
“What, you don’t think I came just for old time’s sake?”
Now, Kristin was outright scowling.
“Is that all this is to you, a joke?”
I shook my head.
“No, it isn’t a joke. I just…when I saw you online, I was reminded of what I’d done. I felt bad. I want to make it up to you, make things right; give you the night you were denied.”
At my admission, Kristin’s face looked less thrilled then I’d expected; she actually looked like she was thinking it through! This was starting to get annoying.
But then, in a small voice, she said, “Okay. But how will it work?”
I flashed her a patented Clark Denton smile and told her my plan: “A date doing whatever your heart desires, then back to my house for the grand finale. You can even stay the night if you want. Then, in the morning, I’ll wire you the money.”
Kristin nodded, chewing at her lip. “Okay,” she said, then smiled. “Okay, let’s do it.”
