“Clark, I’m not calling you to argue. I’m just calling to tell you to stop calling the house. It upsets Mom. If you want to do anything, show up for a change, but don’t call. Not anymore.”
“Eugene, I think this is a bit over the top, don’t you?”
“Sorry, but I’ve got to go. Bye, Clark—”
“Eugene—”
Dial tone.
I stared at the little black phone, anger flaring within me. I chucked the box at the wall. The crash of the electronic device as it hit the wall spurred my secretary into action, and Carla’s voice buzzed over the intercom.
“Mr. Denton? Mr. Denton? Is everything all right?”
I wheeled back on my chair over to my view of the city.
Why was my family so insufferably stubborn? I could negotiate with any other businessman, millionaire, billionaire or otherwise. But not them. No, a quick Christmas video chat wasn’t enough; I had to be curled up in front of the fire with them, literally bleeding bills out of my ass in the process. They didn’t understand because they’d never been successful.
I took the family portrait, the one taken when we were kids, out of my desk drawer: Eugene, Yvonne, Mom and me. Our happy faces stared back at me.
And why did they think I’d even want to see them, when every time it was the same questions, the same insinuations: “So, anyone special yet? Eugene says you’ve been seeing someone, so give us details!”
I shoved the picture back in my desk drawer. A bunch of bleeding hearts, the lot of them. So what? Let them abandon me. Let’s see how they did without their yearly trips and ski-doo birthday presents. They had just been dragging me down with them anyway.
Striding over to the corner, I picked up the phone, whose flashing green light indicated that it wasn’t quite broken. Pressing the button on the top, I told Carla “Tell Sandra to come at 8. And then text Jane and have her come at 10.”
I strode back to the window to look out at the city once more. Let everyone judge me all they wanted, I would still have my fun.
* * *
The rest of the afternoon was a write-off. My family and their selfish rashness distracted from any more tangible productivity. On the drive home, there was more traffic than usual and the driver kept choosing stupid radio stations. When I sarcastically informed him that the only station I wanted to hear was a Hungarian one, instead of snapping the thing off like I had expected, he actually found one, which he then subjected me to for the rest of the trip.
Dinner was peach-glazed rabbit with a slightly unsettling arrangement of baby tomatoes, but Ursula had already left for the day, and I was in no mood for one of the drawn-out yelled phone calls her considerable deafness demanded that I employ.
Luckily, I only had to pace around for an before Sandra arrived. She turned up wrapped up in blue and gold like a present. One which I wasted no time unwrapping. She moaned during it, about how good it felt, and moaned after it, about how I never responded to her text messages.
I glanced at the clock. It was 9, I still had some time. I made a mental note to fire Carla and then I consoled poor, poor Sandra. I confessed that I was busy, I didn’t always know what to say, I was sorry, horribly sorry, I was going to make sure it never happened again. Then, I showed her a pretty dress that I’d bought her, and that shut her up. Hell, I got her out of the house at 9:30, still with thirty minutes to spare.
So, I returned to my room to find my cat Nala lounging on the bed. At the sight of me, she jumped up and walked away. I watched her go with a weird pang of regret. Mother had bought her for me, convinced I had needed a “companion” of some sort, but would it kill this scrawny tabby to stay in the same room as me for more than five seconds? I’d had her for months and I hadn’t so much as touched her. Cats were notoriously independent, sure, but this was a bit much.
I flopped on my bed and waited for Jane to arrive. She was ten minutes late, of course, full of excuses (“The traffic was horrible, darling, you know how it is”) and blame (“If you didn’t always tell me last minute!”), but when I got that shirt off her she quieted down soon enough. It was nice, good—I think it was always nice and good with Jane. It had been weeks, but I couldn’t be sure. Lying in bed afterwards, she looked up at me and said “How long has it been since we saw each other?”
I smiled, patted her head.
“Too long, my darling,” I replied, but she slid away and sat up, surveying me with a lipstick-smeared half-smile.
“I’m serious, Clark. How long has it been?”
Avoiding her gaze, I shrugged.
“I don’t know, a few weeks?”
She laughed coldly.
“Three months, Clark. It’s been three months.”
My head whipped around. I studied her face but it was clear enough that she was telling the truth.
“You really had no idea, didn’t you?”
I slid my arm around her.
“Well, darling, you know even a week feels like a month to me, and are you really sure—”
Another laugh.
“Don’t bother, Clark. I gave up all illusions with you weeks ago.”
Silence, then she asked, “Have you ever really had a girlfriend?”
I pulled her closer to me.
“Darling, if you wanted to have this talk…”
She pulled away, but she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she didn’t even look angry.
Touching my arm gently, she asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
Now, it was my turn to laugh. “Come on, Jane, I—” But she was shaking her head.
“You poor guy.”
And then, with one pat of my arm, she was rising. She got up and dressed in silence. At the front door, she cast me one last look, one slight smile, a nod, and she was gone. I stared at the open doorway for a minute, then got up and slammed the door shut.
That look she had given me. I could have understood if it was pleading or bitter or angry or anything, really, except for what it had been. What she had said, the way she had looked at me, it has been sad, sure, but with a sadness that came from pity. Jane actually felt sorry for me.
I stared at the closed door for a minute, and then laughed.
Women and their assumptions of knowing what was best. I was perfectly fine—better than fine, I was fan-fucking-tastic, without a time-sucking demanding girlfriend or otherwise, so Jane could take her big fat pity and choke on it.
I took out my phone and started scanning through some news site. The news itself was pretty boring, rehashing old terrorist attacks and predicting new ones, and yet, wait—there was a juicy piece of news after all.
Sacramento Woman to Auction Virginity, the headline read. I stared at it for a minute, while the different possibilities slid through my mind. I was 28—it couldn’t actually be someone I knew, could it?
And that’s when I saw the picture.
Chapter Three
Kristin
I woke up to a splitting headache throbbing behind my eyes. My body was one crunched-up, crumpled-over ball of pain. One lunge to the bathroom got me some painkillers and, hopefully in a few minutes, relief. Back in bed, it took a good half hour before I could drag myself out from under the covers and into the kitchen.
It was a disaster-scene: practically every wine glass I had was scattered around the apartment, many of them filled with differing amounts of liquid. Meanwhile, my mint ice cream was on its side and streaming down into a sticky puddle on the floor, while chunks of cookies were sticking out of the dirt in my potted plant. The most insulting part of it all, sitting very primly in my dish rack, was my red lipstick.
And that was when I remembered the website.
“Shit,” I mumbled as I staggered back into my room.
I opened my laptop to find last night’s drunken activity staring back at me. The website was good, really good, there was no doubt about it. The background and font, that message, those pictures—it was all really, really good. Too bad I was going to have to take it down. My
stomach lurched.
Breakfast first.
A look in the fridge revealed that raisin toast was what it was going to have to be. As I sat there, munching my partly stale breakfast, I flipped through the mail that had come in a few days ago. Flyer, flyer, oh no.
I frowned as I ripped open the letter to see, sure enough, another dental bill. I was sure the most recent one I’d paid had been the last, but no, here they were with another.
I tossed the thing across the room and sank back in the chair. The bill was for two hundred dollars, just like the last four had been. How was I going to pay it this time? I was already behind on my hydro, my rent. Hell, I was behind on every one of the three credit cards I had.
There was a knock at the door and my heart fell into my stomach.
“Ms. Blair. Ms. Blair, please open up.” I answered it to see Mrs. Hyacinth, my small but formidable landlady looking up at me.
“Ms. Blair, I hate to do this, but your rent is two weeks late.”
“I know Mrs. Hyacinth, but—”
She held up a bony hand and shook her head at me.
“I’m afraid this is the third time, Ms. Blair, and really, you’ve left me no choice. If I don’t have the money in another week, I’ll have no choice but to evict you.”
As I gaped at her, Mrs. Hyacinth nodded, then held up her bony hand once more. “Goodbye Ms. Blair.”
I watched her go with a sick churning in my stomach. How had she managed to come and make her ultimatum at the worst possible time? What was I supposed to do now?
I turned to look at my bed, where my laptop was sitting open. Maybe that website would be my ticket through this, the windfall that would get me out of this shitty apartment and my hamster wheel of debt. I strode over to my bed, took one last look at my creation, and then flopped onto my bed beside the laptop.
Maybe I didn’t have to worry anymore.
* * *
I slept the day and next night away, slept right until the next morning.
The yellow numbers of my electronic clock read 9:30am when I woke up. I smiled at it. I hadn’t slept this late in years, weekend or otherwise. I had always felt guilty for sleeping in while in debt; as if money was slipping out of my mattress the longer I lay on it. But this morning? I didn’t have a care in the world. In fact, I may have even made a bit of money in my sleep.
When I checked the website, my heart leapt. Four bids had come in, the first for $500, another for $3000, one for $3040 and then one for $11,000. I stared at the figure for a few minutes, imagining all the things I could spend that kind of money on. Most of it would have to go to my student loans and current debt, sure, but there would still be enough left over to take a vacation, maybe to Cancun like I’d always wanted to.
The rest of the day I spent cleaning the apartment and happily lounging about. Even Romeo and Juliet’s fervent cuddling didn’t dampen my mood. I could get some nice old lady to adopt them, hell, I could pay some nice old lady to adopt them, get myself a loyal dog and a handy vibrator. Or maybe I wouldn’t even need to. Maybe after I got over this little setback, this big pressure-sex thing, maybe I could date like a normal woman, find a nice, normal man who liked hiking and camping and sitcoms like I did. Maybe I could find a nice place in the forest, a nice little cabin for one or two. Maybe I could buy my parents a boat, my dad had always loved sailing. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to change everything.
Harmony called around 3 pm.
“Hey Kristin, have you checked the news lately?”
“No, why?” I chirped back.
“Just, you might want to. I mean, it might be a good idea to.”
“Harmony?”
“Got to go, Damien’s calling, bye!” And then she hung up.
I glared at the phone for a minute. Back when I’d first met her, Harmony had been the boldest of hippies, a brash tell-it-how-it-is firecracker. But once Damien had come into the equation, she had morphed into a soft-spoken little housewife who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Clearly, I was going to have to find whatever news story she had wanted to direct me to myself.
I clicked open a web browser, and then paused. I wasn’t really in the mood for whatever Harmony wanted me to see. The last time something like this had happened, she had suggested that I stop eating a donut for breakfast every day by linking me to a women’s health article she had found online. No, I wasn’t in the mood for anything but…dancing.
Throwing open all the windows in the apartment, I cranked up the music and got moving. I was dancing with some lame juvenile moves (I hadn’t danced sober since I was a kid), but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t dancing to impress anyone, I was dancing to dance, to groove out this joy coursing through my body, to celebrate without having to actually leave my house, to let my body do the celebrating for me.
By the time I was tired out, I only had enough energy to stumble back to my bed and collapse into its cotton depths.
* * *
I woke up in the early morning. Sitting up straight in bed, the realization hit me like a brick to the gut: what if Harmony had meant my website, what if…
I stumbled out of bed. Grabbing my laptop, I opened it, clicked on the search bar, and typed: auction virginity. Immediately a recent news story came up. It read: Local Woman to Auction Virginity.
My heartbeat rocketed up. I took a deep breath. This was just a coincidence, just a fluke, there was no way…
That was when I saw the picture of the woman I knew all too well. In a haze, I scanned the rest of the article, reading the words but understanding none of them, seeing only that the story had already been shared hundreds of times on social media.
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.
His Surprise Baby Page 39
