by Chloe Cox
“Gerald, are you sure you gave him the card?”
That is, at this point, a recurring nightmare: Cedric doesn’t even get the card, he doesn’t show up, and everything is ruined. Never mind the apocalyptic scenario of him actually getting the card and deciding he doesn’t want to show up; I won’t even let myself think about that one. The whole point is that I have faith, right?
“Yes, Claire. For the millionth time, I gave him the card.”
“And you didn’t read it?”
Gerald briefly looks up to the sky, as though asking for patience.
“Ok, a million and one times, then: no, I did not read it, I only delivered it to its intended recipient. Just like you asked.”
Gerald is, I have to admit, being a really good sport about the whole thing. He has a pained look on his face, standing there, holding my box of supplies, in the middle of the front plaza of the Art Institute. He’s one of those guys with enough money and enough social standing that he probably sits on various boards and committees or whatever with the people who run this place, and I’ve got him setting up a makeshift lectern in a public place, and he’ll have to do far worse things before we’re through. He’s more good-natured about it than you’d expect any victim of mild blackmail to be – I told him, only half-jokingly, that I’d complain that my shrink hit on me if he didn’t help me.
I don’t think that’s why he’s doing it, though. I mean, even I know that wouldn’t fly. I think he’s doing it because he wants me to succeed. He wants Cedric to be happy. I’m not sure what convinced him I was on the up and up, but he seems to have come around.
But I don’t really have time to think about all that now. I can see he’s almost done setting up, and there’s only ten minutes before my formal interview is supposed to start.
I’ve made some changes to the “formal” part.
And the “interview” part.
I just hope the interviewers have gotten their own cards, inviting them to my alternative interview space, and that they’re actually intrigued by that and not annoyed. Gerald said he would do his best to make sure they turned up. I’ve chosen to believe him.
“How’s it coming, Gerald?” I ask, trying not to wring my hands in public. There’s already a crowd gathering, probably due to my outfit. Or what they can see of my outfit. I’m wearing something very similar to the front-clasping bra and panties that the Doctor prescribed on a previous appointment, only with a mostly see-through, back-plunging dress over it, and some matching black heels and gloves, and over all of that is my trusty trench coat. Unfortunately this makes it look like I’m wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels. So I’m attracting a bit of a crowd.
Well, not entirely unfortunately. I do have a purpose in mind. I just hope I can go through with it.
“Good,” Gerald grunts. He is, at this moment, busy drilling a few pieces of wood together. From where I stand it looks like a passable lectern. Or auctioneer’s dais, as it were. Much more deliberate, if not quite as dignified, as the huge marble stone thing on which I intend to stand.
The Art Institute plaza is just littered with these huge, marble stone things. They’re probably part of some massive artist statement or whatever, but if they are. . . well, let’s just say that I’m not impressed. Or wasn’t impressed, until I realized I could use one in my interview/brand-new performance piece. Specifically, the one that impedes the steps from the street up to the Art Institute like a giant stone in the middle of a stream. You have to walk around it to go up the steps, but then halfway up you’re level with this pointless marble shelf. Students take smoke breaks and eat lunch on top of these marble blocks, letting their legs hang over the edge and turning their faces to the sun. I’ve always envied them. And right next to the base of that marble impediment is where Gerald is busy setting up his lectern.
So while Gerald puts the finishing touches on his lectern, I walk up a few steps, and step out onto the top of this marble block and look down, for the first time, at the crowd gathering below. I feel like a statue, like I am my own work of art, about to be put on display.
In a way, that’s exactly what’s about to happen. But I’m really only here for one person.
“You ready?” Gerald asks, squinting up at me.
“Maybe.”
He smiles gently. “Getting cold feet?”
“No!” That is not what this is. I’m just nervous. I still have faith. “Give me the placard, and the marker.”
Gerald rummages in his bag o’ supplies, and comes up with a hastily constructed placard on a string. He’s supposed to hang it on the lectern, right below the collection bowl, if he can’t find a way to fix it to my improvised marble stage.
“Have you decided what you’re going to write?” he asks.
“Of course.”
I write in big, capital letters,
ART
for sale
all proceeds go towards tuition
and hand it back to him. He studies it for a second.
“Is this a statement on commercialism versus art?” he ventures. “Something about the conflict between the personal nature of art and the commercialism needed to sustain it?”
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s go with that. That’s going in my artist’s statement.”
Gerald frowns, and for the first time I see that he was also genuinely excited to be part of an artistic endeavor.
“So it doesn’t mean anything?” he asks.
“Of course it does.”
I shake my head to let him know I won’t explain any further, not to him. The truth is some things are so important they’re only felt, and not spoken. I remember reading that somewhere: some things must be passed over in silence.
Those are the most important things.
Gerald seems to get it. He nods, and begins to set up the placard and collection bowl. In a second, on a signal from me, he’ll announce the start of the auction. I am almost light-headed with excitement. I squirm, just wanting to feel my skin brush against the very little clothing that adorns my body, to feel my thighs slide against each other. Despite the unseasonable chill, I’m very warm.
I can’t help but scan the crowd. I don’t see Cedric, yet. A few men stand out: an obvious student, working on a James Dean look; a guy in construction boots and wearing a tool belt, waiting in line at the hot dog cart; a young guy, not much older than me, in an expensive suit, pounding out emails on his Blackberry during his lunch break.
“Gerald,” I hiss down.
He runs over, weirdly attentive. I think he expects me to chicken out. I think he thinks he needs to protect me. It’s sweet of him, but my one concession to my anxiety, my doubt, is this:
“Gerald,” I whisper. “Will you give me a sign? When he arrives? If he arrives,” I correct myself. “Will you let me know?”
“How?”
Shit. Gerald will be at the lectern, addressing the crowd. It would kind of ruin the piece to have him interrupt and call Cedric out.
“A code word,” I say, and immediately I know what word I’ll choose. “Work a code word into your spiel when you see him.”
“What word?”
“Prison.”
It’s the safeword Cedric gave me the first day we met. It’s been ever-present, a reminder of our agreement, of the trust involved. I can see from Gerald’s face that he also considers it a difficult word to work into auctioneer-speak, but that’s his problem. I smile at him, truly grateful, and remind myself to be nice to him in the future.
“It’s time,” I say.
Gerald moves back to his lectern to watch as I carefully unravel the rich, black blindfold I’ve been carrying in my pocket. I tie it around my eyes as securely as I can, although I can’t quite achieve a blackout effect – tiny shards of daylight poke through from under my eyes, near my cheeks. If I tilt my head I might even be able to see the crowd, but I stay strong, and true to the process.
And then, standing high atop that marble dais, I shed my coat.
And then there are the first awkward smatterings of applause. A catcall. More uncertain applause. A cry of “take it off!” from the same general area as the catcall. I try to mentally map the crowd as I remember it, but it’s difficult – only a few people stand out. I have no idea who is having what reaction. I have no idea what people are thinking.
It’s profoundly disorienting. Heightening. Like the first day of school, or being the new kid, or embarrassing yourself in public. I am exposed.
But not nearly as exposed as I’m going to be.
“Ladies and gentlemen! May I have your attention, please?” Gerald’s voice rings out across the plaza, and even I’m impressed. The man’s had some kind of dramatic training. “And gentlemen, you may want to pay particular attention, because what I have here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! This lovely thing will be auctioned off, piece by piece, before your very eyes.”
Silence from the crowd. I expected that in the beginning. They don’t know how to react, what to do. For me, it’s much more basic: I don’t know what to do with my arms. It feels wrong to just stand here, like I’m waiting for a bus or something. I have to strike some sort of seductive pose, something appropriate, but it’s so hard not to feel ridiculous.
So I imagine Cedric out there, watching me. I know he’s not there, but it still helps.
I put my leg out, weight on one hip in the classic contrapposto, one hand on that weight bearing hip. I push my chest out, my chin up, my neck long and proud. And I discover that I can just barely see the edges of the crowd through the bottom of my blindfold if I keep my head up in this snooty position.
Perfect.
“That’s right,” Gerald is calling to the crowd, “every delectable bit of Claire Donner will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, right here, right now. It’s for a good cause, gentlemen.”
I guess he points at the placard, because there’s a sudden wave of understanding, relieved laughter. The people who live and work around the Art Institute must be used to art student stunts. I wonder if any of them realize I’m completely serious.
“The first lot on our block today is. . . the lovely gloves worn by our Claire, and the right to remove them.”
I imagine Gerald doing a little eyebrow waggle there. He gets some nervous laughs, and I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling. The adrenaline is rising in my blood; my skin is coming alive at the thought of what’s coming. The only thing missing is Cedric.
“Gentlemen, I open the bidding for the gloves at five dollars!” Gerald bellows. “A paltry sum, so little for such a memorable experience, and a fantastic memento. Do I hear five dollars?”
I cannot move. I cannot betray my nervousness, my desires, my humanity. I have to let this play out, even while I scream on the inside. It’s only now that I realize how much comfort Cedric has been during all of our appointments, how much of a difference it made to know he was out there, watching me. Still, I can do this. I can be brave.
“Gentleman? A bid of five dollars, gentlemen, five dollars, will get you these lovely gloves, and the right to remove them.”
Being blind is forcing me to think differently. I can’t see what’s happening, so I have to imagine myself in their place, in the crowd. They are nervous, and unsure. No one wants to be the first one to act. But someone must, or it all falls apart.
“You sir!” I hear Gerald cry, and then a localized chorus of laughs and half-articulated comments from the right side of the crowd. He must have spied a group of friends. I can hear them, urging each other on, a gaggle of male voices, each trying to be heard above the rest. Finally, a burst of applause.
“Five dollars!” a young male voice calls out.
“Five dollars going once, going twice. . . .” Gerald allows for a theatrical pause. “All right, we’ve got more lots to move, so let’s keep this rolling. Five dollars in the jar, sir, and then you may go collect your prize.”
I try to hide my initial disappointment. Five dollars is crap. But, really, the price is not the point, not even a little bit, and now I can almost feel the energy of the crowd change. They’re into it, now that someone has broken the ice. The applause and cheers follows my first buyer up the steps, so that I can nearly track his progress; near the edge of my marble stage he does something I can’t see, some hamming for the crowd – they cheer. I swear I can feel it when he steps onto my marble stage. A change in the air, a thickening, a swirling eddy in the currents between us. I am about to have a stranger’s hands on my body.
An electrical thrill courses through me. It’s just my hands, I know, but there’s the promise of so much more.
It’s chilly enough that I think I can feel the heat of him when he’s near. His friends get excited, hooting from below. I realize he’s getting a good look at me for the first time, that my dress is almost completely see-through up close. That he can see the gooseflesh rise on my arms, that he can see the muscles strain in my neck, that he can see my chest flutter as I try to hide my excitement.
“You must be freaking freezing.” The voice comes from behind me, on my right side. I hadn’t thought much about interacting with my buyers – it feels weird. Still, weirder to ignore him. I bite my lip again, and give the slightest nod.
“Come on, Jason!”
His friends are getting impatient, clapping their hands together, laughing. They want to see how the rest of the auction plays out.
So do I.
He comes around me and goes for my left hand first. I inhale at the shock of his touch; I was expecting him from my right. He pauses, but I maintain my poise.
His warm fingers slowly work away the glove, unsure at first, then steady, rolling it down my wrist. He grasps my forearm with one strong hand, and tugs, one after the other, on the tips of my gloved fingers. He is deliberate, and slow, and the thought of any man paying such minute attention to even one part of my body quickens my breath.
“Attaboy!”
This cry is louder, ruder, out of place. I imagine that I feel Jason flinch.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, and strips the rest of the glove away with little ceremony. I hear it flutter as he raises it aloft, like a trophy. The crowd cheers again.
He wastes no time moving around to my right side, where he is confronted with my hip. And my ass, I imagine, fairly visible in the fluttering of my sheer dress. My hand is resting very comfortably on that hip; he’ll have to touch me there.
I feel a slight shiver race up my spine, but I’m able to conceal it.
Then he slips his own hand underneath mine, cupping the curve of my hip, the heat of his palm burning through my flimsy dress to my bare skin.
There’s no hiding the shiver now.
He lets his hand rest there for the tiniest moment, a tiny squeeze, and then he tears my hand away and strips the glove in one fell swoop.
His friends cheer. Polite applause spreads to other areas of the crowd.
“Worth every penny!” he shouts down, and I have to stop myself from smiling.
“Now that you see what fun can be had, ladies and gents, it’s on to the bigger ticket items,” Gerald calls out as I hear Jason bound down the steps. I’m alone again, on stage, minus one set of gloves and five dollars richer. Everything is going according to plan, except for one thing: where is Cedric?
“The next lot we have here is a bit more exciting. . . .” Gerald pauses, either for dramatic effect, or because he can’t believe what I wrote. “Claire’s bra, and the right to remove it!”
There’s a brief hush, and then more laughter, more applause: they see it’s for real. And it’s all ok, because it’s art. I’ve set this thing in motion, and I don’t know if I could stop it, even if I wanted to. The thought sends a shudder down my torso, ending in a flutter of contractions in my abs, and then lower, curling around my pussy like a python. I have to breathe deep.
“Start the bidding at fifty dollars! Do I hear – yes, I do, from the gentleman in the leather jacket! Do I hear sixty?”
The bidding moves fast now, but I find I’m only listening for that one word that I want to hear more than any other. But the bidding comes to a close without any mentions of prisons. I don’t even know what the final price was.
“Sold, to the gentleman in the leather jacket! Congratulations on your purchase, sir!”
There’s less applause this time, and the awkward change in the crowd’s energy is almost palpable. This is different from gloves. Decent people probably can’t believe this is about to happen in a public place; no one wants to admit their enthusiasm, their arousal. I used to be like that once. Now I can revel in the insistent growing pressure around my clit, in the wetness seeping onto my thin panties, at the pull I feel down below. All because of a man who isn’t even here.
There are fewer cheers this time, fewer cues for me to follow as the man in leather ascends to my little stage. Not knowing where he is or when I’ll feel his hands on me sets me to hard, fast little breaths.
His breath comes hot on my neck.
I inhale quickly, involuntarily; it’s all I can do to keep from moving. The muscles in my pelvis clamp down, as though gathering together in preparation, and I struggle to appear nonchalant, unresponsive.
But then I feel his hands part the stylish folds of my dress where it plunges in back, and my gasp is audible. I know it’s audible because I know he hears it, because his fingers spread out around my back in response. The rough pads of his fingertips caress the delicate skin on the sides of my body as his thumbs feel for a clasp in the back strap of my bra. He has big hands.
