So silent, it was an assault, not empty silence, mind you, but heavy silence which pressed on me from all sides in a small, windowless room where I had been left to wait. It contained a single piece of the most unforgiving wood in the shape of a chair, and I have been standing for what I feel is the maximum time that I can refuse to use it-with sunk teeth. To use it would mean to accept. To wait patiently for my own slaughter. The air was stuffy and bore the faint cloying scent of a chemical cleaner that can only fail to mask along with sweat and old fear-the old smell of sweat and ancient fear. My fear. And that of whoever had been here before me. Cold perspiration dripped from my hands, and I clenched them into fists at my sides, where my short, clean nails dug into my palms. The mild ache was an anchor, one tiny point of reality in a world that had dissolved into a nightmare.
My father's face flashed in my memory: not the smiling, laughing father of my childhood but rather a desperate, hollowed-out stranger whom he had become. Three nights ago, the image of him filled me-with eyes that betrayed a terror that dwarfed my own, the deep shivering hand-quaking as he succumbed to telling me what he had done. He would call it a deal-it would be called a remedy. He had promised to a man whom he could not repay with money the only currency left; me. The memory was a fresh stab of betrayal exactly so potent that it almost buckled me. I had screamed at him then in a raw, wounded sound. That scream, however, is now caught in my throat-a solid lump of rage and terror that I cannot swallow.
Without a knock, the two heavy men clad in dark suits filled in the door. They didn't speak; they didn't have to. Their expressions were slabs of granite, devoid of pity or interest. One gestured with his chin, a silent command to follow. My feet felt like lead, but some primal instinct for survival forced them to move. I walked between them down a long carpeted hallway, and the plush runner absorbed the sounds of our footsteps, erasing our passage. We were ghosts here.
They pushed open a pair of enormous mahogany doors that led into the great black void of the ballroom. Such a ballroom I had never before seen except in an art history textbook. There were gilded rococo carvings dripping from the ceiling and huge frozen chandeliers dangling overhead, their light purposely dim to cast longer, darker, more menacing shadows. And there were not dances and couples alike; rather, there were armchairs in semi-circle formation encircled around a small, raised platform. It was my very stage. My auction block. The miasma hit me immediately-thick, expensive bourbon, rich cigar smoke, and finally the predatory scent unmistakably belonging to powerful men. It is the smell of a lion's den.
With their grip firm on my upper arms, they directed me up to the platform. The emerald green silk of the dress I wore felt grossly out of place, a gory slash of life in a room steeped in gloom and decay. They had selected it, of course; the color brought out the flush in my cheeks and the burn in my auburn hair. It was for marketing. I was an object to be exhibited, evaluated, and sold. As I stepped onto the dais, a low murmur involuntarily rippled through the assembled crowd. I could feel their eyes on me, dozens of them baring me more efficiently than any touch could. I saw glimmers of them-a gleaming gold watch on a thick wrist; the predatory arc of a smile on a man in the front row; the cold, dead eyes of another who looked more like a butcher than a businessman. My mind hyping itself up and cataloguing the sights in a desperate act of preservation, it was an alive Caravaggio painting trying to survive. Tenebrism at its most terrifying-extreme contrasts in light and shadow with an absolute darkness dominating, the figures up from that black background, faces displaying lechery and cold calculation.
I forced myself to look out, to face the oppressive weight of their collective gaze. I would not cower. I scanned the faces, the indistinct shapes in the gloom. Most were blurs of entitlement and brutish power. But one figure, seated in the deepest shadow at the very back, was different. I couldn't see his face, not clearly, but I could feel him. While the others radiated a loud, boorish energy, his was a void. A silent, immense gravity that seemed to pull all the light and sound in the room toward him. He was perfectly still, a predator conserving its energy, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. It was the primal fear of a mouse realizing the hawk is no longer circling, but has already chosen its target.
A flawless tuxedo, a man whose silver hair gleamed under dim light, stepped on the stage beside me. He did not even cast a glance at me, as though I were a part of the furniture. His voice, when he spoke, was a smooth, chilling baritone that slid over the crowd like oil on water, silencing the murmurs instantly.
"Gentlemen," he began, his tone resonating with practiced authority. "Thank you for your patience. We have truly exceptional offerings this night. A rare piece: untouched and of impeccable lineage." He gestured sweeping toward me: his hand stopping shy of touching my back. "Lot 7. Twenty-two years of age. Healthy. Educated." He paused, letting the words dangle on the verge of absorption. "Purity, lineage, and spirit. A rare gem in today's market."
He made me feel as if blood were running cold through my veins at this robotic narration. He was putting on the block a prize filly, not a human being. The same rage burned hotter in my chest-an impotent inferno. I locked my jaw, raised my chin sharply higher, and stared straight ahead into darkness, refusing to look at the auctioneer or the leering faces. I would give them my presence but not my submission.
The auctioneer smiled, an expression that was thin and reptilian. "We shall start the bidding at one million dollars."
The silence hung on that heartbeat-just the one, agonizing. Then, from the front row where the butcher-eyed man sat, up went the numbered paddle. "One million," he ground out.
The auction of my life, my body, and my future had begun.