Auction Ch. 02

"Danke," he groaned, leaving her to dry herself and follow him back to bed.

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A miserable Steve nursed a terrible hangover. He had chosen to walk back to his hotel rather than take a cab, thinking that it would both absorb some of the time he would be spending alone and give him something to concentrate on other than what Dianne might be suffering for their future together.

Having arrived at his room several hours later, called room service for a pizza and a bottle of single malt scotch. After three mouthfuls of the pizza, he rushed to the bathroom and threw up. The rest of the pizza went straight into the bin. The first whisky was delightful. If he had not been so miserable, he might even have enjoyed it. The second was gulped down moments later and from there on he did not bother to refill the glass but slugged the liquor straight from the bottle. He fell asleep without changing out of his street clothes.

The bottle of Glenlivet sat on the bedside vanity, almost empty.

After emptying his bladder, Steve called room service again to order a light breakfast. The result echoed the previous evening. He barely made it to the bathroom in time to throw up the couple of mouthfuls he's eaten.

Still in a funk, he showered and after changing into fresh clothes, felt a little better.

His thoughts immediately turned to his wife. Where would she be? Could she be suffering at the hands of a predator? It suddenly occurred to him that he had no way to contact her other than through the auctioneer and under the terms of their agreement, it would require a life and death situation for them to break into a contract assignment of a slave.

A secondary question occurred to him. Was it really worth a miserable ten thousand dollars to sacrifice his wife for a weekend? He wondered whether she had been a desirable asset at the auction, and how many men would bid for her services for the weekend. The fact that she had not returned to him overnight was evidence enough that bids reached the reserve price, but how much was she worth?

A sudden inspiration sent him scurrying to his briefcase to fire up his laptop. Moments later he was thumping in the password to their bank account. What he saw there beggared belief. There must be an error, he thought. A deposit in excess of $160,000 Australian had been made. Some quick arithmetic and conversion calculations later suggested that this amounted to 90% of $125,000 US. Surely no man would pay that sort of money to purchase the services of a sexual slave for a weekend! And if they DID pay out that sort of money, what would they expect in return?

His worried mind went into overdrive.

By Saturday afternoon, Steve realised that he had to do something to try and take some positives from their situation.

The money would solve their current problems for at least a year and surely by that time at least one of them will have found work. A trip to a movie theatre provided a couple of hours of light relief but as evening fell, the misery returned and still unable to eat, Steve meandered to a casino. Playing low level pokies, he made his few dollars to while away several hours. He declined several offers from women seeking his company and completely exhausted, returned to his room after midnight.

Chapter 3 is in the works.