Chapter 2

TWO

brOOKE

Five minutes earlier

I breathe out and stare at myself in the brightly lit mirror after the stylist spends over two hours on my hair and make-up.

Like every mirror I’ve looked at the past eight weeks, a stranger stares back.

Who am I?

My hand lifts unconsciously to the mostly healed bash on the side of my head that landed me in the hospital two months ago with no memory of how I’d gotten there. Or any memory. At all. Even of my own name.

The long, lank dark hair I’ve been pulling back with a tie is now glossy and slightly curled in a cascading fall over my shoulders. My brown eyes look bigger somehow, with longer eyelashes that make me look startled when I blink at myself.

Virgin. Auction.

Holy fuck, I’m really doing this.

“You look beautiful!” Moira says gleefully, popping up in the mirror beside my face with an excited smile. “Quinn! Look what a grand job they did. She looks so much better!”

I bark out a laugh, grateful for the relief of tension. This past week was a harrying ride of introductions, contracts, and NDAs. And that was all between setting up my own bank account and getting settled in at Moira’s apartment, not to mention buying a wardrobe of clothes, which Moira insisted on charging to her card.

I met Moira at the women’s shelter—she volunteers there—and she let me crash at her place when they released me. I all but latched onto Moira and made her be my friend as soon as I met her six weeks ago. I might not know my own name, but it’s been nice to feel like there’s still some sort of me inside—a personality that lights up when I’m around the right people.

Moira’s got these big brown eyes that make her look all innocent and sweet, but she’s actually bawdy as a sailor. She loves sex and is unapologetic about it. She’s always telling hilarious stories about her latest hijinks—and she doesn’t shirk on the details. Turns out I swear like a trucker, so we fit like peas in a pod.

Some people with amnesia wake up and find they still speak a foreign language. I woke up telling people that fuck, I’ve got to go shit a cunting brick .

I didn’t have a purse or phone on me when I showed up at the hospital, so they assume I got mugged. I’ve scoured the thin folder of medical records they gave me like a detective seeking any clues to my own life:

Female. Estimated between twenty-two to twenty-four years of age. No broken bones. No evident sexual trauma at the time of the attack. Good teeth, but no dental records to be found anywhere. That made them think I grew up off grid or abroad, but I don’t have an accent of any kind. No surgical scars or anything else that could give them clues about my identity.

I’m perfectly healthy apart from the blow to my temporal lobe that caused significant trauma to my hippocampus. That little detail from the doctor’s report, I can pull up with perfect recall.

But anything before blinking groggily awake in the hospital in downtown Dallas?

Nothing. Zilch. Blank canvas.

But that’s not really true. I was somebody. And she’s still a ghost inside me. I wake up shaking from nightmares I can’t remember, feeling cold down to the bone. Her nightmares. I have to turn on all the lights afterwards each time. Whoever I was—whoever I am —is scared of the dark.

“Moira,” chides Quinn from the corner of the elegant changing room. “Don’t make it sound like she wasn’t beautiful before they put all that shit on her face.” Quinn stands with her arms crossed, intimidating in sleek black head to toe latex.

“Of course she is!” Moira says to Quinn, then makes eye contact with me in the mirror again. “Of course you are. You’re just more beautiful this way.”

She says it so without guile, I laugh again and turn to hug her. “I love you to bits, M.” Really, she’s made it all feel as smooth a ride as something like this could be.

Right now, we’re in a back room of the club, Carnal , with tons of bidders from what Moira casually described as “Billionaire’s Row” out front.

She seems so unaffected by wealth, but then again, she’s around it all the time with her rich brother, I guess. I still haven’t met him; everything’s been so busy. They weren’t always rich, I know from some of the conversations we’ve had. Moira grew up in poverty back in Ireland, but she still seems at home wherever she finds herself, in some of the fancy places she’s taken me this week or back at the women’s shelter. She got to the states when she was young, so she doesn’t have an accent anymore.

I’m generally so overwhelmed by the details of every room I enter that I’m just wide-eyed wherever I go. I couldn’t stop staring at everything at the salon earlier when Moira and Quinn took me to get my long hair trimmed a couple inches.

“You can still back out,” Quinn says.

“I’m fine.” I suck in a deep breath. “I’m doing this.”

“Or at any time,” Quinn keeps at it. “You say no, and we call it all off. This isn’t like some medieval shit. We’re all about consensual play.”

I look the stranger in the mirror in the eye and declare, “I want to play.”

Yes, auctioning off my virginity is insane. Especially when I don’t even know if I am a virgin. But as Moira pointed out when she presented the ludicrous possibility to me last week, “Your doctor’s report says your hymen’s not broken. Not that an unbroken hymen always means anything. But with the amnesia, it’s not like you remember your first time, anyway. So, for all intents and purposes,” she just kept chattering on, “you’re a virgin. It’ll be the first time for you, and that’s the whole point.”

“The whole point of what ?” I’d stuttered back at her.

“Oh! Didn’t I say? My head really has run away from me today. The virgin auction.”

She knew I wanted to make big money fast; just like I knew how to cuss and that I’m scared of the dark, I know I need money and that working minimum wage jobs aren’t for me. We’d previously been discussing Moira hooking me up with her friend Quinn so I could shadow her and learn how to be a professional domme. But then Moira got excited about this new opportunity that had come along.

The club, Carnal , was putting on a virgin auction, and it had a big payday.

I’m not an idiot. Or at least I like to think I’m not. I was skeptical.

But then Moira took me by the club one night last week so I could meet everyone else ahead of tonight. It didn’t look anything like it does now. I’m not sure she’d exactly thought through what all the leather and floggers would look like to an outsider, but Quinn saw us walking in and immediately came over. You’d think she’d be intimidating in her shiny black latex—wait, no, it’s not latex, what’d she call it? Oh right, PVC. Her black PVC.

But Quinn’s so down to earth, she had me laughing in seconds, and when she introduced me to the bouncer and the club owner who’ll be the emcee tonight, I felt a lot more at ease.

And then I just thought… Why the hell not? Yes, it’ll mean having sex with a stranger. But why not do this now, while I don’t know who the hell I am? Sure, some part of me wonders—what if there’s someone I’m intimate with in the life I lost that I’d be betraying?

But that thought is immediately followed with fury. Because if that was true, then where the hell are they? Why didn’t they come looking for me when I disappeared? They obviously didn’t look very hard. Even the news picked up the story and broadcast it everywhere.

I might not know who I am, but after waking up terrified and so, so alone, I know if I did have someone, I’d move hell and earth to find them if they up and disappeared.

The coldness inside me suspects the truth is far sadder. There was no one. I was alone in the world. Alone and scared all the time. Afraid of shadows. So why on earth was I in a dark alleyway at ten o’clock at night?

With the kind of staggering money Moira says I could make from the auction, I can really, truly start over. I’ll make my new life bright . Full of light and good things and friends who’d miss me if I disappeared suddenly.

I can start my new life… and hire a private investigator to find out who I was. People don’t just appear from nowhere out of thin air. While I’m busy starting a new life, I still need to figure out who I was.

Are we really anyone at all if we don’t have a past? Everyone I get to know tells me who they are by listing off who they’ve been. I can’t even explain why it’s so important to me. But I don’t feel… real. To myself, even.

There’s a whole person locked away inside me, and I need to know her. I don’t know how to go forward without knowing what was behind me.

And I need to know why I wake up screaming most nights, or I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. I need to know why .

So if I have to fuck a stranger for a chance at all the resources I could ever need to discover who I really am?

You bet your ass I’m going to take it.

Quinn looks at me skeptically from across the beautifully furnished dressing room suite. The whole club is insanely luxurious. There’s a sitting area with a couple of couches so elegant, I can’t imagine actually daring to sit on them. We’re in the open attached bathroom of the suite that’s almost as big as the kitchen back at the shelter. There’s both a shower and a bathtub. I dig my toes into the lush, soft carpet and nod.

“I’m ready to play,” I repeat.

“Okay,” Quinn says, shrugging. “There’s plenty of men out there happy to take you up on it. They’re all but slobbering to get a look at you. But just remember,” she leans over, and I gasp when she yanks a short, sharp knife out from within the top of her thigh-high boots. “We’re all just a room away if you need us.”

“Good lord, do you always keep that there?” Moira asks as she brushes past Quinn. “No, don’t answer that. Just put it away.” Quinn re-sheathes the knife but gives me a significant look.

“Domhn wouldn’t let anyone in who wouldn’t be respectful of the rules,” Moira says. Ah, the famous Domhnall, Moira’s brother, who I’ve not seen hide nor hair of. For as much as it sounds like he dominates Moira’s life and decisions, he’s been surprisingly absent this week. I expected to see him everywhere for as much as Moira talks about him .

“Show Quinn the outfit I picked!” Moira claps her hands excitedly. It makes her boobs bounce obscenely in her low-decolletage’d bandage dress.

I stand up carefully and unwind my robe. I’m wearing a sheer, white nightie with a collared neck that snaps at the back and has cutouts in all sorts of odd places. Moira had to help me get into it, I could barely figure the garment out. If you can call it clothing at all.

Two triangle silk cutouts completely expose my perky medium-sized breasts. My nipples harden from the cool air of the room. The rest of the gauzy, see-through fabric hangs artfully down my waist and hips, exposing my underwear. The crotchless panties are just as functionally useless as the rest of the garment. Well, I suppose it depends on the function one intends the nightie for…

I feel my cheeks heat at the thought. But then, I’ve tried to intensely avoid thinking about what actually happens tonight after the auction. I’ve been singularly focused on the prize.

“Now the shoes!” Moira rushes away towards one of the couches and picks up a shoe box, hurrying back towards me. She opens the box and presents the shoes. “Ta da!”

They’re gorgeous: white heels with lace overlay and gauzy straps that Moira sets to tying up my ankles after she waves me to sit back down on the chair in front of the mirror. They look like wedding shoes. I gulp a little and lift my legs to look. They’re beautiful and fit well. No pinching.

“We don’t even know if she can walk in high heels,” Quinn says.

“Let’s find out.” I grab on to the counter as I stand up, unsure. But it’s easy to find my center of balance, automatically leaning a little forward on my toes and clenching my calf muscles. Another clue. In my former life, I must have been comfortable in heels.

I look up at Moira, then over to Quinn. “It’s fine.”

Quinn just nods and walks towards the door, but Moira’s eyes catch mine when I look back at her. She gets the significance and reaches out to squeeze my hand.

Our other occupation this week was skill-hunting. Can I cook? No. Ride a bike? Nope. Paint? I made a disgusting brown mess on the canvas. The only thing I’m good at so far besides cussing is chess. I used to play with Gus, the older maintenance guy back at the shelter.

“We’ve barely gotten to catch up lately. It’s been such a whirlwind,” Moira says. She leans in intimately, grinning and all but bouncing up and down. “I’ve got a seeeee-cret.”

“Dear god, I hope it’s not about tonight.” I lift a hand to my chest. “I’m not sure I can handle much more.”

“No, no,” she says. “It’s just about my dumb life. Never mind.”

“Your life’s not dumb,” I exclaim, turning and grabbing her arm when she starts to pull away. “Tell me! You’re right, everything’s been so busy with getting ready for tonight, we’ve barely had time for girl chat. Plus, I could really use a distraction right now,” I laugh a little unsteadily. “What’s the secret?”

“Wellllll,” she says, drawing out the word as she coyly bites at the lacquered nail of her forefinger. “It might have something to do with a mutual acquaintance of ours. I’m being bad and breaking Domhn’s rules.”

Mutual acquaintance? We don’t have many of those.

“Someone from the shelter?” I ask.

“Oh god,” Quinn moans, coming up to us. “Don’t tell me you’re fucking someone outside the club again.”

Moira waves a hand breezily. “Oh, c’mon, he’s just a side fuck. What fun is following the rules all the time, anyway? And Jesus, I’m a grown woman. I can fuck whoever I want.” She grins, eyes glittering. “And you know I can’t say no to the thrill of the forbidden.”

“Domhn’s just trying to keep you out of trouble, babe,” Quinn says. “And there’s always plenty of men at the club.”

Moira rolls her eyes. “The same men, usually.”

“Well, tonight there’ll be all sorts of fresh meat.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Moira winks at Quinn in the mirror, then reaches down for a lip-gloss from the counter of cosmetics in front of me. She applies it, then pops her lips. “All those horny billionaires out there? I plan to get ridden as many times as me-lady can handle tonight.” She gives several over-exaggerated thrusts of her hips, complete with accompanying mock orgasmic whimpering .

“How are we friends?” Quinn deadpans as I burst out laughing.

Right then, a ping sounds and Moira looks down, pulling her phone out of her robe pocket. “Oh shit.” Her eyebrows shoot up as she looks at me and grins. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

I nod, shaking only a little. Her grin gets wider, and she wiggles her hips. “I’ll take your leftovers.”

I laugh again. I love how unashamed she is with her sexuality. Her and Quinn both. I will say I am… curious. But honestly, there just hasn’t been very much time or space to explore myself that way , between the hospital and the shelter and the exhaustion of running around the last week.

But being in this outfit and thinking of what’s about to happen… I bite my bottom lip. Maybe they’ll all be gross old men, and I’ll have to just close my eyes and count sheep or something till whoever wins is done with it. Fear and excitement war in my tummy as Moira waves for me to follow her. Because tonight doesn’t even matter, not really.

It gets me one step closer to my real life. One way or another, I’ll find out who I am.

“It’s really cool,” Moira whispers as we step into a darkened hallway. “There’s a little stage with lights that’ll all be on you. ”

“Cool,” I echo her, my throat feeling suddenly dry. Is it too late to ask for a drink of water? Or a shot of whiskey? Would that mess up the artful red lipstick the makeup artist painted on me?

“Here she comes now,” I hear a deeply pitched male voice announce loudly as we walk. “Open your minds to what’s possible as I welcome you to this unique, one-of-a-kind auction for a sweet, sweet little virgin. She’ll never have had any… ahem,” he pauses dramatically and waits for laughter, “but yours. You can teach her what sex and pleasure are. She’s a blank slate. And she’ll never forget her first. Will that be you? Are you really going to miss this one-of-a-kind opportunity? Someone’s going to fuck a beautiful virgin tonight!”

I blink as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Moira takes my hand and suddenly we’re at the end of the hallway. Except instead of opening into another room, there are steps up to a huge red velvet curtain. Like at a real stage.

Moira urges me towards the steps.

… oh. It is a real stage.

I guess I didn’t think about what the actual event would be like. I was a little more concerned with what comes after to really consider this part. All I can do is nod and keep my balance in the heels as I grasp the railing and climb the stairs.

Then I push through the curtain and step out onto the stage.