Madness - Contract Marriage With the Devil

Do you want to do that?" Lanka Camet, my dramatic friend, asked for what felt like the millionth time. She shook and played the role of a wench in this underground club, a dark, seedy labyrinth of velvet and secrets.

Lanka was my rock, my lifeline to sanity when the world was going to fall apart at the seams. And it was falling apart with terrifying speed. Her real name was Princess, but she'd switched it the day she reached the age of maturity. No one called her by that name except her parents unless they were seeking a fight. She was breathtakingly beautiful—a goddess with long, silky black hair, an hourglass figure, and legs that seemed to stretch on eternally. But she strutted like a biker queen and her motto was "test-drive all the models." I loved her with an ardor as fierce as blood. And as for what I was going to do for my blood, that was something.

"No, I am not sure, Lanka," I spat, the shake in my voice giving away my bravado. "But I have to. So keep questioning before you caution me out of it and I am running out of here like the cowering little girl we both know that I am really being."

She never let my biting retorts get to her, not because she was immune, but because she was just as full of passion. "And you're really going to lose your innocence to a total stranger? No dinner, no candles, no other types of pleasure?" Her pushiness irritated me, but I understood that she was coming from a position of love and wanting to know that I had weighed every risk in my mind.

We'd gone over every plus and minus with a fine-tooth comb, but the unknown hung in the shadows.

I was a sex slave—a human being a slave to someone else's ownership, completely at the mercy of a domineering influence. "Whore" is a more appropriate term to describe what I was becoming. I had made myself completely available to one man, for financial gain. This included my loyalty, discretion, and utilization of my body in every possible shape, form, and way that it was required.

The irony was that I had not been forced into this life; I had chosen it. Not that there had been a better opportunity in time, but I had volunteered anyway. He did not make me do it. He did not find me. I had not been kidnapped or beaten into submission.

I did everything to keep a life. My brother, Jackson.

For my brother's life?" I asked, as she led me down a hidden passageway into the actual underbelly of the club. This was the point of no return.

Jackson Volkova was dying. He had a diseased heart, a condition that had grown with the passage of time. He had been brought to the brink of death following a bungled operation, and though he had recovered earlier, there could be no recovery this time. His light was burning too fast. And to add to his woes, his ill-conceived investments had accumulated a gigantic debt against him with people who would not accept failure. They needed the money, or else they would make him pay a pound of flesh. Jackson was so weak and frail that he was confined to bed, and my dad, Teo, lost his job because of the illness. He hadn't left his son's bedside, giving up his job to care for his child. I never blamed him. Jackson was his son, and Teo was a serious parent. But no work meant no health insurance. It was a question of living on the meager savings my father and mother had planned for retirement.

We were not even able to purchase health insurance.

Things had worsened again when Jackson's condition had deteriorated to the point that a heart transplant was his only option. The news had hit us all, but none harder than our dad. I had been witnessing my father day by day, wasting away, more worried about his son than himself. The purple circles under his red-rimmed eyes obviously indicated that he wasn't sleeping. However, he always put on a brave face for Jackson.

Whereas my brother had embraced the fact that he was going to die, my dad still had hope and it was destroying his very soul to see Jackson die a little more with every passing day.

I caught him one night after my brother had finally retired to bed. He slumped in his chair, face hidden in his hands, shoulders shuddering with jerky sobs. He hadn't wanted anyone to witness this. But I had.

I had to intervene. I was desperate to reunite them.

Lanka, my dearest friend, was aware of the situation. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and after seeing how desperate I was becoming, she finally shared with me the more scandalous activities that went on behind the scenes of the club. Michael Liloe, the owner, was what can be described as an overbearing businessman. He ran a classy game, not an open house auction, but a series of secret trials where women were swept up by the highest bidder power brokers. The club was the public face of his business, but the trials were his bread and butter. The first floor was a facade of loud music and inebriated debauchery, perfect cover for the classy game below. From what I understood, some of the women—myself included—did it willingly, and others had an obligation to Michael.

We were all selling our bodies as a matter of last resort to cover debt or save a life. Lanka told me the clients were guys with deep pockets. The world's most powerful people had a hunger for fantasies they would never want to be seen in the daylight. For a sufficient amount of money, they would have willing flesh without concern over their secrets being exposed. But chance would have it. I might find myself with someone generous and kind, or a dictator who reveled in dominating his possession.

My fortune had never been better, so I anticipated the latter. My brother's illness had required constant sacrifice, not just from my dad, Teo, but from me as well. Instead of going to college, I had stayed at home with Jackson. With my dad off work, they didn't have a reason for me to remain. I'd never had the desire. Jackson was my brother, and I loved him. In addition, I still hadn't made any decisions on what I was actually going to do with my future in the first place.