I could see Madame Lorraine read the list that I’d spent the last ten minutes filling out. While she was reading, I surveyed her covertly. Though my dossier had included pictures of her, she still wasn’t what I would have expected. She was short and plump, her skin the colour of warm caramel. She was in her late fifties, but her face didn’t betray it. It was smooth and unlined. Just some crinkling around her eyes and a few lines around her mouth.
Laugh lines? Somehow, I doubted it. Madame Lorraine started holding her auctions after her sister was killed by a slaver. This was her own defiant gesture against the dark underworld of sexual slavery and human trafficking. Her attempt at letting go of her dark past and reaching towards the light.
You know that scene in the Matrix when Neo was expecting to see some super human being and when he met the Oracle, she turned out to be a cookie-baking grandmother? I had that same moment of cognitive dissonance when I first met Madame Lorraine.
“This is an auction for slaves and submissives with prior experience,” she spoke finally. Surprise after surprise, because her accent was about as upper-class British as I’d ever heard in my life. “Can you tell me where you were trained?”
Through a force of will, my mind stayed firmly in the present. “It was a private affair,” I replied briefly. “My former Master does not wish to be identified.” It was a fairly common response in a world where people dwelt largely in the shadows.
She nodded and I smiled inwardly. Lucien and I had prepared for this interview. Every question we had thought she might ask, I’d practiced my response.
“Why do you wish to participate in this auction?” One dark eyebrow was raised.
No doubt she’d already researched me and my past, my reasons for knocking at the door of her auction house. I had to trust that Lucien had done a good enough job falsifying the paper trail so that my cover story would hold up. “My twin-sister has leukemia.” My eyes lowered demurely and I twisted my hands in my lap. I’d practiced that gesture many, many times in front of the mirror. I needed to show that I was falling apart emotionally due to my sister’s illness and the fact that we didn’t have enough insurance to provide her with the treatment her body so desperately needed. Yet I also needed to project that I was strong enough to withstand the rigors of the next three months. I needed to convince her I was desperate for the money, but that I would still follow the rules and not sully the reputation of her auction house.
“My dear, I’m so sorry.” This time, her voice was warm with sympathy. “My own niece died two years ago from the same savage, wretched disease.”
I nodded again, blinking back the fake tears. I’d been taught, through painful beatings that were seared into my soul, to feel nothing and to hold back my tears. It took a conscious act of will to bring them forward at this moment, but I needed to show emotion to bond with Madame Lorraine over our mutual pain. It wasn’t random chance that my cover story had my sister dying of leukemia.
We were both sad for a moment, our shared grief binding us together. Just as Lucien and I had planned. Then she reached out and placed her hand on mine. Not a sexual touch, though there was always an outside chance that she would want me that way. I’d prepared for that scenario as well, but this touch was motherly. A simple gesture of comfort.
For an instant, I was almost undone. My mother had rarely touched me that way. Mrs. Olusola had offered me comfort and caused me pain with the same hand. When Lucien touched me, my body was only a weapon to be trained and moulded to his exacting needs. I wasn’t used to simple gestures of humanity.
“We usually require references or recommendations, my dear, but I’ll make an exception in this case. Of course, you’ll have to pass an evaluation at the hands of two of our trainers.”
Again, her words were not a surprise. When we had discussed this in our planning session, Lucien had given me a hard look. “I trust you’ll be fine, Ellie?” I knew he was referring to that night in Paris, two years ago, when I’d kneed him in the groin before running away. An instinctive response of fear and panic.
I tried not to think of what had happened after. I tried to forget the beautiful man who had touched my body and made me feel whole and complete and cherished. I didn’t have room in my life for that. I didn’t have room for Marc.
“Of course,” I said in response to Madame Lorraine’s question. My eyes were locked on my fingers, unseeing as the memories of the past threatened at the worst possible time. “I understand that an evaluation is expected. But I’d prefer that there be no penetration.”
No cock in my throat until I choked and gagged. No dick or fist in my * or in my dry, unlubricated ass. That was in the past.