CHAPTER 88: The Virgin’s Summer, Part 28
“I was at the Club,” says Haswell. “I had a ringside seat in the viewing gallery.”
“Oh, God…” I mutter, hand over my face, flushing.
He waits for a moment. “Charlotte, I’m quite sure that right now, your embarrassment is excruciating, but, it is not a difficulty. ‘Work hard. Play hard?’ I don’t have a problem with it. It is private business between the two of you.… Sorry, the three of you.”
Again, he waits for a moment, while my mouth tries to form words. When I fail, he fills in. “So, if that is all that this was about, we’ll let it pass, shall we? I assume there’s nothing else?”
“Er, well, yes, there is. You see the blackmail thing, it’s not to do with our relationship... exactly. It’s more to do with… how we met.”
Now, Haswell goes silent. He sits quietly, waiting.
Forcing the words out, “I needed money, badly. I auctioned myself. James was my buyer.”
He tilts his head, absorbing my words. “You say, he was your ‘buyer’? What was the nature of this ‘buying’? You mean, you prostituted yourself?”
“Er, not exactly, although I suppose a lot would see it that way. Um, I sold myself for a week, with er… my virginity. It was a contract, through an auction house.”
His voice is deadpan, expressionless. “And in this contract, you agreed to… what?”
“Anything,” I whisper, “anything that didn’t result in my permanent injury.”
He sits back in his chair. “You are telling me that James Alexanders, who I am about to appoint as a director, purchased a young girl... How old were you are the time?”
“Twenty-two.”
He raises his eyebrows. “... a young woman then, for purposes of...”
“Yes.”
He reaches over to his phone. “Francis, cancel my appointments for this morning please.”
“Yes, Mr Haswell.”
“I have several questions for you, Charlotte.”
I nod.
“Who is trying to blackmail you? Is it James?”
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
“So,” he continues, “about this blackmail?”
“There was a man, in one of your meetings. He recognized me. He was at the auction. He bid on me but got knocked out. He told me, he bought one of the other girls. He tried to make me agree to... When I refused, he said he would tell you. Destroy me, and James, in your eyes.”
“And the name of this man?”
“Ned Jansen.”
“Jansen?” His eyebrows rise. “Never did like the man much. Still, he’s not done anything yet... or…” He pauses, looking at the pile of mail on his desk. Meeting my eyes for a moment, he riffles through it. Most of it, he tosses straight into his outbox; standard fare that someone else will handle. He pauses at a large brown envelope, fat with contents. He turns it over. There is no addressee, or any other marking, on either side.
He rips away the top of the package, pulling out a sheaf of papers. Turning it upside down, he shakes, and something drops out: a flash drive.
He looks briefly through the papers, again, expressionless, then wordlessly, passes them across to me. Swallowing hard, I look through them.
I know exactly what they are: the brochure and marketing for the auction, including my details and photograph.
Staring at the floor, I take a deep breath. “Well, at least you’ve seen the worst of it.”
Haswell is silent and I look up. Is there a trace of sympathy in his eyes? “Perhaps…” he says.
He plugs the flash drive into the side of his laptop and swings it around so that we can both see it. It flickers up into video. In shock, I stare at the screen.
It is a movie, of me, standing on a podium. I am dressed, with a black leather collar around my neck.
“Oh, God,” I say, not knowing what to do with myself. Haswell simply watches, saying nothing.
The view is framed by the heads and shoulders of people, clearly taken by someone sitting in the audience. The auctioneer’s voice is clearly audible. And other voices.
“Raise your head. At these prices, I want to see what I’m getting.”
The ‘film me’ raises her head, chin tilted up, staring out, and looking as though she is going to burst into tears.
The horrible movie plays on... The auctioneer addresses me.
“Charlotte, it is entirely your choice, but are you willing to undress at this stage, on the podium? It will almost certainly help you to bring a better price.”
“Undress now? All the way?”
“It’s up to you, Charlotte. No-one is going to make you. But the better they can see what they are buying, the better your chances.”
It goes on and on, the bidding, the ever-mounting prices. At the end, the bang of the gavel, a leash attached to my collar, being led away by the man who is now my Master.
Haswell reaches forward and clicks it off. “Clearly taken by someone using a mobile phone or similar.”
I sit, flaming with humiliation, speechless with mortification.
“Charlotte, why did you need the money? What was going on, that you were willing to endure that? And what presumably followed?”
“I wanted to go to college, but the university fees...”
He cuts me off. “Fine. That’s all I need to know. Now... James was your buyer?”
“Yes.”
“As that film closes, it shows you, naked, being passed to him… on a leash.”
“Yes.”
“What happened after that?”
My mouth is dry. I fight the words past my lips. “Mr Haswell. It must be obvious to you what…”
“Yes, yes. The purpose of the exercise is clear. My point is that a man who I was about to appoint as a director on my board, paid a great deal of money to purchase, with no limits on his behaviour, a young woman…”
He sits back, his face hardening, anger there. “Did James… abuse you?”
I suddenly realise the turn of his thoughts. “Oh no! No, please don’t think that. No, he… he was wonderful. He was so kind and so gentle.” I blush. “Actually, I had a marvellous week.”
“You did?”
I feel I must stand up for my Master. “He told me… he told me, that he’d always had a fantasy about making it good for a girl on her first time. And he did. I was so scared, and he made it… “
Haswell relaxes a little. “Alright, Charlotte. You understand that I need to ask you a little more about this.”
I nod, swallowing hard.
“Are you still ‘contracted’ to James?”
Shake head.
“You are under no obligation to him?”
“No, after the week was up, I left and started at college, but I came back when I could. I wanted to see him and Michael again.”
“Michael?”
“You saw him, at the Club.”
“The blond man?”