The October Gentlemen

I should run away. I should definitely bound right out of the door and into the yard, through the path I have walked multiple times as I planned my escape from this dignified sale of my body. Given the head start, I could probably lose my expected horde of pursuers if I stick to the plans I made and fortified the past few months before this dreaded but expected event.

Smiles float around me, most of whom I would rather deem as fake because if they are anything short of pretentious, it would mean that the world is an even more wicked place than the books that I hide to read say. My mind, however, doesn’t register any faces at the moment, not enough to give me a target to hate after I have been handed over to one of the Gentlemen, the one who is most likely the richest of the lot. Mother says that’s how its supposed to be, because I am ‘the most deserving of all girls this season.’

Its why I begin to find holes in my premeditated plan; they would never let me go that easily. For reason of being of ripe age at the right time and beautiful, I sit at the very center of attention. The other girls have better luck than I do at escaping, and it just now occurs to me that maybe last night while we sat around the open fire for the last time, that maybe I should have have briefed them of the path I made and the point where you stop following that path to go through the forest without fear of anyone following behind because further down the deserted path would are red herrings to make it seem like someone was there. Maybe I would be more fulfilled if at least just one of us got away.

So I sit stuck in the midst of the negotiations and bidding while being unable to even show the slightest bit of my distaste beneath the layers and layers of makeup aimed to make us look even more appealing. I am resigned to fate and don’t have much of a fight to put up anymore than just to watch without a smile, the smallest bit of disobedience to Mother’s teachings I can manage.

The men, contrary to my imagination of nastiness so that my thoughts to bite off one of their ears would be justified, are ever truly as gentlemen who don’t even want us for themselves but for the rush of young sex workers that supposedly make their older clients feel youthful. These men have gentle smiles and a pathetic look in their eyes, but nothing about them allures the hate I have to give, even though they are about to take us out of our ordinary and into a life of bondage.

There is one that has held my gaze since. My subconsciousness seems to hate him the most. Instead of huge yellow cat-like eyes, his are a dark brown and patient, watching me from across the room and no one else. Instead of lips parted in an ugly snare to show his fangs to compliment his grim face, he is more of a subtle kind of handsome. A gentleman.

They have overruled my fantasy of what they would be like, sitting poised and calmly going about their auction like it was the most natural thing to be buying human beings. But not him, he just sits quietly staring at me and I already know that he will be the one to get me. He seems to know it too. They all do.

Maybe he’s the one Mother meant as deserving of the best that this season had to offer. So when my turn comes, after having being saved for last, the bidding is short. Most of the Gentlemen sit back with ogling eyes while puffing on big cigars so that the atmosphere is thick with smoke. Some try nevertheless; it is the first time I hear his voice that resounds with such finality.

The event is wrapped up after. There are no tearful goodbyes, Mother had taught us better than that. We all file out of the large sitting room to the yard filled with the shiny cars of the Gentlemen, and little by little the yard empties of cars and girls.

His calm smile infuriates me as he guides me to his automobile, engine started and ready to move by the driver that sits in it. In a final act of defeat, I let my eyes flicker over the compound one last time before I settle into the plush leather seats of the car and the door comes closed to conceal the tear drop that escapes my eyes.