chapter 5
The Virtue Exchange website was sleeker than expected.
Less backroom brothel, more luxury auction house, all minimalist design and tasteful fonts.
What a relief that selling my virginity to strangers didn’t require navigating pop-up ads for penis enlargement.
Each testimonial stabbed like tiny glass splinters beneath my skin. Women spoke of liberation, of financial freedom, of weaponizing the very thing men had used to control them.
I scrolled through stories of college tuition paid, of businesses launched, of lives rescued from poverty. Their words were gospel to a girl who’d spent twenty-two years being told her only value was between her legs.
My stomach clenched with nausea, a physical rebellion against what I was considering. And yet.
Something shifted inside me, tectonic plates of identity grinding against bedrock conditioning. This body, this vessel I’d been taught to preserve like a museum piece, could become my salvation.
The very thing that made me valuable to my father could buy my freedom from him.
“Miss Wallace, dinner is served,” came the maid’s voice, startling me into slamming my laptop shut.
Later. I would decide later.
Dinner that evening would prove pivotal in ways I couldn’t have anticipated.
Father was uncharacteristically animated, mother perfectly vacant, and Caleb—seated diagonally across from me—looked unfairly good in a navy button-down that made his eyes impossibly blue.
“Excellent news, Mikaela,” father announced between bites of wagyu beef. “I’ve arranged your first meeting with Anthony Harris for next Friday. Lunch at Le Coucou.”
My fork froze midway to my mouth. “Next Friday?”
“Perfect timing,” mother added with robotic enthusiasm. “Gives you a full week to prepare.”
“Naturally,” father continued, “it’s scheduled for lunch—dinner would be far too intimate for a first meeting.”
I sat frozen, my gaze instinctively seeking Caleb’s, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were fixed on his napkin, which he gripped with enough force to turn his knuckles white.
“Isn’t this all a bit rushed?” The quiet question came from Caleb, his voice controlled but with an undercurrent I couldn’t identify.
Father laughed, that rare, unsettling sound. “The wedding’s in four months, Caleb. They need to start getting acquainted.”
“But you can’t force chemistry,” Caleb replied, his tone diplomatic but firm. “You don’t know if they’ll be a match.”
“They don’t need to be a ‘match,'” Father waved dismissively. “They need to be appropriate, compatible in background and values. The rest follows naturally.”
Caleb’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course. I just remember what it was like to be young.”
Under the table, my phone vibrated. Josie, responding to my SOS text.
Josie: I’ll clear my schedule. Will be at a nearby table to judge him mercilessly because that’s what best friends do.
* * *
That night, I returned to the Virtue Exchange website with cold determination. No hesitation, no moral quandary—just the methodical completion of each field.
Name. Age. Photos. Medical records.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was protesting being sold by selling myself.
When the confirmation screen flashed, I felt no relief—just a hollow victory that twisted like a knife between my ribs. I closed the laptop with shaking hands, oddly proud of this dangerous rebellion.
The next evening, while my parents attended some charity gala, the approval email arrived.
‘Congratulations! Your Virtue Exchange listing has been verified and approved. Your auction can now begin at your discretion.’
One click, and my virginity would officially be for sale. I pressed the button with steady fingers.
The days until my lunch with Anthony dragged interminably. I met Josie for coffee, where she oscillated between outrage about my arranged marriage and detailed plans to sabotage it.
“Just say the word,” she insisted, “and I’ll create a scene so catastrophic they’ll be talking about it at Le Coucou for generations.”
“Tempting,” I laughed, “but I think I’ve got my own plan brewing.”
Evenings at home became exercises in endurance, tolerable only because of Caleb’s continued presence.
My father had extended his invitation indefinitely while they worked on some mysterious business venture.
Each dinner was the same—father dominated, mother nodded, and Caleb occasionally caught my eye with looks that made my skin tingle.
Three days before my scheduled lunch with Anthony, I received the notification: ‘Your auction has officially begun.’
Bids started rolling in immediately.
$100,000.
$105,000.
$120,000.
The numbers climbed with dizzying speed.
The night before meeting Anthony, sleep proved elusive.
I tossed and turned, thoughts ping-ponging between tomorrow’s lunch and the steadily climbing auction price, last checked at $375,000, a bid that would only win if every other participant chose not to outmatch it.
By 6 a.m., I surrendered to wakefulness. Coffee was the only solution.
I padded downstairs in my sleep shorts and oversized T-shirt, hair messily piled on top of my head.
Mug in hand, I wandered onto the back terrace, the rising sun casting golden light across the manicured lawn. A movement caught my eye—someone in the garden. Caleb.
Shirtless. Barefoot. Performing what looked like military-grade calisthenics in just a pair of low-hanging sweatpants.
My coffee stopped halfway to my lips.
Sweet mother of God.
The muscles in his back flexed and rippled as he moved through push-ups, each one so perfect it could have been a fitness tutorial.
Sweat glistened on skin tanned golden from what I assumed were yacht trips with equally beautiful people.
He transitioned to pull-ups on the garden’s pergola, and my entire reproductive system basically short-circuited.
Each upward movement revealed abs that looked like they’d been carved by Renaissance sculptors who really, really understood female desire.
A bead of sweat tracked down his spine, and I found myself holding my breath, watching its journey with the focus of someone diffusing a bomb.
Heat pooled low in my belly, a liquid warmth I’d rarely allowed myself to acknowledge. My body was suddenly, acutely alive—tingling with an awareness that made me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
This wasn’t the carefully curated fantasy of a romance novel heroine. This was raw, animal attraction—urgent and undeniable.
For the first time in my life, I understood what people meant by desire. Not the abstract concept I’d read about, but this—this physical ache, this hunger.
I should look away. I didn’t. with the note that the winning bid would be the one left uncontested for a full twenty-four hours.
