Meeting my eyes for a moment, Haswell riffles through his mail. 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.copy right hot novel pub