CHRISTINE’S SUGAR DADDIES
I saw iting from a mile away. A little bit of empathy goes far, sometimes. This was far from the first time I saw our father crying.
“I’m broke,” he sobbed. “I’m broke, I have less than nothing, I’m in crippling debt, even.”
It was the first time he had done it in front of all three of us, and looking how Karen reacted, she was very surprised. Olivia was too, but she always tried to cover it up with some bitchy exterior. I knew my sisters all too well, and sometimes better than they did.
This suit came in and started crushing on Karen. She didn’t know a thing to do about it, and was probably flipping out. Usually, I would console her.
Nothing changed what father said however. It was true and I couldn’t help my sisters until I helped myself.
After the family meeting broke up, I headed back up the stairs. I was worried as the rest of them. Father was paying for my tuition at the best school in the state, Ivy League level. It was one of the ways I knew something was askew with his finances he didn’t pay in full, instead opting to pay by semester.
This semester was drawing to a close, and the next one wasing. I had gotten a mail or two about sending in payment for the next, and father was evasive when I did ask.
I was supposed to be the smart one. The one that would be the professor, and now, I wasn’t even sure that I could stay in college instead of standing in a checkout line ringing up some guy’s groceries.Belongs to (N)?vel/Drama.Org.
Opening the door to my room, I already had my friend in there lounging on my bed, her eyes barely breaking from her phone to acknowledge me.
She had kindly waited here when my father called for the family meeting.
“So who died?” she said.
“You’re as bad as my sister sometimes,” I replied, taking a seat at my desk.
“You do have that dour doom and gloom look on your face. I doubt your dad was telling you about the new puppy he got.”
“Bea, quit it. Yeah, it’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“I’m going to have to drop out of school because I can’t pay for it bad.”
She put down her phone and red at me. “How? Isn’t your family stupidly rich?”
“Was. My father just broke into tears like it was the worst thing to ever happen. Basically told us we’re losing this mansion soon and because he
dyed so long, we literally have no savings.”
“So you’repletely broke?”
“Yeah. Broke enough that I have to go get a real job on top of dropping out of school.”
Bea sighed. “You’re young and pretty, Christine. You don’t have to worry about that if you do the smart thing and you’re also smart, so you’re going to do the smart thing.”
“What’s the smart thing?”
“You’re not getting kicked out from the university immediately for being poor. There’s time. There’s a big frat party tonight. You should go there and unt your stuff, you know.”
I raised my eyebrow at her. “What are you implying, Bea?”
“Go get yourself a sugar daddy.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Completely,” she said, sliding off my bed. “A girl like you can have any man. Toe to a school like this you have to be loaded. Even a schrship usually isn’t enough. A lot of these guys already have millions themselves and would buy you the rest of your education in a second if it meant getting you to spread your legs.”
I turned away. I didn’t want Bea to see me blushing.
“Oh wait, I forgot, you’re Christine. You want to wait for true love, like it’s going to be in a movie where you fall in love instantly and have a big beautiful wedding night.”
“It’s not like that. I just,” I stammered, trying to think of a good excuse.
“You’re a virgin at twenty, Christine. You’re three years through college and you haven’t even had a boyfriend beyond that one that turned out to be gay.”
“Hank’s a nice guy. He said he needed me to make his mother happy.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t fuck you. Nothing is perfect. Nothing happens like in the movies. When lovees your way, it’s going to be in a weird ass package and you’re going to have to ept that. Til then, have fun, and take advantage of your rtionship status.”
“There you go again. I could just go get some student loans, Bea. I don’t need to whore myself out.”
“You’re studying anthropology. You going to pay student loans back on that?”
I cringed. I could, it would take decades though. It was a luxury of being born rich I could pursue whatever I found interesting, and not worry about its career viability. With what I was studying now though, I would have a life of living in crappy apartments and eating far more ramen than any person should ever have to.
Bea put her hand on my shoulder. “Not saying you need to go fuck everyone, but you have options, Christine. Don’t go being prideful trying to score a schrship, and be forced to rough it by doing all this studying while working part-time at Starbucks.”
It would be so much easier if I could have kept living how I did now, being the model student with all the privileged free time in the world to study.
Plus I would actually have a boyfriend, with all the benefits that would entail.
I had enough lonely nights with a spicy book and my fingers to realize that yes, that’s something I would very much enjoy having.
“Christine, tonight there’s a big event at this party I’m going to. They throw an ‘auction’ for charity. Donate all the proceeds to the local animal shelter.”
“What are they auctioning?”
“Girls.”
My eyes went wide. “Isn’t that illegal? Like, the thirteenth amendment is all against that.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be dense. It’s for ‘dates’. Rich frat boys throw money to get dates with girls they find attractive. The girls sign up for it. You should sign up for it.”
“How is raising money for charity remotely helping my problem? I mean, I love puppies too, but…”
“Seriously, stop being dense. There’s usually an unspoken agreement behind it. They plop down big bucks for charity, and the girl shows them their contribution are greatly appreciated.” She elbowed me. “If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t… oh, yeah that.”
“See, I knew you could stop being dense.”
“I still don’t see how getting meid solves the problem.”
“Well it’s fun for one. And there’s a high tendencies that the auctioned and the buyer aren’t just a one night stand. Like, they be an item a lot. The guy is giving massive amounts to charity while telling you he thinks you’re sexy in one swift move, it’s a pretty solid pick up line, and he’s already invested in you. Even if you don’t think he’s the greatest guy in the world, you could wrap them around your finger easily.”
There was some logic to what she was saying. Don’t t out say what my issue was. Be a doting girlfriend. When ites up, like it inevitably would, they’d protect their investment. “Alright. It sounds hical as hell, but I’ll do it.”
“And if all else fails, Christine, just tell them they don’t have to wear protection. You’re on the pill.”
“I’m not?”
“Don’t be dense.”
“You mean lie about that? That’s extremely hical!”
“Yeah, and these guys have more money than they know what to do with. You aren’t really hurting anyone. Besides, you wanted kids at some point anyway, right?”
“Yes, but, urgh, you’re really Machiavellian sometimes Bea.” I did always want a family. Just not in the way she was proposing. It was yet another way to take care of my problems though. They’d give me a nice giant settlement for me to make the problem go away.
“I do my best. Come on. We need to make sure you get the highest bid possible.”
The house was packed, and this was turning out to be as big of an event as Bea had advertised it to me as. There was no shortage of hot guys walking about, and no shortage of them making themselves considerably less hot as they did something stupid like shotgun a beer down their throats right afterwords.
I watched the process unfold in front of me. A girl would walk up and onto center stage. A bunch of cat calls happen. Dudes start throwing out numbers in the hundreds and low thousands range. Eventually only one bidder is left and he walks off with the girl. The girls mostly seem pleased, but I guess being as drunk as the bidders were only helps things. It wasn’t my usual scene, but I could understand the appeal.
“The next girling to the stage is going to be,” the MC announced, pausing a moment, likely to read a name, “Christine Van Hansen! Come on up Christine?”
I walked forward, trying to put on my best strut like Bea had told me to. The MC put on some bad from Leo Rose as I walked forward, the crowd hooting and hollering as I progressed. I was wearing a dress that did much in showing off my ample cleavage and didn’t go too far down my legs. It was again, Bea’s decision. I never had an eye for fashion so I let her pick, and she told me that this highlighted all of my best attributes.
I blushed as I looked around the room, all eyes on me. Bea wasn’t lying when she said guys would find me attractive. I never thought I was hot shit or on the other extreme self esteem issues due to my appearance, I thought I was average. For tonight though, it didn’t matter how hot I looked. It mattered how hot the boys thought I looked.
“Christine here is a first here tonight at our auctions, because at age 20, and despite being here for two years,” the MC then dropped to a hushed tone, “she’s a virgin!”
A chill went down my spine as it was announced. I nced around and saw Bea waving at me. This was her doing. She probably thought it would get people to bid higher for me and generate more money for the shelter. I thought it might attract the wrong kind of guy, personally.
I shook my head as people hooted and hollered my way, telling me that they would dly be my first, shouting out immature things like they were going to pop my cherry good or that I was so nice to keep myself pure for them.
“Let’s start the bidding at one hundred dors for Miss Van Hansen’spany.”
Someone quickly rose their hand at that. “Two hundred, do we have two hundred?” Another hand.
“Five hundred!” Someone from the crowd shouted out.
“Eight hundred!”
“I’ll take her for a thousand!”
It was all increasing so suddenly and so quickly. Of course, they were college dudes with huge disposable ies. What else did I expect?
One bold voice echoed out from the crowd. “Five thousand.”
The entire room suddenly went silent. No girl was bid on for over fifteen hundred all through the night before me. I looked toward the source of the voice. It was a tall individual, a chiseled jaw, clean cut. He had dark shabby hair just over his eyes. His clothing was ck, a ck jacket over a ck suit, but no tie, and wearing jeans underneath. I had to say if he was paying five thousand for me I would have expected a whole lot worse of results.
“All right, five thousand. Do we have anyone who can beat five thousand?”
“Ten thousand.” Another voice said, stepping out beside the dark clothed man. He didn’t look too much different aside from blonde hair.
Were they rted? Brothers?
Dark hair shot him a re. “So you wanna go to war over this Darren?” “Yeah, I want her.” The supposed Darren nodded.
“This is where we’re ying that hand then, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Winner gets her first.”
“Twenty thousand,” the unnamed darker brother spoke up.
What were they on about? Getting me first? I just looked on in confusion.
“Forty thousand,” Darren bid.
“What we’re just going to keep doubling each other like that?”
“Keeps it interesting.”
“We’re not here to practice multiplication tables, Carson. One hundred thousand.”
I just stood in awe. These two were brothers, fighting over me.
“Well folks,” The MC joined in, “Thanks to Christine, the dogs are going to eat mighty well for awhile.”
“A quarter million,” Carson countered.
“A half million.” Darren said, staring at his brother more than he was bidding on.
“They’re going to be eating Filet Mignon,” the MC added.
“Just go with a million. That’s where we’d say we stop, right. That’s what we agreed to, huh, Darren?” They looked like they were about to break into a brawl.
“Two…” Darren took a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll have your sloppy seconds. I’ll win her over that way, and show her how much more of a man I am than you, ‘big bro’.”
I just blinked.
Darren looked my way and walked toward me. “We’ll be getting to know each other very very soon,” he said, taking my hand and kissing it, his anger at his brother quickly reced with flirtatiousness at me.
“Well, is anyone going to beat a million dors?” The MC asked.
“Going once, going twice.”
The room was still in shock from what urred.
“Sold, to the man who either really wants this woman or really really loves animals.”
Carson walked over to the MC and scribbled out a check quickly.
“God, I hope this thing actually clears.”
“It will.”
“Then enjoy your million dor woman.”
He walked forward, taking my hand and leading me off the stage. There were murmurs now, but it was still mostly quiet. “Woohoo, you go girl!” Thanks, Bea.