Sold to the Prince of Dubai

Chapter 3 : Drunken Consequences

Lyla

As the dim light from the sun outside cast shadows into the room I was in I began to stir. My eyes slowly opened but the feeling of a thousand knives stabbing me in the head reminded me of the drunken stupor I had been in the night before. I had no idea where I’d ended up last night after collapsing, but from what I could tell from my aching back and stiff neck, it wasn’t in my bed.

“Oh, what the f*ck…” I muttered to myself as I slowly sat up. My hand felt around for my phone before landing on a hard surface that I tried to focus on. “Coffee table?”

Shit. I had fallen asleep at a weird angle on Sven’s sofa and with the littered cans and cups around the area, it was clear that we had one hell of a rager last night. I hated being hungover. I was never graceful about it, nor was I one to be able to feel normal the next day. You’d think I’d learn my lesson during my first year at college, but apparently, I was doomed to repeat mistakes.

Looking around for my phone, I spotted it lying on the floor halfway under the table in front of me. My hands fiddled with the edges of it as I bent down, picking it up. The moment I pushed the power button, watching the screen come to light, I took in the five percent battery life and the fact that it was barely past eight.

Ugh. What a welcome back to school.

Rising slowly to my feet, careful not to jostle myself too much in case my stomach decided Sven’s carpet looked like a great place to redecorate. I made my way toward the kitchen, the sound of someone quietly moving around within it bringing me hope that they had Tylenol and water to help soothe the current ache within my body.

“Morning.” I groaned, my eyes focusing on Melanie who had always been an early bird. She didn’t look too much better than I did with her rat nest styled bed head and wrinkled clothing, but as usual, she had a smile on her face when her eyes met mine.

“Morning!” she whispered loudly.

“Jesus,” I snapped, placing a hand on my head. “Why are you so happy this morning when last night was a complete s**t show that will take me weeks to recover from?”

Laughter escaped her as she shrugged her shoulders. “Because I am. Now here, take these.”

Turning around to the fridge she grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to me with a bottle of Tylenol she swiped from one of the cabinets.

“Ugh, you're a lifesaver,” I groan, eagerly accepting the bottles.

“So I’ve been told,” she replied smugly.

“What’s that?” I asked after downing the Tylenol, nodding to the bowl in front of her.

“Pancakes. Want some?”

Even though I felt like throwing up at a moment’s notice, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for fresh pancakes. “Sounds amazing.”

Noise from above us cut me off, and glancing up at the ceiling, I heard the telltale sound of Sven’s bed rocking against the floor.

“I take it he and Claudia are back together?”

Melanie shrugged at me, scooping small spoonfuls of batter into the hot pan. “Who knows?”

A loud groan carried through the ceiling, followed by the headboard smacking against the wall. I would never understand how she could be as loud as she was. I mean, of course, it wasn’t the first time I heard them f*ck but damn… he made it sound like it was painful.

“Guess that answers that question.”

Melanie smiled in amusement at my comment as she turned her focus back to the pan in front of her. “I’m surprised they have so much energy after last night.”

“No s**t,” I replied, rubbing my hand over my face. “I feel like I was hit by a bus.”

Melanie laughed, glancing at me from over her shoulder. “Yeah, I think you were the most drunk last night.”

“I don’t doubt it with the way I feel,” I replied, my head reminding me that I wasn’t in any shape to carry on with a proper conversation or think too deeply.

Melanie continued to flip over the pancakes and let them sizzle in the skillet as I slid from my seat and grabbed plates from the nearby cupboard. I was familiar with Sven's house after years of us being friends and I knew once the rest of the house smelt the food cooking, everyone would come running.

“Do I smell pancakes?” I heard Jess’s voice from over my shoulder as Melanie plated my food up and slid it across to where I had retaken my seat at the bar.

“Yes, she did. She’s a f*cking angel,” I muttered, quickly diving into my seat before I patted the barstool next to me, watching from the corner of my eye as Jess quickly claimed it.

“How’d you sleep?” Melanie asked, putting more batter into the skillet.

“Like s**t,” he replied, rubbing a hand down his face.

“At least you didn’t end up as drunk as me. You look like you're taking it well this morning, minus sleeping like shit.” The sarcastic tone in which I replied caused him to glance at me with a raised brow as a smirk slid onto my face.

“Hey, don’t give me any lip. You should be thanking me for last night. I saved your butt.”

I raised a brow along with my fork to my mouth, confused about what he was referring to. “For making me sleep on the couch?”

“No. For taking photos of you for the website Sven signed you up for,” he clarified.

I paused before biting down on my fork. Website? What was he talking about?

“You know,” he nudged me back, seeing my expression. “The website that Sven showed you.”

I teethed the pancake off my fork and chewed slowly while I shrugged vaguely at him. Last night had been a complete shitshow and a blur in my mind. I barely remembered getting to Sven’s house, let alone what happened while I’d been here.

All I knew was I’d been fed way too many drinks, and I should’ve told Melanie before we’d arrived to make sure to cut me off.

“I don’t think she remembers, Jess,” Melanie volunteered for me while I chewed.

“Wait, seriously?” He leaned over to get a better look at my face. “The one where we put your virginity up for sale.”

My what?

Sucking in a startled breath caused a piece of pancake to get lodged in my throat. I coughed hard, trying to get it to come back up as my eyes watered.

“Oh s**t, she’s choking!” Jess yelled as he pounded my back with his hand, which only made my choking worse. “Mel, water.”

I bent over the counter and my plate, trying to breathe around the pancake. His words flashed through my mind as I tried to let what he said sink in. I had put my virginity up for sale… and they had helped me do it?

Melanie came to my rescue, shoving a glass of water in my face which I happily tipped back, guzzling its entire contents. The moment I came up for air, I gasped, relishing in the feel of air filling my lungs again. I internally sigh. However, the realization of what made me choke settled into me with a cold chill.

I had placed my virginity up for sale online… with photos!

“I can’t believe you don’t remember that. It was your idea.” I lifted my head slowly to look at Jess through my hair. Was he being serious right now?

“My idea… to sell my virginity.”

He nodded, putting his hands up in defense. “I told you it was stupid, but you insisted!”

Smacking his arm, I yelled, “I was drunk! Of course, it was stupid! We need to take it down… like right now, Jess. I can’t believe you guys let me do something like that!”

“In my defense, I did tell you no,” Melanie muttered softly. “You told me to mind my business.”

The sheepish way in which she looked let me know that she was serious and I couldn’t be mad at her for that. However, I was still annoyed that the rest of them helped me to accomplish what I had done. It was complete bullshit.

Jess looked between Melanie and me before I glared at him once more, causing him to nod his head in understanding. “Right… Let me get Sven’s laptop.”

As he headed back into the living room, I put my head in my hands.

What the hell was wrong with me? Selling my virginity to some creepy pervert on the internet? Wasn’t that some kind of kidnapping story just waiting to happen?

God, I was such an i***t. I was desperate, sure, but why had my drunken brain automatically defaulted that was a solution? No one but gross old men or s*x offenders would be interested in buying some random girl’s virginity from a website.

Plus, what if someone I knew found it and sent the listing to the dean? I’d be kicked out of school and forced to move back in with my parents once again. I’d be going back to the one situation I had been desperately trying to avoid in the first place.

When Jess returned with the laptop, he already had the website pulled up. I pushed my plate of food away from me—since my appetite was lost—and leaned over to look at the screen.

On the website was a black background with a padlock in the shape of a heart. Jess quickly typed in the user info and entered the site. My heart squeezed when the images loaded of a bunch of men and women, some of them naked and some of them only half so.

Jess moved the cursor up to the top of the page, clicked the little circle where my image was, and pulled up my user profile.

“See, look.”

When my profile loaded, he pointed to the listing at the top of the page.

It read: ‘FOR SALE: VIRGINITY, 22-YEAR-OLD CAUCASIAN FEMALE; HOT SALE! VERY BEAUTIFUL’.

My mouth dropped open. Next to the ‘hot sale’ was a fire emoji.

“Hot sale?” I exclaimed, turning my head to glare at Jess. “Was that your idea?”

Jess winced. “That was Claudia’s idea! She thought it would get you more bites.”

“You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me…” I groaned, placing my head in my hand.

“Don’t be mad at me! I just took the photos! You and Claudia were the ones that created the entire listing.”

I wanted to smack him upside the head for being so stupid. He knew me well enough to know that sober me would never have agreed to this s**t and the fact he still went on with it pissed me off more than anything. “I was drunk, Jess! What the hell!”

“Can’t you take down the listing?” Melanie’s voice pulled me from the anger I felt toward Jess. My mind quickly engaged in the curiosity of being able to just take it down before anyone saw what was listed.

“Yes,” I spit out. “Take down the listing, Jess.”

“Okay, okay. Fine,” he grumbled. “You don’t even have any bids anyway…”

Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my hair trying to ignore the disappointment in his voice of not being able to sell my virginity. Even though bids had been the least of my worries, I was glad no pervert had actually seen my listing. And even if they had, they’d clearly quickly moved on and not given it the time of day.

“Um…”

I dropped my hand away from my face at Jess’s tone. “What?”

“So… bad news…”

My stomach dropped. “Someone put in a bid… didn’t they?”

“No,” he said slowly.

I frowned, wringing my hands together in my lap. “Okay, then what?”

He paused, turning to look up at me. “I can’t delete the listing.”

Both Melanie and I stared at him in stunned silence. His eyes bounced between us both before he spun the laptop around to show us.

“I can’t. See? It won’t let me.”

I leaned forward to look at the options under the listing. Unfortunately, he was right, the ‘unlist’ button had been grayed out.

“What the hell? Why?” Panic rose again, breaking my skin out in cold sweats. This was not good. Anything could happen, and then what? Would I be locked into a contract or something? Forced to give my virginity to whoever thought they could buy it?

Jess turned the laptop back around and leaned in close to the screen to read. “It says that it’s already passed the twelve-hour threshold for unlisting. You’ll have to wait until the twenty-four-hour hold on it expires.”

I fisted my hands in my lap. “Okay, well, how long has it been up?”

“Looks like twelve hours,” he replied as I groaned with annoyance.

“Lyla, it’s going to be okay,” he reassured, placing a hand on my shoulder in a comforting manner. “I doubt anyone will bid on it. I mean you haven’t gotten any hits yet… so don’t stress.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Jess. They still have twelve whole hours to bid!”

“Okay, wait. Before you freak out…”

Peeking through my fingers, I looked at him. He clicked through a few screens too quickly for me to follow along. When he landed on a completely new page, he turned the laptop around for me to see again.

“See? You got booted back to the twenty-second page. No one goes back that far. You’re going to be fine,” he insisted, his eyes roaming my face.

I leaned over to look closer at where his cursor was hovering over. The page number did, in fact, say ‘22’.

I sighed to myself. A small bit of relief filled my chest. “Okay… It’s going to be okay.”

“Exactly. Think positively,” he replied, a smile spreading on his face as he patted my knee.

“You better think positively, Jess,” I snapped out at him, my eyes darting between Melanie and him like a pit viper waiting for her next meal. “If something happens…”

“Stop,” Melanie quickly added. Her hand lay on mine on the counter as she took a deep breath. “Things will be okay, and if something happens we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She wasn’t wrong there, but it still didn’t stop me from being slightly pissed at her. Out of everyone we hung out with she knew me better than anyone. She knew that I wouldn’t have gone through with this, and yet… she allowed it to happen.

Not that I would be upset with her forever. It was what it was.

Now all I had to do was wait twelve hours and pray that it ended without a bid. And hope that no strangers come across my listing and decide they’ll take advantage of what I had drunkenly offered.

Otherwise, my life was going to be over.