THE DARE (G!P Freenbecky)

Chapter 45

The first three girls were gorgeous, but none of them were Becky, so Freen sat back and let the bidding commence without her. The average price for a date seemed to be in the vicinity of about three grand.

So this won't be all that hard, The bidding, at least.

But number four—there she was.

Her outfit was, in her eyes, the best so far, some sort of Western saloon girl or dance hall girl. She walked onto the stage and was introduced, and Freen heard the auctioneer say she was dressed as an authentic dance hall girl from the days of London's infamous Barbery Coast.

"Let the bidding commence!" The Margaret Dumont look-alike called out.

And Freen opened it, shouting, "One thousand dollars!"
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Heng got out of the taxi and walked toward the stately hotel.

And as he approached the main entrance, he realized he wasn't exactly dressed for a fancy event.

But thinking fast was what had put both him and Freen ahead of the rest of the pack, so when a doorman said, "And who might you be, sir?" He was all ready with his reply.

"Marlon Brando," he said, never breaking his stride. "In The Wild One."
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The only thing Freen hadn't counted on was that there might have been a bozo in the audience who wanted a date with Becky, too.

Not a Bozo in the literal sense, of course. There wasn't a clown costume in sight. The man was dressed as a sheik and showed no signs of slowing down the bidding.

"Four thousand five hundred!" He shouted, glaring at Freen.

The auctioneer barely had a chance to ask for the next bid before Freen shouted, "Five! Five thousand!"

"You tell him!" Screamed Lafitte.

"Five thousand, five thousand, do we hear—"

"Five-five," Omar Sharif called out.

"Great," muttered Freen. "Heng's gonna kill me."

"Only if you don't win," her partner said, sliding into the chair beside her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Six thousand!" Heng called out, then turned back toward Freen. "Don't lose your concentration. God, I wish I had a camera!"

"Just shut up!"

The sheik bid six-five.

Freen bid seven.

The sheik considered his next move.

The audience watched, breathless.

"My, we seem to have a bidding war going on," Mrs. Dumont said into the mic.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Screamed Lafitte.

"I thought he was supposed to say pirate things," Heng said, clearly amused. He'd gotten a rum and coke from the open bar and was enjoying himself immensely.

"That was the general idea," Freen said.

Then all of a sudden, Becky shaded her eyes and stared out into the audience. "Freen?" She called out tentatively.

"Is that you?"

The audience was loving it.

And Freen decided, at that exact instant, that she had to go for broke. There were no halfway measures in this race; she had to lay it all out on the line. Becky had been totally let down by the two people who were most important to her. So Freen decided that if she did something truly spectacular—or stupid, depending on how you looked at it—she could convince her that she wouldn't be endangering her heart if Becky hooked up with her.