The Date Auction

Chapter 6: Alleyways

One day I'd wake up and things would be simple. But for now, I needed to have an important conversation with my boyfriend and plan another date with the mysterious Blaise. I sighed, wondered why it had to be me, then steeled myself. I didn't actually care for Blaise. How could I when I barely knew him? I thought about calling Jake, telling him the predicament I was in, but instead Blaise called me.

"Our date. It'll need to wait until next week." he spoke, immediately getting to business in a way I'd always dreamed Jake would do.

"Next week? But we won't be able to picnic under the full moon," I loved the moon. When I was a kid, my dad, who is missing now, brought home for me an old slate carved with strange constellations I didn't recognize. I'd spent nights and nights staring up at the sky, until one evening I'd found them, clear as day where I could have sworn they'd never been before. But even after all that, my favorite constellation was still the moon.

"Sorry. I can't. You'll be free for me Friday after next. We'll do it then." he hung up.

So long from now! The unbearable thought of waiting descended over me, but I managed a brave, "yeah, sure," so that smug ass wouldn't know he was getting to me. How dare he assume I be free? I super would though and was very excited to see him, not that I actually cared. How dare he just hang up too. I couldn't believe him. I was so mad, I decided I wouldn't see him at all, unless somehow he redeemed himself in the interim. And the only way I could think of him doing that was if he apologized, which he'd never do.

I went to find Jake to explain everything. When he wasn't at home, he usually spent his time at a local gym. They got terrible reception there, but Jake said it had the best equipment in town. Sighing, I resigned myself for a long trip there. It was in a dodgy side of town, and I wasn't always comfortable walking there, but today I had to, because if Jake was there, I couldn't call him.

The pavement was hot and I was so thirsty after only a few minutes. Normally I'd take the long way around, but the asphalt let off visible heat waves, and the darker alleys promised a shaded path and shorter route. Was it two rights and a left to skip this block? I'd remember it when I walked it, I was sure.

The first fork was easy. A right. I'd remembered. But the second? I didn't know if I'd ever been there before. I took a few steps down each potential path, seeing nothing.

"Eh, little missy. You lost?" A gravelly voice came out of the darkness beside me. He was unpleasant looking and somehow I knew right away that meant he was evil.

"You looking for someone?" he asked, more forcefully.

"My boyfriend Blaise is right behind me," I lied. Why did I think of Blaise's name instead of Jake's? The things my nerves were doing to me!

"Well, you wouldn't want to run off before he gets here, would ya?" The strange, probably poor man rasped at me.

I ran. The alley twisted and darkened as I ran deeper into the local commercial complex, and I heard a fierce panting behind me. No, no "a panting". Pants. There were pants behind me. People, coming for me. Why me? I wasn't special.

Finally, I broke out of the alley system into the sunlight. The air no longer felt too hot, like cold was leeching into the world from the strange man following me and his shadowed companions.

"Say," said the man, from the shadow of the alleys, "your name wouldn't be Madison, would it?"

How did he know? What was happening? I continued feeling like I was normal and not special, despite everyone treating me otherwise.

"Why don't you come with us? I hear your dad-"

My dad? He was saying something about my dad. Who had gone missing! Also this stranger was advancing out into the sunlight, inexplicably remaining in shadow.

"Are you... Dr. Goodresearch?" I wondered.

He looked down at the ground, "No, not... anymore. Now come with us, or we'll do violence to you."

Suddenly, interrupting his overt threats, a limo barreled into him, completely smoothly, like a very rich person's driver was driving it. Once the windshield wipers had removed most of the blood, the window rolled down, revealing Driversby.

"Miss Madison, Master Blaise has offered you my services as recompense for delaying your date."

I took him up on the offer, a smile on my lips. Blaise had once more spent resources on me. And to think, I'd thought he was inconsiderate. I started thinking more about him. About him handling me inconsiderately, but in a way that was hot. Like how he'd be a brooding hero in one of my stories, and treat me shitty, but in the framework of a tale where I knew things would ultimately turn out well by virtue of how the story itself was constructed, so any red flags that came my way could ultimately be ignored as long as they came from someone hot that I spent all my time thinking about.

Also I thought about Jake, who I could end up with.