Page 48 of The Seller

“Have you ever needed to be seduced?”

“Not with you,” he admits. “But I want you to eat.”

I give in to him, and to the deliciousness of the waffles. We’ve never had breakfast together before. We’ve never done a million simple normal things that people do. Everything in our experience together has been high octane, deadly, and sexual.

“How did you start selling people?” I’ve been wondering that for a while, but never had the chance to ask.

“My mother was a prostitute. I grew up watching her sell herself.”

I almost choke on my waffle. “God. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She lives in a ten million dollar mansion now,” he says. “She did what she had to in order to live the life she wanted to live. Just like you. You remind me of her.”

I don’t know if I should be offended he’s comparing me to a prostitute, or proud he’s comparing me to his mother. I think I might be both.

“The first woman I sold was when I was twenty. She needed money. I arranged for her to spend a night with a friend. He fucked her all night long, and at the end of it, she was several hundred dollars richer, and so was I.”

“That’s an expensive night.”

“She was an expensive girl,” Stavros smirks. “Not that she knew it, until then. She asked me to keep looking after her…”

“You mean you were a pimp.”

He nods and shrugs. “It paid for college. And then, one day, a few months in, someone asked how much it would be to keep her. She got paid a million dollars. I took a twenty percent cut. Andthe sellerwas born.”

He makes it sound almost wholesome.

“But that’s different from what you did to the others. The drugging. The caging.”

His eyes darken a shade, and for a second, I wonder if I might push him too far by pointing out the darkness he seems inclined to ignore.

“It’s better for me to cage train a girl than it is for her to find herself with a new owner who likes to confine his toys.”

“Present tense.”

“What?” He cocks his head to the side.

“You said you were done, but you’re talking present tense. Like you plan to take someone else and do it to them.”

“I have no intention of that, Siri.”

“But what if you can’t help it? What if you miss stripping someone naked and putting them in a cage and then fucking them…”

“Then I have you,” he smiles, wolfish.

“But I have a choice now.”

“You had a choice then. You made that cage happen. I’m sure you would again.”

“I didn’t choose that!”

“Of course you did,” he drawls. “You put yourself in the entire situation. Everything I did to you was something you knew could happen once you put yourself in my path.”

“Is that right?”

“Mhm.”

“You’re still a sick fuck, Stavros.”

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