Four times a year The Committee arranges a Meeting. It is always somewhere out of the way, but near enough to an international airport. Attendance is by invitation only, and to be invited for the first time you have to be nominated and vouched for by two established regular guests, and vetted by very thorough private security agents.
Those who do get invited are often informally referred to as Gentlemen and Players. Players are professional traders. Gentlemen are end users, who may occasionally swap or trade among themselves, or pass items on to the wider Trade, but generally do not source merchandise directly and almost never in bulk.
The Meetings themselves are usually organized in premises suitable for Players' areas and the Gentlemen's Club. Of course Players may relax in the club, and do business there, but only the highest quality merchandise and individual trades are brought to the quiet, six star world of the Gentlemen. Bulk sales and less precious and rare items are traded in the bustle of the Players bourse, which some Gentlemen choose to visit, bargain hunting, or disposing of old stock, or just enjoying the sights and smells and sounds of a busy market.
It goes without saying that all this is done in secret. All deals are on trust, one's word is one's bond. Cases of cash do change hands, but more often it is a business card with nothing but a bank account number and a note of an amount. Everyone knows what will happen if that trust or secrecy is broken. At the very least the person will never receive another Invitation. At worst...
There is a third class of attendee at Meetings. I was one of those. I 'represented' a Gentleman. Reps were not uncommon, since anonymity was often desired, and we were treated by the Club staff almost as well as the billionaires who we stood in for would have been, but we had a different status with the Players. They understood that we might occasionally enjoy the goods, but that we were buying with a less passionate commitment. More business and less emotion, so Reps did not take it personally if they failed to win an auction.
So there I was, in the Club foyer, sharing a bottle of Cristal with an Italian motor manufacturing heir, when one of the Players stopped to say hello as he was passing. "James old man," he drawled in an entirely authentic Etonian accent "I just saw one of your old castoffs in the bargain bin."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Down at Trader Nick's, I spotted your marks, among several others. Looks like an old model, that or she has been driven hard, but definitely got the trefoil. Thought you might like to know, maybe check her out, if you are nostalgic. Or maybe not - always sad to see them after all the wear and tear."
I thanked him for letting me know, but made no plan to go and look. My employer would not be interested in second hand goods that he had already sold off once, and I was busy with plenty of new items to inspect.
However, two days later I remembered the conversation when I happened to glance at an auction in progress in the main market, and saw it was Nikolas Oleavich at the lecturn, and there on display was lot 43, complete with trefoil and half a dozen other trade marks.
At first I did not recognise her. Then it clicked. I even knew her name. She had been on holiday from England at the Jamaica Beach Club. The boss had picked her out, romanced her, seduced her, then shared her with his friends, had her tatooed, passed her to me to pimp out for him with his high roller client's and then six months to the day from when he first took her virginity, he sent her with me to a Meeting. I had passed her on in a private sale in the Club. And there on her ankle was the black flower mark of Hollywood Joe.
Where had she been since, I wondered, and what had happened to her. As Nicholas ordered her to turn and raise her arms I got some clues. The dolphin on her pelvic bone, suggested some time as an inhouse escort for one of the disrete hotels near Miami. There were the signs from a very upmarket whorehouse in Chicago (stars on her left breast) and another well reputed brothel in Detroit (Cherries on a heart) on her thigh. But there were less savoury tags that I knew as well: an Antlantic City parlour and show house that was known for some extreme sex displays had left a cursive "Dirty Dolls" name tag across her lower back, and a London gang tat just above it (probably a drug deal part payment - the Devil's are not major players, but they like to have a few girls on hand to entertain the troops and bigger customers) as well as a New York gang mark (smoking skull on her shoulder) suggested a steep downturn in the social status of her clientele. There were other marks I did not recognise: from less well known, even further downmarket owners. There was a tribal style design around her right nipple (both nipples pierced, I noticed, as well as a navel ring, multiple earrings and, when Nicolas told her to display it, a piercing in her clitoris). On her shaven pubic mound was a crude tatoo of a sun, and there was a daisy on the back of her hand. The Playboy bunny head on her stomach was less crude, but clearly not a licensed or approved use of the logo; I strongly suspected it was from a Tiajuana fleshpit that specialised in shows for tourists that instantly would be closed down by the vets in any state across the border.
Having been in the business for twenty years now I have seen some things that shocked me in the early years, and thought I had seen it all, but I was not prepared for what happened next. At a word from Nikolas this girl dully turned and bent over, and pulling her buttocks apart, displayed her clearly gaping and ruined anus to the crowd. It was obviously an action she was used to doing. Adding to the horror, this movement at the same time exposed scars of the branding iron used by a Haitian dealer known for his brutality (he was never invited to Meetings after a nasty incident in Minsk, although his rep still attended) and his particular cruelty to women paler skinned than himself.
In my mind's eye I compared the beautiful, lively girl I had helped my boss to seduce, and then traded into a velvet cage in California, to this dull-witted scarred and broken creature. It was only three or four years. She was perhaps 21 or 22 years old now, and her breasts were stretched and a little sagging, her nipples distended, her body scarred from beating, whip marks and other cuts. She had at least a dozen owners in that time, each no doubt less caring than the last, and who knew what diseases, drugs and perversions she had been exposed to.
Nikolas made her stand up again and face the crowd. It was clear that there was little interest. He sought $100.00 as an opening bid, dropped to $50.00, and then threw up his hands, saying "Any offer, anyone?"
Silence.
Another Russian Player, rumoured to make extreme sadism films and worse, broke the embarrassing quiet with a drawled "One dollar."
"Five." the word was out of my mouth before I could think.
"Any advance on five? No? Sold."
What the hell had I done?
I went to the desk beside the dias to register the sale. I told the clerk to record it in my own name and dropped a bill on the table. He looked at me quizzically for a moment and I thought he was going to object, since I did not have a licence from the Committee to trade in my own name, but he let it pass. He knew that I knew the rules.
Trader Nick's man supplied full paperwork for the girl, and agreed to have her delivered to my suite at the club. I left the auction, and headed for a nearby coffee stall, grabbing an espresso and settling down to read.
It was the usual documentation: a medical report, and bill of sale, including detailed description of her many identifying marks and supposed talents and experience. It also gave a name, which was not the one I had thought of. The papers said 'Denise' but I had thought it should be Penny.
The doctor's report was a little comforting, as well as a little disturbing. She was not now suffering from or carrying any infectious illness, although she bore scars and antibodies that betrayed several previous infections, as well as physical abuse and probably exposure to drugs and alcohol in immoderate quantities. She also seemed to be either brain damaged or so severely traumatised that she had lost the power of speech, but she was completely biddable and co-operative.
Just what I was going to do with her was quite beyond me.
When I got back to the club that evening I had almost forgotten she would be there. I had spent the afternoon negotiating an exchange of four of my boss's current stock (all well trained and enthusiastic) for six new girls.
My boss likes to corrupt innocents. The final act is to have the girl sold into service to another person, usually a Gentleman with refined and often exotic tastes. This deal was peculiar in that I had been sent to negotiate a bulk sale to a Player, but the Player wanted the girls to help recruit and train more girls, and to work as very high end escorts in Moscow. The boss liked the idea, and had left it up to me to choose the new girls. I had examined two dozen raw recruits from eastern europe, selecting those who fitted my bosses catholic but specific tastes. Now they were safely signed over, and transport arrange. I had intended to ring the boss as soon as I got to my suite, but found myself confronted with a naked, tatooed, branded, sour-smelling woman kneeling in the middle of the reception room floor.
She was a sad contrast to the smooth limbed fresh beauties I had just been viewing. I walked over to her and gently lifted her chin. I was sure now that she was the English tourist we had got in Kingston. "Penny? Is your name Penny?"
A little life came into her eyes, although it was mixed with fear.
"Okay," I said gently but firmly "I want you to go into the bathroom and have a shower. Wash your hair at least three times, and condition it, and scrub everywhere else. Clean nails, clean teeth, clean between your toes, everywhere. Then come out when you are dried off. I'll order food. Now go on, go and get clean. "
She nodded, and rose and went into the bathroom. There seemed to be a little more life in her, perhaps some hope. More hope than I had. I put a quick call in to room-service and then composed myself.
I rang the boss.
I told him the good news, which pleased him, and then I told him about the girl. He was silent for a moment then wearily said "God dammit Micky, what were you thinking? You know the rules. You are not a Player, you are not a Gentleman, you cannot trade in your own name."
"I know, it was stupid, but I felt sorry for her."
