Excerpt of The Assignment 2 by Abby Weeks

Four men were closing in on Lacey, gathering around her in a crowd, making her feel claustrophobic. She looked at them each in turn.

There was the terrible man with the dog. He seemed to be in his fifties and something about him told Lacey he was as vile a man as she’d ever seen. Next to him was another man, similar in age and dress to the first but he didn’t look as mean. Then there were to the two younger ones. One had dark hair, tanned skin and a flashy smile. He was the type of guy Lacey had expected to find here. He looked rich and slick, like a spoiled child who’d grown up spending his father’s money. The other, the cruel looking one who had suggested they play the game with her in the first place, had blonde hair and boyish good looks. If it wasn’t for the strange sneer on his face, Lacey would have thought he was cute. In another life, he might have been an adorable troublemaker, a lovable rogue. In this corrupt world of wealth and unfettered power, he’d been turned into a monster.

They were all formally dressed in expensive evening wear. The older two wore coats and tails and were so traditionally dressed they looked like they’d stepped out of another century. The younger two looked more stylish, with sleek, fitted suits and designer haircuts. They were the kind of men Lacey thought of as paper men, they looked good on paper but in person were disappointments.

The man with the dog yanked the leash and the dog yelped. Everything about him told Lacey he was a cruel master. He pulled the dog over to the billiard table and tied its leash to the leg of the table. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about him letting the dog lick her. There were few things in the world as humiliating as a man allowing his dog to lick a woman against her will.

The sneering boy with the blonde hair, the one who had suggested the game, seemed to be rubbing his penis inside his pants. He was probably older than Lacey by a couple of years but she couldn’t help think of him as a petulant child.

“What’s the game?” the man with the dog said from over by the billiard table.

“It’s a drinking game,” the cruel boy said. He put his hand under Lacey’s chin and directed her face in his direction.

“Look at me now, slut,” he said. “You belong to me.”

There was something about him, the look on his face, the curl of his smile, the sound in his strained voice, that told her he got his kicks from being mean to women. She knew only too well that the world was full of men like that.

She’d seen them growing up. She got a similar feeling from the man with the dog. The way he’d allowed the hound to lick her, the way he’d used the word bitch, it took a certain kind of man to act like that. And that scared Lacey. She’d seen how some men treated whores. Her mother had had scars all over her body to prove it.

It was still too early for her to make up her mind about the other two men in the room, but given the company they kept she didn’t hold out much hope that either of them would be very nice. They seemed to be followers, sheep. They would go along with whatever the two cruel ones suggested. They were just along for the ride.

She looked around at the grand room she was in, the sparkling chandelier, the intricately carved woodwork, the fine leather furniture, and she feared she might have made a terrible mistake in coming to this place. She knew better than most the bad things that could happen to a woman when she allowed herself to get into a situation she couldn’t control. She’d seen what the men back in Las Cruces had done to her mother at times. It was very easy for a situation to get out of hand. Men’s blood would get flowing in their veins, there would be drinking and laughing, their desires and lusts would grow full and hot, and before you knew it, before they even knew it themselves, they could be doing things to a woman that would shock even themselves in more sober times.