Chapter 2 Debts and Despair

Sarah

After a few days, reality truly hit us as the deadline to leave our house approached, and we had no idea what to do. I couldn't believe how selfish our father had been in spending our entire inheritance on his vices.

We discovered that our father, Patrick Mitchell, was addicted to gambling and had been losing a lot of money for years. He would take out loans and renew them until it reached the point where he had to sell the company to pay off debts to dangerous people who were threatening him.

"I can't accept this at all. It's absurd that we have to leave our home because of our father's stupidity," Rachel spoke loudly during one of our last breakfasts in our old house.

"You can't talk about our father like that, Rachel. He's dead."

"I can, and I am. How did he manage to lose millions in gambling debts?"

"There were also some business ventures that went wrong..."

"That just makes it worse! An experienced man shouldn't fall for the schemes of opportunists. And look where we are now. We were his daughters, we didn't deserve this."

I thought about the car accident that killed our father and wondered if it was intentional, perhaps as an act of revenge. But I pushed those thoughts away as they would only further complicate our already difficult situation, and I returned to the present.

"We have to leave the house by Monday," I commented, trying to bring Rachel back to reality.

"And where are we going?" she asked sadly.

In reality, we didn't have anything in our name, just a few coins in our accounts, enough to pay rent and expenses for a few weeks if we were being optimistic. We needed to find a job as quickly as possible.

"I'm already looking for a job."

"And do you think it's going to be that easy?" That's when I realized how pessimistic Rachel was. "Even if you find one, it will be some random job, and how are we going to live off your salary?"

"You need to find a job too, Rachel," I stated the obvious. "If everyone can make ends meet like this, we can too."

She looked at me upset, got up from the table throwing the napkin anywhere, and stormed out of the room without saying another word. If she left without having the last word, it meant she was really upset.

I finished my meal and went to my room to grab my laptop, searching for job openings and sending my resume for anything that came up. I knew it wouldn't be easy to find something so quickly, especially with no experience at all. But I also knew I wouldn't get anything if I didn't try.

I didn't go to college, even though I had thought about starting since I finished high school. In the past four years, I ended up following Rachel on various trips and put that aside. I can't believe I let so much time go by without doing anything but spending money.

Now I'm twenty-two, broke, without education, and experience, so finding a job would be difficult, I already knew that. But I needed to hustle, and that's exactly what I was doing when Rachel entered my room in a hurry, a few hours later.

"I found a way to make a lot of money, enough for us to buy an apartment and sustain ourselves until you can find a decent job," she said.

"What do you mean!?" I asked, excited.

I was sitting at my desk, in front of the computer, and Rachel came to me, holding my arm and leading me to the bed, where we sat. She was looking at me with a big smile on her face, the same one she always had when she was about to do something I wouldn't like.

"I'm going to auction off my virginity."

I was thankful that I was sitting down because if I had been standing at that moment, I would have collapsed on the floor.

"This has to be some tasteless joke, Rachel," I said in a sour mood, once I finally recovered from the shock. "It's not possible that something like that still exists in this day and age."

"Believe me when I say it exists, and I will do it!"

She used the same tone of voice that I already knew, which warned me not to try to talk her out of something she was already determined to do.

"You can't just auction off your virginity like that. It's crazy!"

Rachel had always been very daring and had already had several boyfriends, but the memory that she always said that she would only lose her virginity if it was something that would bring benefits, like marrying a rich man, made me believe that she was severe, even if what she was thinking of doing was something abominable. It was not so different from what she had in mind before.

"It's a solution, at least temporarily, Sarah. " Rachel pronounced calmly as if this was something common. "Shirley said that a friend of hers had raised a million-dollar fortune that way."

"I know that your still being a virgin at this point in your life has nothing to do with finding your true love, as I have always wished for myself. But you're going too far, Rachel!"

She sneered at my words and walked over to my desk, where she took hold of the notebook and typed an address into the search bar, staring at me with a mischievous smile, just like the ones she used to perform her tricks during our childhood.

"Could you help me create a profile on this application and select my best photos?"

"I don't condone this insanity you are planning to pull."

I stood up abruptly and raised my voice to my sister, something I had never done in my entire existence.

"You don't have to worry so much, Sarah. I am looking for the most appropriate way to solve our problems."

"I'm sure this isn't the right way, Rachel. We could simply work for a living, just as so many other people do."

"Work for a living, that's what you mean," she insisted, "But you don't have to worry so much, sister. It's a secure app, and I won't even reveal my identity, I'll just put real pictures of my body, and I can wear a mask on my face. Men will pay for the privilege of being the first to see my "attributes"."