Indecent Intent by Bethany Amber

concluding the transaction, and despite her closeness to him, Gabrielle stood alone, belonging for a moment to neither man. She had never felt more lonely in her young life.
    â€˜She is mine… for a year.’
    She noticed how the man paused for a brief moment before confirming the timescale of the arrangement, emphasizing it, and an ominous shiver ran down her spine.
    â€˜I’ll arrange the money for you immediately.’ Then, as if to stress the rules of the deal, his hand slipped down from her shoulder and cupped her breast through the soft black silk of her dress. He stared directly at Tom, and his hand began to move in slow circles over the firm orb.
    Tom rocked forward a fraction, as if to protect his wife, but then realization dawned.
    She was no longer his.
    Gabrielle closed her eyes in a childishly futile attempt to hide away from the dreadful scenario, and her cheeks flushed pink.
    â€˜It’s a little late for coy poses, my dear,’ said Verity. ‘Too late for false modesties, particularly when we’ve all seen your deepest desires, your basest instincts.’
    He looked at Tom, disdain suddenly evident on his face. ‘You may go now,’ he said, arrogantly dismissing him, his hand still mauling her breast. ‘And just to clarify, for the duration of your stay here which, I suspect, will be a short one, if you see your wife you may not talk to her, and you may not, under any circumstances, touch her. Do I make myself clear? You’ve given up ownership of your wife. You’ve hired her out to me.’
    Tom looked forlornly at her, as though at last realizing the full import of what he had agreed to, and then turned and left the luxurious suite.
    Gabrielle watched the door close quietly behind him, her vision blurred with tears.
Chapter Four
    The following morning, after a night spent alone in one of the suite’s luxurious bedrooms, Gabrielle was taken by Marshall Verity and Susan in a luxurious limo to some kind of a private health club.
    It was a beautifully sunny morning.
    In the plush reception area Verity stopped to talk to an austere man whom he seemed to know very well, and Susan, reacting to his silently nodded instruction, led Gabrielle along a corridor, hushed with expensive fitted carpets and maple-paneled walls, to a private room.
    It was small, but as clean and sterile as any operating theatre. The walls were white, as were the cupboards and shelves that lined them, and in the centre of the tiled floor was a black medical chair. The sight of it made Gabrielle shudder. Metal stirrups rose from the lower corners of it, and leather straps dangled ominously from the arms and headrest.
    â€˜Take off your clothes,’ said Susan, interrupting the overbearingly hushed atmosphere of the room, and despite her reservations and despite wondering why on earth she was there, Gabrielle, with trembling fingers, felt utterly compelled to obey. ‘Take them all off, your underwear too,’ Susan qualified the order.
    And then the reason for the visit seeped slowly into Gabrielle’s thinking, and she knew what was to come. Verity liked his girls to be hairless, and she was to be shaved smooth. Well, she could live with that.
    â€˜H-how long have you been here?’ she ventured to ask, as she dropped her T-shirt on an available chair and began to twist her hips to help ease her tight jeans down.
    Susan shrugged and Gabrielle heard the clatter of metal from the surgical cart beside which she stood making preparations. The noise made Gabrielle shudder, and she hoped Susan’s hands were steady.
    â€˜Don’t you know?’ she persisted. ‘Don’t you know how long you’ve lived with Mr Verity?’ she kicked her shoes off and her bare feet felt chilled by the tiled floor as the jeans joined the T-shirt, and then her bra joined them, on the chair.
    â€˜We don’t ask questions,’ Susan said, ‘we are done to. It is our duty to