The Auction

In a Dystopian universe, woman are sold at auction to whoever is willing to buy. What is considered beauty consists of surgical mutations that only the rich can afford. When it's Grace's bidding day, her friend is sat by distraught. Can she be saved?


The Auction
The rich men gathered towards the stage like magpies towards gold, staring out the competition and clinging onto the wooden signs their entire life’s happiness depended on. The poor stood at the sides, leaning against the walls with their fingers crossed and their stomachs anxious, hoping this year there may be something affordable to work to the bone. You could smell the desperation around them, the need for them to inflict some authority. You ask a poor man why they come to the women auctions and you will always get the same answer.
“Someone to screw and less work to do.” It became their motto. I knew better. After all, I had first-hand experience of the working class struggle, watching my father be humiliated by the rich superiors he worked for and therefore abusing his limited power the only way he could, towards his own property, my mother. My mother hated my father but I’m sure she didn’t know it. On the surface she had been trained to be grateful that’d he’d picked her, but I was convinced there was nothing but resentment underneath. That wasn’t special; we were all of us born as a result of hate and chance.
We, however, did not stand with the poor buyers. We were the observers. We stood at the back hidden in the shadows, our sullen expressions and mutual silence adding to the atmosphere of a great tragedy or a funeral. I was mourning. Grace was going to be sold today. Her parents were among the observers stifling back the tears of helplessness. They knew that no matter how low Grace was rated, they would never be able to afford to buy her back; there would always be someone who wanted a wife and had money to spend. We had all lost her.
The auction started with the daughters of the rich, the 10s and 9s and 8s. The one’s who’d been able to afford the surgery. This was like a business deal to the upper classes, trading their daughters around to each other’s sons and then laughing together in joviality. Together they would consider the produce and buyers that their offspring would create if they were lucky. It was important to the fathers that their daughters were being dealt to worthy husbands, important enough that they were willing to shell out millions in order to create the perfect face. Their faces always fascinated me, considered the ideal by everyone; surprisingly to me they seemed grotesque. Cheekbones stuck out at impossible angles while eyes gaped open like unnaturally coloured glass marbles, lacking any emotion. Often their skin was tattooed and painted, eyelashes glued on to reach out further then their noses, which of course had been nipped into dainty little points. The smile forced, yet still dazzlingly white as they walked across the stage naked. They brought on each girl, one by one for the men to fight over.
I noticed the bodies were more extreme than they had been last year. It seemed the style had changed. Waists were almost thin enough for a child to wrap their hands around them, and yet they supported even larger breasts than seemed feasibly possible. I had no doubt that backs would soon be snapping in record number. Ribbons were threaded through rings pierced into the bodies, giving the girls the effect of being gift wrapped like luxury Christmas presents. Men shot their wooden signs up as soon as the first woman was announced.
“This here is the beautiful Amy, a 9.3. Starting at 930,000?” She was sold for just less than 1,000,000. Purple ribbon was tied round her waist in a bow. She stepped off the stage to greet her new husband and before any affection could be exchanged between the gushing couple, a black cotton robe was thrown at her. When she wrapped herself in it, it fell from her neck to her ankles covering her completely. The game was to buy quickly before anyone else got a good look at your future wife naked. After all, there was common decency to think of. I felt the bile burn my throat as I watched the display continue. Fathers congratulating their new son in laws on their new purchases, women’s chests swell and heads get higher the longer they remained on stage, their ego dependent on how many men found them suitably attractive enough to spend extortionate amounts of money, and potentially their lives, on them.
This continued for a long time, my teeth grinding against each other for the whole of it, as the clones were advertised. Subtle differences like hair colour and the style of the tattoos were noted, although essentially the same person walked on stage each time. They’d been mutated and created with the intention to please the men and fear of rejection hung around the stage like a horrible stink. Sometimes I swore I could still smell anaesthetic on them, even though the stage was a fair distance away. I pictured the incisions, the stitches, the women wrapped in bloody bandages for weeks as they wait in suspense to see their new designer bodies. There must have been infections, there must be scars, I thought. It was all repulsive to me. Though not as repulsive as the sting of jealousy I felt as men fell at their feet. Would I be smiling that broadly on the day of my own auction? I prayed next year would never come.
“And here we have Gabriel, a 6.3. Starting at 630,000” I knew her. She had scored highly. There she stood, looking barely 15. The boys in my village were waiting for the day she was auctioned; she could almost fit the perfect description. Her blonde hair was long and fantastically silky, spilling over her back and shoulders like a character from a fairy tale. Her eyes were large and milky blue, despite not having had the surgery. Her parents had clearly splashed out as much as they could, as you could tell by the small hip tattoo that shone against her pale flesh. Innocent and beautiful, and too expensive for any of the working men to afford, she smiled as her number was read out, then faltered briefly as she realised she could never be bought back by her parents at that price. Unlucky for her, she had to make the effort to smile as Botox needles were not a privilege she could afford. Of course, she was beautiful enough to fall into the grey area between too much for the workers and too obviously from a poorer family for the rich to be interested. No bids.
“No bids?” The voice called, I couldn’t see the auctioneer as he hid behind the curtains with a microphone, but the voice was loud and obnoxious enough for me to picture him, sweating and sickly in an expensive suit that was likely too small for him. “620,000.” A sign shot up. The man was no younger than 50, it amazed me that he had not found a suitable wife at a previous auction, as the vast majority of men bidding were only in their twenties. He’d obviously been married before. She was immediately swooped off stage and robed before being traded to the man who looked at her in the same way a man would look at a meal he could not wait to devour. She skimmed her eyes over the observers of the crowd to smile at her parents. The girl had done well. The man was clearly very distinguished. Later he would say to his friends, “Well, she’s a work in progress, sure! But you have to admit there’s potential there,” and she would stand next to him smiling politely, robotically trained to have no sense of indignation. My stomach ached for her.
Very soon the working men began to get paired off too, grinning at plain girls they had acquired and dragging them away by their wrists to the sides to continue to watch out of curiosity. Many were still waiting impatiently for a price they could afford and snorted enviously every time they were outbid after they had found someone acceptable enough. The numbers got increasingly lower until they finally reached the girls who were deemed ‘impure,’ as rumour had it they had engaged in a night of passion before any kind of marriage, an insult to the civilised way society treated traditional marriage today. It grew tedious for me, until Grace stepped on stage.
Grace didn’t stand a chance. I prayed for a miracle. I prayed for crooked noses to be in this season. For overbites and small eyes to be considered endearing, for her to be seen as voluptuous and womanly, for her to be paired with anyone other than one of the many men that were so poor and desperate to work out their own insecurities , that they relied on an innocent. I felt faint as I saw my friend humiliatingly stood, awkward and naked with the same flaming fear of rejection that surrounded the other girls.
“Grace. 1.8.” Tragically low. I felt despair well up in me and I could no longer restrain myself from letting the sobs escape from the protective lump they had formed in my throat the second she walked on stage. My hands covered my mouth and I bit my fingers to remain silent. I heard the call of no bids. Stiffly, I walked outside over the wooden floors, my head lowered. No one noticed as they were all gawking at Grace like a caged animal in a zoo, indulging in her humiliation as though it was comical. Girls who were already sold were snickering behind their hands, their brainless heads lacking any sentiment of empathy and it astounded me that they didn’t realise that if things had only been slightly different, it could have been them.
Outside and out of sight, I sobbed. Grace was the sort of person who would drop pennies on the floor so that if some stranger found it, they’d have good luck for the rest of the day. She had a voice that could lull a baby to sleep and an adult to tears in mere moments. She never bullied her younger siblings the way other people did and was the only person I knew whose optimistic outlook could break even my cynicism. She was clever and brave and the only do-gooder I knew whose motives were completely selfless. None of that mattered. Not when you were rated 1.8. My face was sticky with tears and my whole body was shaking by the time the performance ended. I had no idea how long I waited outside the Auction Hall with my hands in my hair, the tears pouring out, never ending like a monsoon of bitterness. I wasn’t aware of how much time had passed, my brain thought not in words but in a pure wave of emotion. When people began to filter out of the hall, I felt weaker than a new born child. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Grace when she slipped a comforting arm around my shoulders.
She was wearing a black robe, evidently proving that she had, eventually, been sold. A smile was plastered on her face, never faltering for a second to suggest it was even the slightest bit insincere. My friend was now married.
“Grace…” I attempted but my throat sounded gravelly and I had to accept I still wasn’t ready to speak.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I saw you walk out,” she murmured soothingly rubbing my back, “don’t worry. I was sold.” I looked up and she grinned in excitement, her eyes lit up as though the fantastic realisation had just hit her again and she didn’t quite believe it. She squealed and pulled me into a hug I didn’t return. “It took a while, no bids at first, but eventually someone offered. I’m going to work for him now, but he said he’d still let me have time to come and see you and my family. I mean I was mortified for a moment thinking I wouldn’t get picked but I was! Can you believe it? And I mean even Gabriel didn’t get bids at first, so I guess it wasn’t too bad after all. Don’t look so surprised that I’m actually worth something.”
Of course, I knew that I was in the minority of people who hated the auctions. I knew it was accepted and celebrated by most, but Grace had always joined my sullen silence and hateful glares every year when we stood with the observers. She too, I had always assumed, had shared my disgust as we, unlike any other girl I knew, never discussed the auctions. For a while my mind froze and I couldn’t reach any possible explanation, until it finally hit me. She was just like the girls that laughed behind their hands when she got rated. She wasn’t glaring with resentment but with jealousy. The illusion I had clung on to assuring me that I was not alone shattered like bones and I couldn’t even bring myself to wave goodbye as Grace was dragged away by her new husband as though by an invisible leash. I watched her walk away, keeping obediently close to him as I sat on the stone steps, surrounded by people but more alone than I had ever felt in my entire existence. The tension that had been surrounding her weeks before today had not been due to the soul crushing reality that she would be degraded and sold to someone she would likely hate. She was merely terrified she wouldn’t be wanted in case she wasn’t pretty enough. I recognised the relief in the slope of her shoulders. Would I be the same next year? Would shallowness outweigh my own sense of injustice? I would never let it happen. That very second I made a vow that I would escape this.
Of course running away was not an option. In every town this happened as ritual and I knew no different. Even with the resources and the money to escape, I knew no sanctuary where I would not have to suffer the degrading torment. Rumour had it that in some countries the auction occurred when the women were older, in their twenties. That would only be a temporary solution. Even if I found a place, would I be satisfied? There would still be the knowledge that my friends, my mother, were sold away to people who decided they loved them based only on their price and their appearance. I would still get that sick dissatisfied feeling in my stomach even if I, alone, was free.
I always thought I could fight. It seemed that the day would never come of my own auction and if it did things would have changed. Someone would have spoken out by now, but Grace’s happiness reminded me just how alone I was in my detestation. The concept of revolution washed over me like a warm breeze and for a moment I felt my heart leap and I closed my eyes. I pictured placards and riots, speeches where I spat out my anger to those faces set hard in rebellion. The picture melted. The faces of the mutated women with their marble eyes and vacant smiles returned. Grace stood in the corner contently with her husband, dirt on her hands from the forced labour. No one would follow me, no one would believe in change when everything worked so perfectly already. Hopelessness drenched me.
The celebrations continued on around me; friends, mothers, fathers, siblings, hugging each other in celebrations. There were gallant handshakes exchanged between men, a sign of mutual respect and understanding. There was love surrounding me but I sat, as though trapped under a glass of puerile hatred. It filled my insides to the extent that it felt as though it spilled out of my pores like black, stinking goo that I knew I would never be clean of. I saw girls scream and run at each other, jumping in blind excitement. Little girls tugged at their mother’s sleeves, ‘When can I be auctioned, like Lucy was?” Cue empty laughter, closed eyes and denial. Through my shield of glass I heard my own parents addressing me.
“There we are! You left before Grace got sold, did you see her?” My father asked.
“And good for her too!” My mother condescendingly added.
How pleasant it was for someone to have finally been purchased despite their unsymmetrical face, how wholesome, how generous of the boy to buy her! “Now don’t look so jealous, you. You’ll get your auction next year.” I smiled wanly. As we walked home I fantasised about how rough and comforting the rope would feel around my neck tonight.