My Boss Auctioned My Virginity

My world was a concrete box buried beneath the city. I’m not being poetic. I mean it literally.

The sub-basement of Apex Tower isn’t glamorous. It’s a glorified storage closet that fits two people comfortably, or three if you don’t mind breathing the same air. But it’s climate-controlled and, most importantly, silent. The best part? Nobody from the shiny floors above ever ventures down to bother the tech gremlins who live here.

Unless, of course, the network crashes five minutes before a board meeting, and you’re the only one who can perform digital CPR. Because that’s my job. I resuscitate broken things.

I’m Scarlett Hayes, information systems architect—a fancy title for the girl who keeps the lights on. The patron saint of password resets. The exorcist of the blue screen of death.

My days are spent sipping bitter coffee from a cracked mug featuring a grumpy-looking cat. The text reads: “I see dumb people.”

It was pushing 7 p.m., and I was still in this glorified shoebox while the suits upstairs tapped out emails about synergy. I didn’t care. I got paid by the hour, and my rent was due. The threat of a dark, cold apartment was a powerful motivator.

Tonight was shaping up to be another monotonous blur—until I stumbled across it.

The listing.

While idly spinning in my chair, nursing tepid coffee, I indulged in my favorite pastime: browsing. But not the regular internet. The deep, uncharted parts where the normal rules don’t apply.

It was mostly for curiosity’s sake. I loved the illicit thrill of peeking into corners of the web most people pretended didn’t exist. Yes, there were drugs and guns, but I scrolled past those. My interest lay in a different kind of contraband.

Stolen data.

It began as a harmless diversion. A peek into a cheating ex’s messages. The pretentious neighbor who played opera at 3 a.m. The guy who cut me in line at the coffee shop.

It had evolved. Now, I’d slip into corporate servers just to see the chaos. I never altered anything; I was just a ghost in the machine, an observer.

Sometimes, for fun, I’d hijack a local news station’s traffic alert system and post warnings about “zombie raccoon crossings.”

Or I’d tap into public transit cameras, not to fight crime, but to play a solitary, real-time game of spotting the most ridiculous hat.

I was scrolling through a portal on ShadowGate, one of the more notorious hubs, when the bold text made me freeze.

ONE MILLION DOLLARS. ONE VIRGIN.

I choked on my coffee. This had to be a joke.

I clicked. The page loaded, stark and severe.

ONE MILLION DOLLARS FOR ONE VIRGIN.

INTERVIEWS COMMENCE TOMORROW.

DISCRETION IS MANDATORY.

CLICK THE ENCRYPTED LINK TO PROCEED.

LOCATION: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, shaking my head. I read it three more times.

A disbelieving laugh escaped me. What did I have to lose? I clicked the ‘PROCEED’ button. A minimalist form appeared against a jet-black background, the text a sharp, metallic silver. It asked for a first name, followed by one blunt, glaring question:

Are you a virgin?

Still smirking, I checked the box next to ‘Yes.’

It wasn’t a lie…

Application acknowledged. Interview details will be transmitted shortly.

My blood ran cold. How did it have a way to contact me? This was either an elaborate troll, or… someone already had my digital footprint.

Panic, sharp and acidic, rose in my throat.

My fingers became a blur over the keyboard, code streaming across my screen as I tried to backtrack, to trace the source, to crack the shell of this thing.

ACCESS DENIED.

The message flashed, relentless. I tried another route, bypassing superficial firewalls, probing for a weakness, a line of sloppy code, an open port.

Nothing. It was a digital vault.

ACCESS DENIED.

“Damn it!” I slammed my palm on the desk.

A glance at the clock told me my shift was over. I let out a long breath. It was just a stupid prank. A weird, disturbing prank. I powered down my laptop and shoved it into my backpack.

Killing the lights and the hum of the AC, I locked the door and headed for the stairwell, mentally ordering myself to forget about it. It wasn’t real.

But the image was burned into my mind. The black screen. The silver type.

ONE MILLION DOLLARS FOR ONE VIRGIN.

I collapsed onto my sofa the moment I got home, exhaustion weighing me down. I was just about to drift off when I heard it.

Buzz.

I fumbled for my phone. A new email alert on my personal account.

Subject: Interview Confirmation

“No,” I breathed. “This isn’t happening.”

I opened it. The same stark aesthetic: black background, silver font.

Dear Scarlett,

Your submission has been reviewed. You are required to present yourself at The Sapphire Regent Hotel tomorrow evening at 8:00 p.m. precisely. Punctuality is non-negotiable.

Sincerely,

The Curator

“No way,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs as I scanned the words again and again.

I had never given them my email.

The next morning arrived with the usual grimace. My cat mug was full of sludge-like coffee, and my colleague Caleb was muttering curses at his dual monitors, something about “teaching a VP how to find the ‘any’ key.”

He was across our cramped space, wearing a faded graphic tee and jeans that had seen better decades.

“Morning,” I grunted, dropping into my chair.

He didn’t turn. We had an understanding. Silence was a form of camaraderie.

“You look like death warmed over,” he observed. “Long night?”

“The longest,” I sighed.

He didn’t press. He never did.

But sleep had been impossible. My mind had been a frantic loop of firewalls and phantom hackers, all centered on that insane application.

The one where I’d offered to auction off my virginity to a phantom for a life-changing sum of money.

I’d spent the night fortifying my systems, searching for traces of an intrusion, hoping it was just a sophisticated phishing attempt. I could handle a hacker. It was an occupational hazard in my line of digital tourism.