Foster Care: A Marketplace Tale, Part 1

 

{This story is fanfiction set in the world originally created by Laura Antoniou in her Marketplace series. There’s intrigue, unhinged billionaires, plenty of lesbian sex, kidnapping, BDSM, AIG-style financial corruption, and strap-ons. What’s not to love?

If you’ve never heard of The Marketplace, it’s a fictional world where there is a large and hidden network of consensual slaves who serve owners under contract.

Laura recently issued a book of fanfiction based on her Marketplace world entitled “No Safewords,” which I found entertaining, sexy, and comforting in the way that familiar worlds often are. When I saw Ms. Antoniou speak in Providence a few weeks ago, she mentioned that she would have liked to see more lesbian stories submitted for the anthology. I got ya covered! The story’s setup takes a page from the true story of John MacAfee, Silicon Valley billionaire who retired to Belize and is now in hiding and wanted for murder.}

Foster Care

by Lily Lloyd

“You’re shitting me,” I say. “He’s Marketplace? I know he’s a billionaire — but he’s batshit crazy.”

“Negel got him access to the auctions,” Chris says.

“Oh. Well, that explains a lot.”

Jack McFarlane had made a mint in software, sold it to an even bigger company, then retired with all his money and toys to Costa Rica. Honestly, nobody thought he was that crazy when he left the States, but he seemed to pull a Captain Kurtz down there in the jungle. The stories got weirder and wilder as time went on, and then, he finally pulled something even the Costa Ricans couldn’t be paid or intimidated into ignoring: he shot his neighbor in the face with an assault rifle in a dispute over a noisy dog.

His neighbor was a pop singer whose career was a source of national pride, so that was pretty awkward. More awkward was the fact that he went on the lam and had started issuing unhinged electronic missives from the jungle to a blogger at Wired Magazine whose Twitter avatar, he said, was “cute, in a hot librarian sort of way.”

And MacFarlane? Had bought 16 slaves through the Marketplace.

A lot of this came out in the tabloids, along with plenty of photos of the man’s home arsenal, which included 81 assault rifles, a rocket launcher, and a tank, which although miniaturized to the size of a golf cart, had a fully functional howitzer. The tabloids, of course, didn’t know about the Marketplace and just went on about MacFarlane’s “harem” of beautiful young women. They didn’t mention the house servants, or the driver, or the bodyguards, who were, of course, also Marketplace.

“I know this isn’t your problem, Bette, but I thought your diplomatic skills might be useful,” Chris said. “One of them doesn’t have a passport and we’re having trouble getting them out of the country.”

Sigh. Diplomat. Well, that’s what my passport and my car plates said, but I’m no diplomat: I’m a fixer, and a fixer who was retired and trying very hard to stay that way. Why, I just paid off a housing inspector to look the other way on my newly-installed woodstove, a modern one from Finland with no scrolly bits and a tiny recess for a teapot.

And now I’m supposed to leave? Fuck.

“She’s an American citizen, isn’t she? Just have her go to the Embassy and they’ll take care of it,” I said.

“They’re trying to keep her in the country to testify against MacFarlane.”

“Just her?”

“All the others managed to get away.”

I look out the window. It had started to snow in Montreal last week, and tonight it was sheeting down between the streetlamp and the depannéur across the street where I picked up the paper every morning. I adjust the old windows, which are still pretty drafty, and pulled my robe tighter around me. I’d have to pack my own bag. When was the last time I did that? I hadn’t gotten on a plane, or even bought a ticket since…

“Listen, you know that you can count on one hand the number of times I’ve overstepped like this in my life,” Chris says, a cab honking in the New York background of his call. “And I know I’m overstepping now, but I’m only saying this because I really believe it. I think you need to get out of the house.”

I sigh. The last time I saw Chris was at an auction, and instead of making a purchase, I ended up getting so drunk that I have no idea what happened next, although the resulting rumors and the epic hangover gave me a pretty good idea. I’d woken up in the guest room of a brownstone where Chris was working as a trainer. The next day, after I could bear opening my eyes in a fully lit room, I booked a one way ticket to Montreal, the last place I’d been really happy, and that’s where I’ve been for the last six months.

“Okay,” I say. “Give me the information.”

**************

I don’t know where the fuck I can buy a Mac power adapter in Costa Rica. Or, for that matter, a charging cable for my phone. Upon unpacking, I realize that I had forgotten several other vital items: for one thing, the panties I was wearing were apparently the only pair I had with me.

Sigh. Everybody thinks I’m so capable, but half of it was Diana. I check and recheck my pockets — passports, wallet, notebook, pen, dollars, pesos. I have no idea how many times I do this a day now that she’s gone, but it’s enough to make me tired and sick of myself. It used to be her job, and for the past decade I never had to worry about it. Now I worry about it a dozen times a day: Fuck! Where’s my wallet?! Oh, it’s in that pocket now. I’ve changed from James Bond to Columbo: grumpy, disheveled — oh, stop thinking about it, I tell myself as I walk into the tiled and palm-shaded courtyard of the hotel. I buy a hat and a pair of sunglasses and let myself into the Jeep that’s been arranged for me.

The sun and the wind feel good and Costa Rican radio ain’t half bad. By the time I arrive at MacFarlane’s finca, 45 minutes from the city center in a tony ridgetop area called Las Palomas, I’m in a pretty good mood. I stop well short of the gate and take in the scene. There are a couple of guards, but they don’t look like military or police — private security.

This is one of those cases where being female is a big advantage. Large armed men don’t see me as threatening, so I can generally walk right up to them without them pulling a gun on me or having them call for reinforcements. At least the first time they meet me, anyway.

They talk about me in Spanish as I approach. They think I have a nice ass, and if they’re saying that they think I have a nice ass and don’t speak Spanish. That’s fine, I don’t want them to know that I do.

“Is Kelly still here? I used to see her at the club, and I heard she’s still here. Isn’t it horrible what’s happened? I heard everyone was gone except for her and I feel so bad for her.” I let my voice slip up into a higher register and channeled the Real Housewives of Orange County — a rich piece of trophy-wife fluff.

“No, she not here.”

“Oh, did she go back to the States? Is she okay?” I know she’s still in the country, of course.

“She went to hospital,” the big one says.

“Oh, no! She didn’t get shot too, did she? Oh, I’ll have to send flowers! Is she awake? Oh, this is terrible!” I said, as I laid my fingertips on the big one’s forearm and even stroked them back and forth a bit. I was really camping it up now. In my mind, I had one of those dogs that fit in a purse and a deep and meaningful relationship with my cosmetic surgeon. “You don’t think they brought her to the city, do you? Why, I don’t even know WHERE to send the flowers. This is so terrible!”

“No. Not the city hospital. Santa Marta.”

“Oh, thank you so much.” I say.

I even swish my ass a bit in what I imagine to be the finest trophy wife fashion as I walk back to the Jeep.

Kelly is in a hospital, which is not good. It’s a private hospital, which is good. The guards at the door to her room, however, are not private security but actual police, which is very, very not good.

The hardware that police in other countries carry runs the gamut. If you’re from the US, you’re probably not used to the paramilitary look of the police in many countries — the last time you got stopped for speeding, the cop probably had some standard issue combat tupperware on his hip, but she wasn’t carrying a submachine gun. This fella, however, has something in a nice extended clip sitting in his lap while he catches up on the doings of The Brangelina in an English-language edition of People.

I sit on a bench in the hallway and sift through the issues of People, some of which are recent and some of a vintage that can only be ascertained through carbon dating. The officer’s phone trills, and he fished it out and snaps it open. His face assumes that familiar expression of Heterosexual Man Being Harassed by Wife.

I arrange my face to indicate studious attention to the celebrity deeds and misdeeds reported by the magazine in my hands.

Ah, his mother in law wants to move in. He does not want this. The wife does not want this either but does not feel able to say no.

And? There’s no money for a little nearby apartment for the mother-in-law.

Bingo.

*********************

Bribery is so much easier than they make it look in the movies. You don’t really need an envelope or a dark location or any of that bullshit. You just need money. I strolled down to un cambio and cash in about two grand in American dollars, and on my way back I pick up the local version of a Sno-Cone, made with chunks of pineapple and syrup. It beats the shit out of 7-11, I can tell you that much.

I love bribing people. My work makes me happy.

So? I bribe Mr. I-don’t-want-my-mother-in-law-in-my-house to look the other way for a little bit when I come back after dinner. He even helpfully tells me when the shift change is and offers to give me a handcuff key. I tell him, “Keep the key. I’ve got one already.”

Like I don’t have a handcuff key. Pfft. What do they think I am? Vanilla?

*****************

Dinner’s quite nice, a light white fish in a sauce of freshly diced tomatoes and mild peppers, followed by Ubiquitous Flan. I stick to soda water with lime and stroll back to the hospital, where, as promised, there’s nothing but a copy of People on the chair next to the door.

*****************

I wish I could get used to this shit, even if that would make me like my utterly efficient and completely dead inside colleagues in the large and growing industry of fixing shit when everything goes pear-shaped. But I haven’t and at this point that means I probably never will.

MacFarlane didn’t shoot her, but she might have been better off if he had. There’s a cast; tape around the ribs, another cast. I can’t tell what color her eyes are — I’m not sure she can open them. Her arms and back look like she’s been dragged behind a tractor through a quarter mile of thorn bushes. I flip open the disposable phone and call Chris.

“I’m gonna need a doctor at the other end,” I say.

*****************

It’s more complicated since she can’t walk out with me, but apparently there’s an epidemic of mother-in-law moving in syndrome, and I get to make another five people safe from its horrors — two to get a gurney, one to drive an ambulance, and another to give me a rundown of her medical condition and enough pain meds to get her through the flight. He hands me everything along with a few more bags of saline to keep her hydrated.

********************

I know this means I’m a sick fuck, but I like sitting next to her on the plane, even though she’s not conscious. I was a medic in the Army and I like being useful. Or, really, what I like is having been useful, and sitting next to someone who’s not going to die in the next 15 minutes because I settled that shit.

The private jet — supplied by another Marketplace owner — has an entire mini fridge exclusively for champagne. I’d been told to make use of anything I needed.

I take out one of the bottles and open it. Kelly doesn’t even flinch as the cork pushes into my hand with a loud pop– she’s out cold. There are two flutes on a tray. I fill one and sip, looking at the empty flute.

That’s what Diana and I used to do, coming back from a job. Champagne. We’d each drink a glass of champagne to toast another job well done.

Sigh. I think I left one of my fucking bags in Costa Rica. Fuck it. Nothing was right and everything hurt. But I don’t drink the whole bottle or dip into the copious supply of Vicodin; instead, I read Kelly’s file.

*******************

MacFarlane bought Kelly three years ago at the same auction house where I’d bought Diana over a decade ago. It was a first-time contract for Kelly, who’d been trained by a reputable outfit in Chicago.

Originally from Toronto, youngest of five children, art degree, some success as an artist, spotted at a large event in New York.

I flip back again to the first page. Two year contract, but the date is four years ago. I flip to the end, where the contract renewals are supposed to be. Nothing except records of repeated calls to MacFarlane with no response.

Two year contract, but she’s been there for four years, with no renegotiation and no contact.

She’s not a slave, I think. She’s a hostage.

[Stay tuned for Part II!]