Saving Sophie

“Think she’ll expect sex?”

Jake Muscat’s head snapped up so fast he felt a neck muscle pull. He’d been zoning out—maybe he’d missed something in his conversation with Brett Huntsman, his friend of 16 years, something that could have made this comment sensible. But then again, Brett rarely made sense anyway. “What are you talking about?”

“The girl, the one who wins you tonight—think she’ll expect you to put out?” Brett pulled back the heavy red velvet curtain and gestured to the throng of women covering every inch of the theater.

Built in the late 1800s at the height of the gold-mining era, the Nugget Theater had been well cared for, retaining its regal atmosphere with the original brick façade and iron shutters, high ceilings, and private balconies. The cast-iron, red velvet-covered rows of seats, usually lining the auditorium, had been removed to make room for the growing crowd of women holding auction paddles, dressed in their finest, and creating a roar comparable to that at a pro football game.

Jake wondered if he hadn’t made a terrible, horrible, God-awful mistake when he told Sophie Huntsman, Brett’s sister, he’d be the headliner for the fund-raising bachelor auction she arranged. How she’d ever sweet-talked him into being auctioned off like a piece of meat was beyond him. Jake always swore he’d be a good friend—but this was a bit much to ask of anyone.

Now, listening to the catcalls and howls erupting from the crowd—amazingly raunchy noises from these single women¬¬—he cringed.

“What did I get myself into?” Jake clung to the stem of his martini glass as though ready to strangle it. Pure estrogen filled the theater—the only men who’d dared risk their presence at this function were Victorian-costumed volunteers and tuxedo-clad eligible bachelors, Jake included, stashed away backstage.

“I love women: their bodies, their smell, their boobs; but this is scary,” he commented to Brett, still peeking through the curtains at the crowd. “The way they scream every time a new victim walks on stage makes me think of some Amazon tribe of women who kept men captive.”

“No problem here being tied up as a sex slave.” Brett’s reply was muffled, his face obscured by thick folds of velvet.

Jake spent his high school years on this very stage, acting in plays put on by the American Playwrights Festival. The philanthropic Huntsman Foundation, run and owned by Brett and Sophie’s parents, had initiated 30 years ago a small summer-stock festival featuring plays written by American writers.

Within five years, the Festival grew to national importance and put the old mining town of Quartzton on the map. The small, flagging economy—thriving during the gold rush but battered down ever since—was revitalized by tourist dollars pouring in from festival attendees.