Adrien swallowed back bile and squirmed in his seat.
Ron didn’t seem to care or notice. “Now, don’t forget to brag to your friends. They’ll all want to make you sweat for him, I’m sure.” Ron chuckled and then hung up the phone. “Chumming the water for you, Adrien. Getting the sharks hungry.”
Adrien smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Thanks.”
“So, first, let’s review how we’ll trigger your heat. Once the auction closes, you’ll have a week and a half before your heat will need to start.
During that time, you’ll be prescribed two hormones that will force your heat forward. Future heats will give warning signs several months in advance.
Those signals are best not ignored if you want to capitalize on them.”
“Sell them, you mean.”
“Exactly. So long as you’re a student or professor here at the university, I can help you sell those heats, or, once I’ve retired, whoever takes my place can help. If you marry, however, that alpha will be responsible for dealing with the heat. Of course, some married omegas do continue to sell their heats for profit in order to benefit their entire family, but we usually stay out of that and let the alpha handle those arrangements.”
Adrien pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded.
“And, obviously, some older omegas take up the duty of selling their heats themselves on less than reputable sites or in individual transactions. We advise you to stay away from that if possible. You have a stellar matching service here at the university, so you should absolutely take advantage of it.”
There wasn’t any new information in Ron’s little speech, but it made Adrien feel a bit better to hear it all spelled out, and he was glad for any reason to stall for time on the photos.
But it seemed as though his time was up.
Ron stubbed out his cigar. “Now, let’s get started with the pictures. I have a room here where I take them. I try to keep them all in the same tone so no one can accuse me of favoritism. Though if I had a current favorite among the heats up for sale, it would be you.” He smiled at Adrien and winked.
Adrien cringed. “How do the pictures…? I mean, what will I have to do for them?” Adrien knew that auctions were conducted for campus omegas’
heats on a regular basis, but he’d never taken a look at the website himself.
He’d been too afraid of what he might see of his future there.
“It’s easy, really. Naked, hands crossed behind the back for the first shot.
I’ll take a lot of those just to make sure I capture you with the most appealing expression on your face. It helps to show subservience in your eyes if possible. That can be hard for some omegas to accomplish, but I think you’ll be a natural. Then I take that same pose from behind. That frames the buttocks, which, as you know, is every alpha’s obsession.” He laughed.
“After that, I’ll grab one of you bent over with cheeks spread so they can see your anus. Finally, I’ll snap a few of just your face. Again, aiming to capture one with the right mix of innocence, desire, and a hint of fear. And that’ll do it.” He dusted off his hands to indicate a finished product. “And, let me tell you, son, if you’ve got a nice-looking hole, you’ll see the bids jump as soon as I load the pictures to the site. Alphas love a tight, young anus.”
Ignoring the pounding of his heart, Adrien said, “Bids have already started?”
“Absolutely. I put the auction live last night after our conversation with a write-up about you. Alphas are always looking for an intelligent omega to breed, you know. It’s not just about looks. They don’t want stupid offspring who won’t bring any glory to the family name. So your GPA alone was enough to get some takers.”
“But I thought we weren’t going to offer breeding just yet?”
“We haven’t!” Ron waved Adrien’s concern away. “I made sure to mention that you wanted to be a professor. When the early-bidding alphas saw you were ambitious as well as intelligent, they started out with higher bids than usual, rightly assuming that you’d be offering up breeding in the end. The wealthier alphas especially want to make sure their children have some drive to take over their businesses or fortunes once they’re retired or passed on.” Ron grinned.
Adrien noted for the first time that Ron’s teeth were crooked. He couldn’t tell if Ron was a beta or an omega himself, but he knew he definitely wasn’t an alpha.
“How high have the bids gone?” Adrien asked, his heart pounding harder.
“Don’t you fret about numbers yet,” Ron said. “After I post the pictures, the bids will shoot way up. Because, yes, intelligence matters, but alphas are ignited by a sexy body and a pretty face. You’re going to make them cream their pants just imagining having the first go at you. And when you offer breeding after a few days’ time, oh, the fight will be on. Bids will absolutely skyrocket.”
Heat pooled in Adrien’s stomach. A weird sense of pride at the idea of potentially commanding a high price warred with the inherent disgust that swamped him whenever he thought of selling his body in this way. He focused on his earlier question, the one Ron had waved off. “Why are the alphas who want to breed bidding on me when I haven’t offered it yet? What makes them so sure?”
“Oh, they know the name of the game,” Ron said cheekily. “They figure even if you don’t offer it, they can probably convince you in the throes of heat to take on a breeding for less than the price you’d demand if you were putting it on the table right now.”
A rancid bile rose in Adrien’s throat. “That’s not fair, though. Omegas don’t think clearly in heat.”
Ron raised a thin brow. “And that’s exactly what they’re counting on.
Let’s put it this way: the world ain’t fair, pretty pauper. But you won’t have to worry about that because you’re going to offer the breeding beforehand.
Now, let’s get your glasses and clothes off and take those pictures.”
The process of being photographed was humiliating. As Adrien walked back to his dorm, evading the eyes of his fellow students, he wondered how
many of them had gone through the same ordeal. It was hard to tell an omega from a beta, since those sexes appeared so outwardly similar and were only inwardly different. Alphas, however, were easy to pick out. They had a certain swagger and were typically larger than betas and omegas. Adrien could identify them at a distance.
As he hustled down the busy sidewalks, he found himself trying to guess at the sex of each person he passed. He wondered if those he suspected of being omegas had already had their first heat and how they’d dealt with it all.
The alphas didn’t make eye contact with him, which was nothing new, but he found himself darting glances their way, curious about whether any of them had handled an omega in heat before.
He grimaced as an alpha with a thickly muscled neck lifted a brow when he caught Adrien looking. He ducked his head and hurried onward, not wanting to invite attention. Still, he had so many questions. What was a heat like for an alpha? He knew it was profoundly pleasurable—that was why they were willing to bid on omegas so steeply—but he also knew they didn’t feel as out of control as an omega, keeping their head for the majority of the heat.
But he sometimes wondered if handling a heat changed how alphas viewed all omegas afterward.
Seeing a man so undone, so out of control and lost in his lust, taking care of him, and catering to his urgent and overpowering needs…did some alphas stop considering an omega to be fully human after that experience? Is that what led so many of them to resist the changes in omega voting rights and professional certificates?
And what about the omegas who went through these heats? A heat like he was going to be in very soon? Adrien swallowed hard, pushing down the surge of fear. How humiliating would it be to go so entirely feral, to be needy beyond measure, and to be broken down like that in front of an alpha who knew nothing else about him?
