Helen, for 60

You eventually settle on Helen—something about her friendly flirtatiousness is hard to resist, but you can’t quite figure out how much time to put down. The date’s going to last what, an hour? Well, you’re certainly not going to spend any longer than that in detention then. God knows what's going to happen in there. Probably, Professor Ward’s just going to make you work on difficult problems until your brain futzes out.

Your mind made up, you scribble down your bid in the envelope, and make your way down to the queue in front of the professor. It’s a quick wait, and you soon hand it over to Professor Ward. There’s no change in her expression as she flicks it open. She simply makes an entry in her laptop, and waves on the next person.

You return to your seat, wondering how your bid stacks up against the others. You cross your fingers, hoping that you’ll win…

“I’ve got all the bids now, and have our two winners on my screen now,” Professor Ward says, and you glance at Jack, who has got a cocky smile on his face again. Shit, is there any way you outbid that asshole? “If you’re hoping that you’ll win, you’ve done something wrong. You’re supposed to bid your true value of the item, making you indifferent between the two options. Most of you who made this mistake will be paying the price for that dearly.

“Now, for the winners. For the date with Mallory, we have… Grace! She submitted the highest bid at 240 minutes, but will only spend the 215 minutes bid by our second-highest bidder, AJ,” Ward announces, and the girl sitting in the corner of the room gives an excited wave to Mal, who gives her a wink back.

Crap. Your bid’s low. There’s still hope, though—she hasn’t announced the numbers for Helen quite yet.

“For the date with Helen, we have… Jack! He’s won the bid with 300 minutes, and will spend the 240 minutes in detention bid by Zachary,” the professor says, and Jack gives the air a hard fist-pump. Well, you didn’t get the date, but really, 4 hours in the slammer? No way you would have been willing to spend that much time anyways.

You turn to Helen, trying to gauge her reaction, but there’s only that same smile on her face, a kind of carefully moderated cheerfulness. What does that mean? Is she actually into Jack? Or is she just doing a great job at hiding the opposite? You can’t get a read on her.

You spend the rest of the class fidgeting a little, trying to figure out what she’s hiding in her head, and wondering if you should have put a higher number down. But I never would have put 300 or higher, you think to yourself, and sigh, realising that the auction system is working exactly as intended. The date went to the person who was willing to pay the most.

As the class wraps up, you feel a tap on your shoulder, and turn to see Mal’s friendly face.

“What did you write in your envelope? I gotta know,” she says excitedly.

“It’s a secret,” you reply, not wanting to reveal that you bid for Helen instead of her. It would be bad tact. “Why did you put yourself out there? Anybody could have gone out with you! There are some creepy dudes out there…”

“Yeah, maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t win,” she laughs, winking to make it clear that she’s joking.

With that, she heads over to Grace to sort out the details of their date. Helen, for her part, has been talking with Jack the entire time, and it doesn’t look like their conversation’s going to end any time soon. Feeling a little down, you head back to the hall lounge instead.