by Amy Brent
She gave me a demure look and asked, “So, Denny, what’s the best part about being you?”
The look in her eye made me think she knew what I was going to say and wanted to hear the words. The way her mouth dropped open after I said the words told me I sucked at reading a woman’s mind.
I didn’t blink.
I didn’t hesitate.
I just shrugged as if she’d ask me my favorite flavor of ice cream and said, “The pussy. Duh.”
I know, I know, I know…
Look, in my defense, it was a stupid fucking question and one I got every time I sat down to be interviewed in my role of Cofounder and Chief Marketing Officer of IDS.
I normally didn’t have to think about the answer because I’d been asked that fucking question a million times since becoming filthy rich and filthy famous. For 999,999 of those times I had rambled on about using my money and fame and clout to help make the world a better place. Or about being at the forefront of emerging tech and being able to work with some of the most brilliant tech minds on the planet or bring clean water to thirsty African kids.
Blah… blah… blah...
So earlier that morning, when my best pal and business partner, Sammy Branniff (yes, that Sammy Branniff, the former All American out of San Jose State and part owner of the Los Angeles Marauders) called two minutes before air time and triple-dog-dared me to say, “The pussy. Duh”, my brain simply could not resist the dare. Never triple-dog-dare a guy with no filter. It will not end well.
Sammy was the Chief Operating Officer of IDS, and one of the sharpest business minds on the planet. He was the guy who took Isaac’s data storage software and turned it into a real business. He got the angel investors onboard early, then had the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists fighting one another to cough up tens of millions of dollars. He took IDS public and has guided the company to stellar heights. Bezos and Zuckerburg had Sammy on speed dial. Gates and Buffet consulted him on trends in tech. Trump wanted him to serve on some committee on entrepreneurship. He was a brilliant guy, but not too brilliant to triple-dog-dare me to say those words.
“The pussy. Duh.”
So, I said the words, but I blamed the fallout on Sammy.
And I was amazed at how quickly the shit hit the fan.
Of course, our other partner, Isaac Hanson—aka Mr. Serious—IDS Chief Technical Officer and the guy that Wired Magazine dubbed “the brains of the outfit”, was foaming at the mouth when I got to the office later that morning. I figured he’d be cooled down by the time the corporate jet ferried me from Los Angeles to San Jose, but I was wrong. I’d never seen him so pissed.
“I can’t believe you actually said that on live fucking TV!” Isaac screamed as I sat across the conference room table during our late morning meeting. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see Sammy sitting at the head of the table hiding his face behind a big mug of coffee.
I pointed at Sammy and mocked the voice of a ten-year old kid who’d just been caught taking a piss in the teacher’s desk drawer (wow, another flashback).
I shook my finger at Sammy and whined. “It’s not my fault. Sammy triple-dog-dared me to do it.”
“Oh my god!” Isaac roared, his hands cutting through the air like Bruce Lee fending off an army of ninjas. “You sound like a goddamn kid! Do you do everything Sammy dares you to do?”
I put on a hurt face and tried not to grin. “No, not everything. Just the triple-dog-dare stuff.”
Isaac blew out a long breath and rubbed his eyes. “Un-fucking-believable. And you’re our Chief Marketing Officer? The guy in charge of our brand messaging?”
I bit down hard on my bottom lip and spread out my hands. “That’s right. And this was a brilliant marketing move on my part.”
Isaac gawked at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“It certainly has people talking,” Sammy said, chiming in as he held up his phone. “Two thousand Tweets so far. Trending on YouTube and Facebook.”
“See,” I said, waving my hands like a magician conjuring a rabbit out of a hat. “A brilliant marketing move if I do say so myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if IDS stock doesn’t jump ten points by the end of the day. That’s the power of the pussy.”
“You’re fucking hopeless,” Isaac said with a deep sigh. He shook his head at me the way my old man used to when I did something that pissed him off, but he also found funny deep down. “Just fucking hopeless.”
“Oh, come on, Ise,” Sammy said, frowning over the cup. “It’s not that big a deal. Lighten up.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes at Sammy. “Let’s see how much you lighten up when the board members start calling you to complain about his behavior. You’re the CEO. You’re the one that will get the most shit for this.”
“Hey, don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I said. “You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“Oh, fuck your feelings,” Isaac said, head swiveling like a broken bobblehead.
“He was just being honest, Ise,” Sammy said, his thick eyebrows arching. He braced his elbows on the table and rolled the cup between his hands. “The pussy is the best part about being us. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. Don’t you think Mark Cuban and Elon Musk would have said the same thing when they were single, if they had Denny’s balls?”
“The size of Denny’s balls is not the point,” Isaac said, rubbing his eyes as he blew out his cheeks in frustration. I was both amused and saddened at his anxiety.
“Then what’s the point?” I asked innocently. I spread out my hands again. “Please, Ise, enlighten me.”
“You can’t just say shit like that in public, Denny, especially on a show like Good Day America, which half the fucking country watches.”
“Give me a break.” I clutched my chest with both hands and huffed back at him. “Guys watch that show to see Robin Robinson’s tits and women watch it to get the latest cupcake recipe from that fat weather man. The country doesn’t give a flying shit about me or thirsty kids in Africa. I doubt anyone was even paying attention.”
“Oh, they were paying attention,” Isaac said. He held up his phone and jabbed the air with it. “All three networks, along with FoxNews and CNN, Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes… they’ve already called wanting a comment. IDS is all over the fucking news. TV and internet.”
“That’s awesome,” I said, beaming. “See. I’m a goddamn marketing genius.”
“She does have great tits,” Sammy said quietly, as if he were talking to himself. Me and Isaac looked at him. Sammy held up his catcher’s mitt-sized hands and wiggled his fingers. “Robin Robinson. She has great tits. I know from experience. More than a handful, and I have some big fucking hands.”
“Lucky you,” I said as I poured myself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the conference room table. I leaned back with a grin on my face. “I just let her suck my cock in the dressing room after the show. I didn’t have time to feel her tits. The fucking weather guy kept knocking on the door.”
Isaac looked like he was about to choke on his latte. His eyes pleaded with mine. “Dude… please tell me you didn’t…”
I just smiled. “Next time you’re on Good Day America ask her and see what she says.”
“Jesus Christ, Denny,” Isaac said, his eyes rising to the ceiling. He held out his hands like he was beckoning God. “Why can’t you keep it in your pants just one day of the week?”
I leveled a stiff finger and a hard eye at him. “Hey, you’re the guy who got a blowjob in your office from that blonde chick from Influencers Magazine a few months back. What’s her name? Casey? Macy?”
“Stacey,” Sammy said. “Been there, tapped that, got the dirty panties to prove it. And, might I add, another great set of tits.”
“You guys are killing me,” Isaac said with a voice that let us know he had taken all of this discussion he could stand. He pulled his laptop in front of him and tapped the keys. The giant monitor hanging on the wall came to life with a spreadsheet detaili
ng this quarter’s IDS sales numbers to date.
“You’re killing us now that you have a steady girlfriend,” Sammy said, referring to Isaac’s new love, Amy Rossetti. “That woman has turned you into the biggest party pooper on the planet.”
Isaac shot him a look. “Party pooper? Really?”
“Ah, leave him alone, Sam,” I said. “It’s time that one of us grew up.”
“Thanks,” Isaac said.
“Don’t thank me,” I said with a grin. “That was not a compliment.”
“Fuck you both,” Isaac said, turning toward the monitor. “Now, let’s look at the most recent numbers…”
Sammy listened. I pretended to. I was thinking about Isaac and Amy again. They’d been hot and heavy for weeks now and things just seemed to be heating up more by the day. Isaac dragged in every morning with his tired cock dangling between his legs from overuse and eyes red from lack of sleep. The moron was head over heels for Amy Rossetti and I couldn’t blame him. She was drop-dead gorgeous, smart, funny, had a body to die for, and according to the few details we’d been able to pry out of Isaac, was a freak in bed.
I watched them together sometimes and wished I had what they had. They were in heat and in love. I was constantly in heat, but had never even come close to being in love. Maybe I’d give it a try someday when the desire to fuck every hot girl that walked in the room was gone from my bones.
If that ever happened.
With any luck, I’d die a very old man while fucking a beautiful woman whose name I didn’t even know.
And there would be a big fucking smile on my face.
Oh well. At least it was Friday.
Twelve hours from now I’d be at Club D neck-deep in pussy.
What’s it like being Denny Chambers, America?
It is mother fucking great.
Chapter 3: Serena Diaz
“I wish you didn’t have to work so much, baby girl.”
I smiled across the dinner table at my father, who had made short work of the platter or tamales and nachos I had prepared for dinner. The look of love and concern on his weathered face made my cheeks flush, even though we had replayed this exact scene every week for months now, always with the same outcome. I came to his house for an early dinner every Friday evening before heading off to my second job for the weekend. It was the fact that I worked a second job to pay for school that bother Papa so. It hurt his pride and made him sad. Which made me sad, but not sad enough to change my plans.
Papa was old fashioned. He thought a college education was for rich people who were too lazy to work with their hands. People like us, first and second-generation Mexican-Americans, worked for a living. We didn’t go to school for years just to sit behind a desk to get fat and lazy. The men worked with their hands and their backs, and the women pumped out babies and cleaned houses and hotel rooms for extra money. It was a stereotype that I had faced my entire life, one promoted by my own people who had never done any better.
Cleaning other people’s houses and changing scummy hotel bed sheets and squeezing out babies was not the life for me. Papa just couldn’t seem to accept that, hence the weekly Friday afternoon guilt trip.
“I don’t mind working, Papa,” I said, putting on a happy face so he wouldn’t feel so bad about not being able to help with my university expenses. Not that I needed his help. I made plenty of money. Several times more a year than he had ever made doing construction.
In fact, if he knew how much money I made he’d flip his lid and demand to know what I was doing for a living because girls like me didn’t make that kind of money unless it was on our backs. For all he knew, I was working two jobs just to get by when the opposite was actually true.
He thought I lived in a ratty little apartment in Bingham Heights with my girlfriend, Angela, and drove a twenty-year-old Camry that was passed down from my older brothers. The truth was, I lived alone in a very nice apartment downtown and drove a brand-new BMW. I never drove the Beamer to Papa’s house and never let him visit my apartment, so he was clueless when it came to my finances. Ask him and he’d tell you his baby girl was living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to get by. That’s how it had to be.
I ate the last nacho on my plate and kept smiling as I chewed. “Besides, I don’t work that hard, really. It’s not like I’m doing construction out in the heat with you and the boys.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” he said, his sunbaked forehead cutting into a frown. He waved his big hands in the air. “You should be going out and having fun on the weekends. You should meet a nice young man and start a family. Give me grandchildren, like your brothers.”
“Papa, you have enough grandchildren,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And I enjoy what I do. I make more than enough to pay for my school and all my expenses. So stop worrying about it and finish your dinner. I have to leave soon and I want to get these dishes done.”
“A man can never have enough grandchildren,” he grumbled as he picked up the last bite of tortilla and wiped the sauce from his plate with it. Carlos Diaz was a proud man. He did not like the fact that his youngest child and only daughter had to work so hard to pay for the college education that he could not afford.
College was expensive, but I easily covered the cost. I was six months away from getting my Masters in Physics, with a Minor in Microbiology, from San Jose State. I wanted to be a cancer researcher because my mama had died of the horrible disease when I was just six-years-old. I barely remembered her now, even though Papa said I could see her every time I looked in the mirror.
I was the youngest of seven kids and the only one to go to college. My six brothers all worked with Papa hanging sheet rock and doing masonry work in the valley. It was hard, sweaty, backbreaking work, but they all had families to support and were grateful for what they had. I could see every year of the hard labor in my father’s eyes and the scars on his hands. I wished that I could help him monetarily, but if he knew I had money… well… I just couldn’t go down that road. At least not yet.
Papa was under the impression that I worked part-time as the personal assistant to Amy Rossetti, the super successful cybersecurity consultant and now, after hooking her up with Isaac, the love of her life, one of my best friends. The truth was I worked at Amy Rossetti & Associates four hours a day, four days a week, then spent the weekends working at a ritzy country club in the mountains north of the city. Well, Papa thought it was a country club. If he and my six brothers knew what really went on there he’d shit a brick and kill me with it.
The place was called Club Votre Désire. Club D, for short. It was this super-exclusive, private club located on this massive estate in the hills north of the city where rich men went to do unwind and get their rocks off with gorgeous women far from the public eye.
Like a resort, Club D was continually open from Friday night at midnight till Sunday night at ten. It was so secret the owners bused in the employees like me. I’d worked there for almost two years now and couldn’t begin to tell you how to find the place. The cool thing was they had a huge guest house where the girls could stay during the weekend. I pulled two ten-hour shifts as a waitress, then had the rest of the time to enjoy the place. There was an Olympic-sized indoor pool, tennis courts, a spa and salon, a restaurant and room service, all available to the girls for free.
The real moneymakers, the girls who worked as Escorts and Specialists, all had rooms in the main house, where they sold their goodies for tens of thousands of dollars to men who considered that pocket change. The Escorts were all gorgeous women who offered the members straight sex, anal, and blowjobs. The Specialists were Escorts who could do really freaky things with their bodies, like deep throat a twelve-inch dildo (or cock) or take on multiple guys at once or bend double to lick their own cooches.
The more unique, the more the Specialist could charge. They were probably the highest paid sex workers on the planet. Mr. Lemon, the concierge and director of client services, had offered me an escort spot several times, but
that kind of work wasn’t for me. Although, the money was tempting, but it would have killed my father to discover that his baby girl had turned out to be a high-end whore, which the judgmental Catholic girl in me branded the Escorts and Specialists to be.
A redheaded Russian beauty named Carina was the top earner. I won’t even tell you what she could do because it was just gross. Still, word was she pulled down over a million dollars last year doing it.
Good for her.
I was just fine making six figures as a waitress.
Don’t get me wrong, I was not opposed to sex, free or paid. In fact, I loved sex and had been quite the little slut in high school. I still slept with a number of guys and probably thought more about sex than I should have. I wasn’t a nympho, but sometimes I could fuck all night without stopping to catch my breath. It depended on the guy, of course. I had a certain type. Handsome, smart, funny, independent, not interested in anything serious. If that package came with a killer body and a big cock, more the better.
So there, I wasn’t a prude and I didn’t see the harm in letting girls sell—or rent out—the goodies that God gave them, but for me, sex was a deeply personal thing, something done out of passion and love, not purchased by the hour or billed by the orgasm.
“You see this joker on TV this morning?” Papa was asking. I blinked at the sound of his voice and let my eyes follow the direction in which his finger was pointing. Papa was a TV-holic. He had a TV in every room, even in the kitchen, sitting on the counter next to the toaster. My mouth hung open when I saw a familiar face frozen on the screen.