Cocktales

by The Cocky Collective

  “Oh,” she replies, her eyes light up at the sheer idea of it.

  “See, if we plan it out like a bank heist and are very clever, we can do a last minute switcheroo before the digital projection for the execs. And doesn’t Arnold always show those test group results at these presentations? I assume he’ll be doing that too.”

  Brooke’s eyes grow wide with disbelief. “And you’d show the test group the extra-racy version too?”

  “Of course! Again, we’d have to time everything with extreme precision so that the results are presented mid-meeting.”

  She gasps and slaps her hand over her mouth. “He will lose his mind. I don’t know, Nathan. This could backfire and we could all be looking for new jobs.”

  I shrug. “Let him try. When word gets out about all the offensive material he was developing, the whole story will bite him in the ass. This is a media sensitive time in the world.”

  “It is,” she agrees before letting out a deep breath and curling back against me. “You are so amazing, Super-Nathan. You give me hope that we can rise above this, and continue to do cartoons we are proud of.”

  I kiss her on her forehead and pull her tight against me. “And we will,” I whisper.

  After a few more cartoons Brooke is sound asleep against me and I’m dozing off too. In my sleepy daze, I feel her shift in her sleep and her hand ends up pressed against my chest. Her holding me only makes me relax more - but right on the edge of sleep, I feel her hand shift down until it’s resting against my crotch. You would think this sensation would wake me up. Instead, my overactive imagination leads me into dream land, where all my pervy dreams can come true.

  My dreams tend to be highly cinematic, but this one is looking IMAX Theater-worthy. I’m up on a mountain but my view is obscured with the sun in my eyes. When I hold my hand over my brow to shade my vision from the glare, I see my curvy Wonder Woman on the edge of a cliff, her long hair gently waving in the wind. I take a step toward her just as she turns back to look at me. Her smile is warm as she reaches her hand out inviting me closer.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” she says as I approach her and pull her into my arms. Considering our super hero strength, we are gentle with each other as she pushes my stray curl off my forehead, and I stroke her cheek. With the next breeze my cape wraps around us and I pull her into a deep kiss. It’s a superhero-worthy kiss, and she sighs happily. When we finally pull apart, her hand remains below my waist where it had slide down just before we fell asleep, and her eyes blaze with passion.

  That’s all the reassurance I need as I nod toward the valley below. “Are you ready?” I ask.

  She takes my hand and we gracefully lift off in flight, soon soaring over clouds and the lush green fields. We pass waterfalls and forests dense with trees until I find the perfect spot for us to lie together. Moments later we are standing on a soft bed of grass with a tree shading us. She begins to slowly remove her Wonder Woman uniform and I watch eagerly as every inch of skin, every gorgeous curve, is revealed. Impatience kicks in though, and we begin to help each other, more anxiously. Once Wonder Woman has my tights pulled down I love how she grabs my ass and moans roughly. I’m pretty sure this is going to be a wild ride.

  She’s gloriously naked when I lift her up into my arms and she wraps her strong legs around me. We can’t be bothered to remove her tiara and magic silver cuffs as I lower us to the ground. All I want is to fill her again, and watch my goddess come undone.

  But before I do I tend to every part of her, devouring her mouth as she grinds against me, then kissing her neck, down to her perfect breasts where she cries out as I gently bite her nipples. When I spread her legs open even further and taste her between her legs, she winds her fingers into my hair like she’ll never let me go.

  “Fuck me Superman,” she finally growls. And so I do. Each thrust pushes us into the earth. She rakes her fingers across my back, and bites my neck while thrusting her hips up just as hard as I’m thrusting my pelvis down. We are so amped up, I’m sure I could make love to her into the next millennium, but I desperately need the high of us coming together both spiritually and physically.

  I sense she sees the desperation in my face, so when I start to groan, “I need…” she nods with a complete understanding because she needs it too. Her legs tighten against me and we desperately kiss as I thrust deeply into her. I sense the moment she starts to soar.

  A flush burns across her skin like a wildfire and she cries out, “Yes! Yes!” And I’m calling out too because I’m soaring with her. I’m no longer awkward, bumbling Clark Kent, but her man of steel, and she’s my wondrous Wonder Woman.

  After we come down, I hold her tightly as I roll onto by back, pulling her with me. We continue to lie heart to heart. She is gloriously stretched over me as we let our breathing settle. That’s the final moment I remember before I wake to the sensation of Brooke’s hand tightening over me, where I’m fully hard.

  It takes everything I have to carefully peel her hand off of me instead of encouraging her to do more. I can’t afford to lose what is building between us. I’m confident that if I do right by her, one day we will end up together.

  Just a minute later she stirs and slowly wakes up. “What time is it?” she mumbles.

  “Almost one. I’m going to head home.” I slowly lift myself off the couch, thankful that my erection has subsided.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  I grab my DVD and head to the front door with her. Right before I open it she wraps her arms around me. “Thank you for everything Nathan.”

  I smile at her and she reaches up to kiss my cheek. She pauses there, and kisses me again.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I had this superhero dream…” Her face gets pink.

  I feel my cheeks getting hot too. Could she have had the same dream? I don’t really want to know so I can always believe that she did. “Was it a good dream?” I ask.

  “Mmm,” she purrs. “So so good.”

  I grin. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Indeed, see you Superman,” she says.

  My heart thunders joyfully all the way to my car. Whatever that meant, a guy can dream, can’t he?

  Everything happens very quickly the following week. Arnold’s batshit crazy treatment is turned into a lame pilot script and Dani, our background painter who was thrown into the writing process, sneaks an early script to us. The scenes are divvied up between the two animation teams and Joel and Bruce, our harried directors, stay focused on getting the main storyline and gags done with their animators. Meanwhile, we gather in groups after work in various people’s apartments and houses to spend our late nights working on all the “extras” that we hope will blow this show’s chance of getting picked up right out of the water.

  I tend to go wherever our team slob and deviant Kevin goes, because he sets the tone for the evening by always coming up with the most outrageous stuff. He conjures up Banging Betty, the chicken that will lewdly rub up against any one or anything that holds still long enough. The plan is to always have her in the background going to town, so it’s not an immediate read but when you catch her thrusting up against the fence posts or whatever, she serves up quite a wollop.

  Sometimes the jokes are in the backgrounds. Like there’s the small sign over what we assume is a doghouse with the words “Huff and Puff” printed in block letters above a neon green cross. Nothing should get the bigwigs riled up more than a marijuana dispensary in one of their kiddie cartoons.

  The dog that lives in that house is usually stoned and smoking behind the doghouse so all we see is the end of his tail peeking out, and the continual puffs of smoke rising.

  Sex- obsessed Kevin has Cocky’s right hand guy, a sarcastic Duck named Quackers, wander through the barnyard quacking out, “Calling all booties!”

  Genna suggests a sign near the henhouse that says “Line up for Harem Inspections Here.” And Dani proposes that a calico cat character wanders into the frame and Sir Cocky calls
out, “Hey, can someone grab that pussy for me?”

  As our ideas get bigger and our time grows shorter, we finally realize that we are going to pick and choose among the inappropriate bevy of gags we’ve all come up with. Once that is decided, with the directors having the final say, it’s time for the animators and background artists to jump on the extra work. The good thing is that everyone is so motivated that it doesn’t feel like work. We are united in a cause we all believe in and know is worth fighting for.

  Our team of editors are our champions in the technical process, as they have to take their original final cut for our pilot and switch out many scenes with the “new added material” scenes. This is no small task with sound syncs also changing, but they rise to the occasion and do a fantastic job working right up to the wire.

  Meanwhile, Arnold has not ventured down to our area to actually see our progress despite his early assurances that he was going to be very ‘hands on’ during the production process. This is probably thanks to Joel and Bruce, who loaded key scenes on Arnold’s private drive hoping he’d never actually wander down to our area. The directors also shared with us that Arnold a.k.a. King Boo-Foo reported back that he was pleased as punch with what he had seen in the comfort of his own office.

  We still have two main hurdles to get over if we’re going to be successful. First, the marketing angle with the test screening is pivotal. Luckily this challenge is being managed by Brooke since she’s perfect for it. We knew it was too risky to have her involved in any way with the animation part of the coup, but Brooke has a good relationship with Anne, the marketing head, who happens to detest Arnauld, so we’re optimistic we’ll get her support.

  Brooke explains to Anne that this new pilot concept is very controversial and we are all very concerned. When Anne hears the details she is horrified and agrees to show the X-rated pilot to the testing group as long as she is assured that the little kids won’t get the dirty references. She also agrees to delay the testing and revealing the results until the big-wigs are already in their meeting. Brooke will rush the result in and apologize for the delay due to program errors.

  Finally, our silent soldier Chester has the most important job of all. He will make the last minute digital switch of the X-rated pilot with the original right before the big-wigs watch it. I have a mild panic attack at the bravery required to make this switch less than thirty feet away from the execs, but if anyone can keep his cool under fire, it’s Chester.

  The night before our big reveal, everyone on this project except Brooke, the editors, and Chester meet up at the Smokehouse bar. It feels so good to cut loose and forget about the potential that we all may be jobless by tomorrow night. Every time I have a second thought about our coup, I push it out of my mind. It’s too late to change my mind now anyway. We are heading down a steep hill with no breaks, and my anxiety level teeters somewhere between a heart-attack and just the sheer thrill of it.

  The next morning most of us show up a little late since we’re hungover, and we were told the afternoon before that Arnold had a breakfast meeting with the execs at their hotel before they head to our studio. He’s really pulled out all the stops to make this a successful presentation.

  Brooke summons me just minutes after I’ve set down my workbag and turned on my drafting table lamp.

  “What’s up?” I ask after I step into her office and shut the door behind me. My concern is amped when I notice that her hands are trembling. “Everything okay?”

  She picks up a folder and waves it at me. “This is the test audience result for the pilot.” Her eyes look like they’re going to pop out of her head.

  “It’s that bad?” I ask, trying not to grin since she looks so freaked out.

  “Bad is an understatement,” she grimaces. “The kids thought it was stupid and don’t like roosters, and the moms were horrified.”

  “Awesome!” I say gleefully. “That’s the kind of response we were hoping for!”

  “But I’m worried we went overboard! He’s going to lose his shit!”

  I shrug. “Well, it's better that we get our desired result by going overboard than being tame and losing.”

  “He’s going to kill me. He’ll know I was behind all this.”

  “He won’t if you act pissed off with us.”

  “But I started this. I can’t act like that now with him. It wouldn’t be right.”

  I sit down across from her and pull my chair as close as I can, than reach over and take her hand. “Brooke, even if I didn’t care about you, which I really, really do, I’d never want to hang you out to dry when you stood up and made the choice to do the right thing. You’ve stuck your neck out and risked a lot by giving us the information we needed to pull this off. We care about our viewers and have pride in our work, and if we pull this off today, our dignity will be preserved. Jerks like Arnold will do anything for money, even if it’s being sensational at the expense of innocent kids. If he wants to do edgy controversial cartoons, he needs to do deals with adult-centric channels like Adult Swim.”

  Brooke silently nods in agreement, and then takes a deep breath. “Okay, so you’ll be there for me when he kicks me to the curb and I’m jobless?”

  “You’re so respected in this field that you’ll never be jobless, but yes, I will totally be there for you.”

  Morgan knocks sharply on the door and then opens it before Brooke can reply, but we’ve already released our handhold. “It’s time,” she barks.

  Brooke nods and we both stand. I give her a final hug, and whisper in her ear, “Now go wave your magic lasso and do your thing, Wonder Woman.”

  She winks at me and walks with a confident gait right out the door. As I exit, Morgan gives me a puzzled look and I smile at her. “I think I need some Starbucks, Morgan. Can I get you something?” And just like that her suspicious look melts into a smile.

  “Thanks Nathan. A grande mocha with whipped cream.”

  “Got it.” I reply and head toward the elevators.

  For the next forty minutes the building is quiet as a tomb. After I’ve returned from Starbucks it occurs to me that everyone must be holding their collective breaths. I hope no one is second-guessing their involvement with all of this, but I’m confident with this group that everyone is still convinced we’ve done the right thing.

  We have a group What’sApp chat set up and suddenly it’s buzzing with posts.

  Chester: Nadia at the front desk said the group of top execs just stormed out the front door.

  Katie: Morgan just told me that there’s lot of yelling coming out of Arnauld’s office.

  Nathan: Does Morgan know if Brooke’s all right?

  Katie: Morgan said it doesn’t sound like he’s yelling at Brooke, just yelling about firing assholes or something.

  Chester: Nancy in HR said there’s going to be a company wide meeting.

  Joel: Oh hell no!

  Chester: It’s not sounding good. Do the animation teams that weren’t on the project know what happened?

  Joel: Yes, and they support us with what we did.

  Nathan: At least there’s that. Look no matter what happens, we know we did the right thing.

  Dani: No regrets!

  Bruce: I liked working here—the staff was cool, but yes. No regrets!

  And then my phone pings over and over as everyone shares the same sympathy that quickly becomes a hashtag: #noregrets.

  It’s agony waiting until three p.m for the company wide meeting. Not a single bit of work is done. When we finally file in, no one dares to sit in the first few rows. Everyone is somber and wondering where they should send their resumes as soon as they’re updated.

  We sit there awkwardly until Arnold finally graces us with his presence, marching on stage like a general. His level of rage is quite evident, with a scowl so fierce his eyebrows have met in the center of his forehead. Brooke and Nancy walk in behind him and take seats facing the audience to Arnold’s right. No one in this auditorium, including them, looks okay with
being here.

  “So I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about the unbelievable abomination some of your teams executed to destroy our fine studio. Our executive group was not pleased at all by this lack of respect for our company, and the blatant disregard for the quality of our cartoons. We will not stand for such outrageous behavior and those involved will be immediately terminated.”

  Sonia, a Hispanic digital colorist, boldly stands up and challenges him. “What about your lack of regard for respecting women and people of color in our cartoons? The content of that pilot was offensive and a disgrace, and you had no regard for that fact.”

  Arnold angrily points his finger at her. “You will be taken to HR when this meeting is over.” He turns to look at Nancy. “Make note of her.”

  Sonia waves her hand at him disregarding his motion for her to sit back down. “I’ll head up there now so I don’t have to listen to any more of this garbage.”

  I get an adrenaline rush so strong that I feel like I should drop my head between my knees, but I don’t want to miss anything. I turn to watch badass Sonia throw the auditorium door open and sashay right out. “Wow,” I whisper.

  I look up to the stage and Brooke and I lock gazes. She looks stoic and I’m glad for it. She’s going to need to be strong for what is coming up ahead.

  “So you all need to know that we won’t stand for traitors among us. Each of you that participated in this fiasco will not just lose your job, but all your respect in the industry. I’ll make sure of that. So right now I want you to stand up if you were a part of what happened today.”

  There’s a long silence where not one person stands or says a word. Arnold barks a laugh. “So no one will own up to what they did to our company? None of the traitors will stand up?”

  Dani suddenly rises and crosses her arms over her chest, and Chester is right behind her. I follow next, and then people are standing up in groups of twos and threes until it looks like our entire group is standing.