Cocktales

by The Cocky Collective

  That’s one step too far for me.

  “Asshole,” I utter, and then I stand up on the tippiest of my tiptoes, haul off, and slap him as hard as I can across the face. Except that I’m pretty short, and he’s pretty tall, so I mostly just smack the shit out of part of his chin.

  As my heels clack back down on the ground, I remember where I am. Oh, no, I did not just slap one of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers while trying to get cast opposite him in what would be my first ever feature film.

  But oh yes, I did.

  All this runs through my head in the split second before I pivot to face the director who is definitely screwing his assistant, the smile still glued on, perfectly matching Huck’s.

  He, the assistant, the casting director Corinne, and a few PA’s are standing as frozen as my face.

  Then they burst into applause.

  “That was amazing!” says Corinne.

  “The chemistry was spot-on,” says Daddy, as his assistant nods eagerly.

  “I don’t think we even need you two to run lines. We’ve got our leads! Welcome to Miss Match, you two. Our people will be in touch with your people.”

  My chest hasn’t stopped heaving from my anger, and now I can’t catch my breath because holy shit, I’m a fucking movie star. I have to call my roommate Kami. I have to call my mom. I have to go be alone and scream and jump up and down.

  I have no idea what to do with myself, but Huck is stepping forward to shake everyone’s hands and thank them and that seems like a pretty good meantime thing to be doing.

  I’m perhaps a little overly effusive with Corinne and Daddy, but when Huck turns to me I have to let him know that this changes nothing.

  “Congratulations, kiddo,” he says.

  “Fuck you,” I tell him, my hand completely swallowed up by his proportionately large one as we shake.

  “Bathroom down the hall?” he asks.

  “Only this once.”

  Two

  Huck

  She was right, of course. I’ve been having inappropriate thoughts about Jaya Brazill since the first time I watched her webseries two years ago. It pissed me off how good she was, honestly.

  Not that I was ever going to tell her that.

  I worked my ass off to get the kind of classical theater training that Benedict Cumberbatch would envy, sometimes subsisting on three hours of sleep a night so I could work the night shift to afford just a few more lessons after classes were over for the day.

  I can do eight different regional British accents to match any Shakespearean character you name, I can read Beowulf in Middle English, and all those assholes who say they “just want to direct”? Well, I actually won an award for one of my student films. Yeah, I know what the fuck I’m doing when it comes to acting.

  Naturally, I’m known for being the sexy Viking god on Northlanders, where I spent six entire seasons brooding into the camera, flexing my muscles, and occasionally making a loud proclamation.

  My IMBD is also populated with roles like Dumb Musclebound Car Racer, Yelling Muscley Roman General, Ripped Football Player With Heart of Gold (Who Dies).

  To say I’ve been typecast is an understatement.

  So, yeah, I’m more than a little pissed off that this hot little Midwesterner with zero acting pedigree can just show up in Los Angeles, bat her stupidly long lashes, and get rave reviews for her indie character roles.

  My only solace is that I’m positive I’m worth at least eighty-three of her, financially.

  And I want my chance in an indie character role. I even have a script. I wrote it myself, which is why no one will read it.

  Who wants to read a script by Heroic Buff Cop in Disaster Movie? Answer: my mother is so far the only volunteer.

  She thought it should be lightened up a little, though.

  I tried to explain that it’s difficult to lighten up a story about a widower struggling with depression. She suggested I rewrite it as a cozy mystery with a feline co-star.

  She was right about one thing, which is that I do need to be seen as more than a gym rat. So, baby steps, here I am starring in a romantic comedy. Opposite a social media upstart who had the nerve to slap my chin.

  I grab her hand and pull her into the bathroom before dragging the trashcan in front of the door as a makeshift lock.

  “God, you’re an idiot,” she breathes, just before I grab her by the ass (it’s luscious) and set her down on the sink. There really is something wrong with me for being this turned on by her hatred. It’s not a normal thing for me. But for some reason, I don’t want her to like me because I spend three hours a day working out and take my shirt off a lot onscreen.

  I do, however, want her to maul my body as I make her come.

  She’s going to hate it.

  I grab a handful of her dark hair and pull her head back as I nibble on her cherry-and-rose scented neck. She smells like the sweetest little kitten but hisses and arches her back like the hellcat I hoped she’d be when I was jerking off to her on my computer.

  I start to pull back and she shoves my head back into her.

  “Don’t kiss me,” she groans. Oh, I wasn’t planning on it. This is not that kind of a hook-up.

  Instead I double down on kissing and sucking a line up and down, from the sensitive spot just under her ear down to her clavicle and back up again. She’s going to be marked up tomorrow, unable to pretend this didn’t happen.

  I bite down just out of spite.

  She’s going to remember this.

  I’m so hard it’s painful when she finally recovers her wits and starts ripping my shirt off. Buttons fly through the air. I help out by pulling it off, and her nails rake down my chest in response. She’s not the only one who’s going to wake up marked in the morning.

  My cock is pressed up against her and she’s rocking her hips. Even through our pants I can feel the heat of her and fuck, this is so good.

  But this isn’t how I want her. I pull her back down, rough, spin her around and lean her over the counter.

  “You want me?” I groan, wanting to hear the way my name sounds in her mouth.

  “No,” she pants, and I freeze. Our eyes meet in the mirror. “I only want the proportional parts of you. Hurry up.”

  I’ll take it.

  “Pull your pants down,” I tell her, unable to handle being trapped in my own khaki prison for even a second longer. By the way, the khakis were what the casting director, Corinne, told me to wear. Certainly not a choice I’d make for myself.

  She shimmies her own dress slacks down as I make quick work of the button and zipper and then enjoy the show as she starts to slide her hands under each side of her thong. It’s hot as fuck, and so is that ass I’ve only fantasized about before now, perfectly round and just a little bigger than her frame would suggest it ought to be. But it’s taking too long, so I just rip it for her.

  “Jesus!” Her reflected face looks shocked and pissed.

  “Just me, but a common mistake.”

  “How about don’t talk anymo—oh!” But I don’t need to talk, because my dick is nestled in tight against her and ready whenever she is, which as she slides back against me and one small piece of me at a time is swallowed up, is right now.

  This is exactly how I wanted her, wet and wanting and rough and dirty and she can’t even see what I can see, where we join, how gorgeous it is to watch her pussy suck me in.

  I let her go slow now, adjusting to me as she’s slowly easing my thickness into her tight little channel, but she’s taking my cock like a champ.

  So I smack her ass.

  She tightens around me, surprised, and that’s when I grab her by the hips and start fucking her for all that I’m worth. You know, eighty-three million’s worth. She’s making little noises that are getting higher pitched and closer together like she might come, so I reach around and press my thumb to her clit, working tiny circles until I feel her clench hard as the orgasm hits.

  It takes everything I have to hold mine back
while she rides hers out—rides me out— but finally her spasms quieten and I pull out.

  I use one hand to pull up her blouse and the other fists my cock as I start to spurt all over her back.

  Just then, the fatal flaw in my bathroom plan becomes apparent.

  The trash can I’d moved in front of the door? Well, the door opens out, so all it did was provide a place for my brand-new director to prop his elbows as he gazes at the sordid scene before him.

  “I told you I was seventy percent sure they were banging,” he remarks to his ever-present assistant.

  “Huh. Gross.”

  Three

  Jaya

  I really tried my damnedest to be prepared for everything about this movie. I read the book it’s based on five times. (The script is literally nothing like it. St. Martin’s can not have signed off on this shit.) I practiced my lines for hours a day. I even dyed my hair red to match my character, and I never let chemicals near my hair.

  I was not even remotely prepared to face Huck Ivanson’s smug face every day on set.

  “Hey there, hellcat. Nice hickeys,” he’d say. For the first entire week. Or, if someone else was around, something clever, like, “God, I’m so hungry I could eat Brazill.”

  I could do without it.

  I could also do without the longing my body seems to have taken up feeling each time his large and proportional one gets anywhere near me.

  The weird thing about movies is that you often shoot in reverse order. So, a couple months in, and suddenly, we’re back at the beginning. We’re trying to shoot the first kiss scene, and it’s not going well.

  My character, Candy, has taken a job at a kombucha bar where her sister Kaci is doing stand-up comedy. It’s a terrible job, but she’d rather do that than work for Drake Jonathan as a matchmaker.

  In that sense, I’m not really acting at all.

  I’d actually rather brew fermented mushroom tea than work with Huck right about now. It’s not that I’m ashamed I hooked up with him—he’s hotter than hell—but since there is no way on earth I’ll do it a second time, I’d prefer not to listen to his self-satisfied remarks about it.

  “Cut!” the director calls for what feels like the hundredth time. “You’re supposed to swoon at him, not stomp on his foot.”

  I didn’t think he’d notice that.

  But what was I supposed to do? Huck was whispering filthy things in my ear about what we could do in the bathroom in his trailer. I cannot abide that sort of cockamamie. This is my big break.

  And that is his big… well. It’s pushing up against my stomach as Huck promises the director we’ll get this take for sure.

  We will, too, if for no other reason than I’m ready to be alone for a while. Not to pull out my battery-operated meditation device. Nope. Just to have some peace, that’s all.

  “And… action,” and the clapboard claps and I do what I do and forget that I’m standing on a soundstage filled with people staring at me from under lowered lashes and I just become Candy.

  “Drake?” I ask, my voice quavering just the right amount to show my disbelief, and also my pleasure at seeing him in a pair of jeans.

  Note: this is not acting, either.

  “Yes, Candy. Yes. It’s me,” Huck says, the smirk on his face changing the dialogue from flat to self-aware.

  “But why are you here? I turned you down,” I-as-Candy remind him. That’s when he presses his own reminder into my hip.

  “Well, Candy, I want you to work for me. Find me a wife, and I’ll make sure you never have to drink kombucha again.” With those words, he leans down and pauses, waiting for my eyes to dilate when I smell that juniper and leather scent before he gently touches my lips with his. The tiniest bit. It’s delicate.

  This is a real departure from the arrogant way he claimed my mouth in the last ninety-nine takes.

  I find myself being the one that parts my lips first, the one whose hand comes up to his face for just a second before dropping away again. I’m the one that deepens it, and I’m the one who doesn’t hear the “cut!” and keeps on kissing him.

  So for once, I can’t even blame him for looking so cocky.

  I invited it.

  Once I hear (and I actually do hear it this time) “that’s a wrap,” I just go ahead and walk myself over to his trailer. We have another bathroom to christen.

  I can’t decide if I’m annoyed or accepting of the fact that giving me three orgasms might contribute to some of that attitude he’s got. I guess that’s probably why I agree to split a bottle of Cris with him.

  I don’t even like pricy bubbles. My roomie, Kami, would never have the audacity to show up with a bottle that could cover our Nissan payment for the month.

  Then again, Kami isn’t making Huck money as a makeup artist—yet—and if he wants to waste it, I can help.

  By the time I head back to my own trailer, I’m tipsy, confused, sexed up, and weirded out.

  None of that is a good reason why I choose to post a two hour video about Huck Ivanson, acting, Huck Ivanson, the differences between books and movies, Huck Ivanson, how much I love the kitty on set named Kitty, Huck Ivanson, and finally, shamefully, worst of anything ever and at all, whether Jaya Ivanson is a good name.

  When Kami wakes me up at four in the morning to inquire what I’ve been thinking, I can only answer that I haven’t.

  And also that my only recourse is to fake my own death. Goodbye, cruel internet.

  Four

  Huck

  Internet videos are by far the stupidest things about the internet, which I do tend to be a pretty big fan of. Jaya’s roommate, Kami Gold? I’m not ashamed to say I subscribe to her HerTube channel.

  There’s something really soothing about watching someone apply various thingamajigs to their face until it looks shiny and new.

  But the problem with internet videos is that anyone on the internet can post them.

  They don’t even need their agent to sign off.

  Although, I’ve met Jaya’s agent at a few events. He’s so senile, I’m not sure he understands how The Internet works, much less what a shitshow Ms. Brazill is stirring up right now.

  Luckily, Corinne gets it.

  So she’s the one I call, after my first few attempts fail.

  Someone else picks up.

  “Hey, I need Corinne,” I say, assuming its her husband or manager or whatever.

  “Sir?” comes the answer.

  “…yeah?” I eventually answer, concerned a paparazzi has compromised our casting agent’s phone.

  “It appears that Corinne has been eaten by a shark. If this is a professional call, I’d suggest you refer it to her agency,” says the man I assume is a cop on the other end.

  Oh.

  Huh.

  Well.

  Corinne always was scared of sharks.

  I suppose…

  But no. This isn’t the time. I choke back my sobs, and I tell Jaya’s agent’s answering machine, “This isn’t over. Tell her it isn’t over.”

  And it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

  If she wants to be Mrs. Ivanson, I can do that for her.

  All she has to do is call me back.

  About the Author

  Kayti McGee lives and loves in beautiful Kansas City, Missouri. Her interests include blood and guts and love and stuff. Also, wine. And your mom.

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  Cockblocked

  A Consolation Duet Short Story

  Corinne Michaels

  Navy SEAL, protector, and full-time cockblocking father of his two teenagers is how Liam Dempsey describes his life. See what happens when his kids are grown up and start dating …

  Copyright © 2018 Corinne Michaels

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author.

  Thi
s book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or publisher.

  One

  “You’re going to behave, Liam. I don’t care what you say, this is a big deal for any girl, and I swear to God that you will be on the couch if you screw this up for her.” I point at him, but all he does is grumble.

  “How are you so okay with this?”

  “I’m not okay with this,” I sigh and touch the side of his face. “I just have to be a grown up, like you will be.”

  He shakes his head. “This isn’t fun.”

  “Nope, it definitely blows, but it’s prom and part of the ritual.”

  It isn’t easy watching my beautiful little girl grow up. I want to freeze time, make her stay the sweet child who said funny words forever. Time doesn’t work that way, though.

  Aarabelle is seventeen years old.

  She’s practically a woman.

  “Prom is when kids have sex, Lee.”

  Here we go again. “I didn’t have sex at prom,” I inform him.

  “Well, neither is Aarabelle, so at least we’ll be two for two.”

  I’m not even going to ask how he plans to stop her if that’s what she wants to do because that’s a rabbit hole I’ll never get out of.

  “What’s the plan, Athair?” Shane, our son, asks Liam as he walks in the living room.

  Our kids both call him that because there was never a day that he wanted to be just “Liam” to Aara. Since his Irish roots are very deep, we use the Gaelic word for father. Liam never wanted to take Aaron’s place as her father, but he is that in every sense of the word. He’s here when it’s hard. He cares for her when she’s sick, helps with homework, and is her father. He’s the constant in her life, and her relationship with him shows that.