Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words

by Tara Sivec

  Directly in front of the window, I see a man with his back to us, sitting behind a computer. On the table next to the computer is a giant, flat, square piece of equipment lined with all sorts of buttons and switches. In front of the man and his table of electronics is yet another large window that separates him from a smaller room, where I see a man perched on the edge of a stool, wearing a pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone.

  “Right here in front of us is Dave. Dave is one of our producers. The computer you see in front of him is what we refer to as DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation. The sound levels on the DAW are all set up at the very beginning of a recording, and they’re pretty much left alone so the audio quality is consistent for that specific project,” Jessica explains. “The man in the recording booth with the headphones is narrator Steve Reynolds.”

  I watch as Dave lounges back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the DAW and what looks to be sound waves floating across it.

  “What are they recording right now?” I ask as Jessica moves toward the door leading to where Dave is sitting.

  “A romance novel,” she says with a shrug as she knocks lightly on the window.

  Romances? I love romances!

  I have two bookshelves in my living room filled to the brim with romance novels. My mother got me hooked a few years ago on a series of Amish love stories. That might not sound very exciting to some, but they are so beautiful and have such amazing storylines. What if I got to see one of those books being made into an audiobook? I’ll have no other choice but to see if my mother can stop by and watch once she finds this out.

  Dave glances over his shoulder and smiles at Jessica, waving her into the room. I quickly follow behind her as she opens the door, waiting for me to move inside the room before she closes it behind me.

  “Steve, let’s break for a few seconds and redo that last line. We need to understand just how much he wants this to happen. I’d like you to really emphasize the word pump this next time as well,” Dave speaks into a microphone right in front of him before swiveling around in his chair to face us.

  This is amazing! I wonder what the character in this book wants to happen. I bet this is an Amish romance if they’re talking about pumping something. Must be pumping water from a well during this scene. Oh, my mother is going to be absolutely beside herself!

  I watch Steve remove his headphones from inside the recording booth and take a drink from a bottle of water perched on a second stool right next to him before I move my eyes to Dave and smile at him.

  “Dave, this is Heidi Larson. She’s going to be my replacement. Heidi, this is Dave Simpson, the best producer we have,” Jessica introduces as I hold out my hand for Dave to shake.

  “Awww, jeez, Jessica, don’t make me blush. It’s good to meet-cha, Heidi.” He laughs before dropping my hand. “So, I guess Brian threatened your mint chocolate chip supply again, did he?”

  “You know it.” Jessica nods. “You guys will be in good hands with Heidi. She used to be a teacher, so she’ll be able to keep you crazy kids in line.”

  “That sounds great. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions, Heidi. There aren’t too many people here today, but you’ll be able to meet everyone else tomorrow. They’re all gonna be real glad to have you on board. Don’t you worry,” he reassures me.

  “I actually have a question. What book are you recording right now? I’m an avid reader, and so is my mother. Romances are our favorite, and she will just die if you’re recording for an author we’ve read before. This is so exciting. She’s going to love it when I tell her about this.”

  “Instead of telling you, how about we show you? Steve is recording a new romance novel that’s publishing next month,” Dave replies as he turns away from us, presses a button, and leans forward to speak into his microphone.

  Oooh! A new book we haven’t even read yet!

  “Steve, let’s take it from the top of page one-hundred-and-four, paragraph two.”

  Dave reaches over and flips a switch on the table, and all of a sudden, I can hear Steve clear his throat through a speaker mounted on the wall right next to Jessica.

  I can’t stop the giddy excitement that courses through me knowing I’m about to hear someone read lines from a book that hasn’t even been published yet. Any second thoughts I had about taking this job disappear in an instant as I watch Steve slide his headphones back on and get close to his microphone.

  “See that stand in front of Steve?” Dave asks, keeping his eyes glued to his computer screen. “It’s got an iPad resting on it with the book’s manuscript pulled up. He did a quick read-through of the book once and made some notes on the iPad about scene changes, who’s talking, major events, those sorts of things.”

  “He only read the book once, and now he has to act out the entire thing?” I ask in astonishment.

  “They’re lucky if they even get to read it once. Sometimes, when they walk into the recording booth, that’s the first time they’ve seen the book,” Jessica tells me.

  “Don’t tell the poor girl all of our horror stories on her first day or she’ll never come back tomorrow.” Dave laughs.

  I hear Steve clear his throat a few more times and take another sip of water. He glances through his window at Dave, who points at him and nods, indicating Steve can go ahead and start whenever he’s ready. My heart starts beating even faster in my chest at just how exciting this whole process will be to watch and learn more about. I was dreading calling my mother when I left here today, and now I can’t wait.

  “Testing, testing… are the sound levels still good?”

  The richness of Steve’s voice through the speakers makes goose bumps break out on my arms. There’s no other way to describe it other than warm and luxurious. He’s only spoken a total of eight words and I already know I’d enjoy listening to anything he’d want to read to me.

  And then, Steve starts reading from the iPad.

  “She takes the swollen head of my cock deep into her wet, warm mouth. So deep it touches the back of her throat. I groan in pleasure when she tightly wraps her hand around my manhood and begins pumping her fist up and down my length. Pump, pump, pump. My cock throbs and jerks in her hand as her head bobs up and down on my stiff rod, and I know I’m going to come harder than I ever have in my life with how hard she sucks on me.”

  Oh, jeez! Oh, holy mother of pearl, what is happening right now? Why is no one screaming? Why is Jessica just standing here next to me with a smile on her face? Does she not hear the words Steve is saying? Why is Steve saying the word… pump… like that? What kind of a romance novel is this?

  “Perfect!” Dave shouts into his microphone. “That was much better than the last time. You really had the passion and heat down pat with this one. I could actually feel the desire in your voice. Heidi, what do you think? Could you feel the desire? Did it sound hot enough?”

  Oh, it’s definitely hot in here, all right. I think I need to stick my head into a bucket of ice right about now.

  “It was… super!” I tell him with an uncomfortable giggle, wondering if it would be rude to turn and run out of this room as fast as possible before Steve says the word pump again. Or any of those other words that will now require me to rinse out my ears with bleach. Oh jeez, I know I wanted something new and exciting in my life, but I don’t know if I can handle this much exhilaration. I know my mother won’t be able to handle it.

  Oh no, my mother! What in the world am I supposed to tell her about this job?

  “This book is going to be huge,” Jessica informs me. “It’s called Falling for my Secretary by Penelope Sharp. Her first book, Sleeping with my Secretary, was an instant bestseller. She’s already been dubbed the queen of erotic romance novels and popularized a new sub-genre called Office Romantica. Lots of hot sex scenes on desks and stuff like that. Her first book is how I got pregnant.” Jessica chuckles, rubbing her hand over her belly. “I’ve got a few copies of the first one and an advanc
e copy of the one we’re recording now in the lower, left-hand drawer of the front desk. Make sure you take them home. You’ll love them.”

  I’m pretty sure I will not love them. And I’m one hundred percent positive I will never, ever open that lower, left-hand drawer.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Eric cleaned out one of the cabinets filled with old equipment and left it on the floor under your desk,” Dave tells Jessica as he fiddles with some buttons. “Can you take it out to the trash dumpster on your way out?”

  “I’ll do it!” I shout, raising my hand like one of my former students and hoping the dumpster is in Egypt.

  “That would be great, Heidi. It’s just some old podcast equipment we don’t need anymore. Trash it, take it home, or do whatever you want with it. I better get back to work. We need to have this audiobook finished in three days,” Dave says, looking back over his shoulder and giving me a thumbs-up. “See you tomorrow!”

  I don’t even know how Dave can say the word book with a straight face. Can this type of story even be classified as a book? I’m not completely oblivious. I’ve seen these types of books in the romance section of the bookstore, and I’ve walked by them as quickly as possible with their muscled, shirtless men covers and suggestive titles. I’m not one to judge people who like to read that sort of thing, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I want something with a little more substance. Something with an actual storyline. Something a little more… tame. Some light kissing and then a lovely fade-to-black scene and not so in your face about what’s going on behind closed doors. Aunt Margie calls them Mommy P-O-R-N. Every time she says that word, my mother shushes her.

  As Jessica and I exit the room and make our way back down the hall to the reception area, I wonder how hard it would be for me to change my name and move to another country. That’s probably the only thing that will save me from my mother when she finds out what they do here at EdenMedia. I’m certain she won’t be bragging to any of her friends that I’m now an administrative assistant at a place that records… dirty books.

  Chapter 4

  “I’ll just quit. I’ll call Jessica in a little while and I’ll tell her I’m sorry but this job isn’t a good fit for me,” I whisper to myself as I pull the box out of my backseat.

  I let out a sigh and shake my head at myself. I’m not a quitter. I’ve never quit anything in my life, even if it was horrible and I hated every minute of it. Like ballet classes when I was seven, because my mom thought it would be good for me to learn to be graceful. I stuck with it for an entire year, even though I have two left feet and was constantly knocking other girls down or smacking them in the face with my flailing arms and legs.

  Or volleyball in middle school, because my dad thought being an athlete was a great way for me to learn teamwork. I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, let alone a small, white ball that constantly came flying at my face at an unreasonable speed. I kept at it until high school, even though I suffered through one broken nose, two sprained wrists, and the embarrassment that I was the only girl on the team who never managed to get a serve over the net.

  And then you have every blind date my mother has ever set me up on over the years. Although I wouldn’t exactly call them “blind dates,” since in this town you pretty much have to check with your grandmother before going on a date to make sure you aren’t in some way related to the other person. No one I’ve ever dated has been a stranger. We all grew up together, we all went to school together, and everyone knows someone who is related to someone else. I never complained about these dates she set up for me, never got up and walked out on my date, even though I was tempted to several times. I dutifully sat through each and every meal, movie, trip for ice cream, and one disastrous Sunday afternoon of ice fishing where I was stuck out in the middle of the lake for hours with Jasper Reynolds, who always pulled my hair in kindergarten, and did nothing on our date but talk about how much he loves his mother and how, when he gets married, he’d continue living in her basement because he could never go a day without her meatloaf.

  And let’s not forget the whole teacher thing. I was actually pretty good at that though. I would never have quit my teaching job, no matter how much I didn’t like it. That’s just not what I was brought up to do, which means no matter how uncomfortable working at EdenMedia is, I know I have to stick with it. I do have some money set aside that could tide me over for a little while, but I can’t just not work. What would I do, sit home all day staring out the window, hoping for a glimpse of Brent?

  Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

  Closing the back door of my car with a bump of my hip, I cradle the box of equipment tightly to my chest as I turn around, coming to an abrupt halt when I glance over at my neighbor’s front yard.

  Speaking of the handsome devil…. Wait, not a devil. He’s not evil. He’s not bad. He’s perfect and wonderful and sweet and—

  Brent stands up from a bent-over position where he was pulling weeds around the flower beds in front of his porch and stretches his arms high above his head, arching his back and twisting and turning at the waist to work the kinks out.

  I’m frozen in place as I stand here blatantly staring at his shirtless torso. Under normal circumstances, I would have quickly looked away and ran into my house, but something about spending time with people who read dirty things into a microphone for a living—and were being told to put more feeling into those dirty things—seems to have altered my brain. And now all I can hear is Narrator Steve in my head with his deep, soothing voice.

  “Brent’s muscular body glistens with sweat after a hard evening of working on his flower beds. His faded jeans rest low on his narrow hips, showcasing the indents in his waist. My tongue darts out, wetting my parched lips as I wonder what his skin would taste like.”

  The box of equipment slips from my grasp and tumbles to the ground before I can even attempt to stop it. I knew I should have parked in the alley garage behind my house, but it was just easier to park along the curb in front so I didn’t have to carry this box so far.

  Why in the world didn’t I throw this stuff in the dumpster like I was told?

  I was so busy running as fast as I could out of EdenMedia at the end of the day that I shoved this stupid box into my backseat, figuring I’d just toss it when I got home. Now this box is going to be the death of me.

  Brent’s arms drop back down to his sides, and he jogs over to me when he hears the commotion of the box smacking the ground and everything spilling out of it at my feet, including…

  Oh no! Please, God, no!

  Ducking my head to hide the blush I feel heating my cheeks, I quickly squat down and try to shove everything back into the box before he gets to me, particularly the book Jessica must have shoved in there when I wasn’t looking. A half-naked man, similar to the one heading right for me, smirks up at me from the cover of that stupid thing, and my arm darts out to grab it right as Brent gets to it first.

  I watch in complete mortification as he bends over and grabs the book, and then I do everything I can to avoid eye contact. I finish shoving the cords, microphone, and other odds and ends back into the box and stand, hugging it to my body and keeping my downcast eyes on the box like it’s filled with the most interesting things I’ve ever seen.

  Don’t look at his bare chest, don’t look at his bare chest…

  “Sleeping with my Secretary,” Brent muses as he flips the book over in his hands and studies the back cover. “Interesting reading you’ve got here.”

  Where is a giant hole in the ground that will open and swallow you up when you need it?

  “It’s not mine!” I blurt, finally lifting my head to stare at a spot over his shoulder, refusing to look anywhere between his head and the waist of his jeans for fear that Narrator Steve will start another commentary in my brain. “It’s research for my new job at EdenMedia I started today. I was thinking about quitting, but I’m not a quitter, and Jessica put that book in this box from a drawer at the office that
I’m now referring to as the Garden of Eden Drawer, because it’s filled with temptation that will send me straight to H-E-double hockey sticks.”

  Oh jeez. Not only am I rambling; I sound like a person trying to sell door-to-door religion. What is wrong with me?

  Brent chuckles, and the sound of it does all sorts of things to me that are appropriate for the book he’s still holding in his hand, but not appropriate for sidewalk chitchat.

  A few hours at EdenMedia and I’ve already been tainted, getting all tingly when a man laughs. By this time next week, I’ll probably be selling my body on a street corner and my mother will have disowned me.

  “‘She wants him, in a way she’s never wanted a man before,’” Brent reads aloud from the back cover of the book. “‘He lights a fire inside her she knows will never be extinguished, no matter how many times he bends her over his desk and takes everything she has to give.’ Wow. Sounds like fun research.”

  I giggle uncomfortably, still waiting for a hole in the ground to open up. Or maybe a time machine that will magically transport me back to EdenMedia, where I could stop Jessica from shoving that book from her drawer of sin into my box.

  Brent sets the book on top of the equipment, and since I’d rather look anywhere but at that thing, my eyes move to his face and the heart-stopping smile he’s aiming in my direction. There’s a smudge of dirt on one of his cheeks, and Steve is back before I can stop him.

  “My hands itch to reach out and brush the dirt off his cheek, wondering what the stubble on his face would feel like against my palm.”

  I shake my head to get stupid Steve out of there, mentally telling him to go stand in a corner and think about what he’s done.

  “Well, I should probably get back to my weeds so I can finish while there’s still some daylight left,” Brent tells me, pointing his thumb over his shoulder toward his yard. “Have fun with your research.”

  Just the thought of him knowing I have this book in my possession and think I would even entertain the idea of going inside my house and reading it makes my scalp all itchy, and I almost drop the box in my arms again when my palms start to sweat.