by Alexis Angel
She’s already dressed in a prim and proper black suit and pencil skirt. I step aside to let her in.
“Sleeping in?” Cheryl asks me with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow.
I groan. “It’s 7:30 in the fucking morning, Cheryl,” I manage to say as I walk over to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.
“They say the early bird gets the worm,” she replies back, following me.
“My worm gets enough fucking bird, thank you,” I tell Cheryl as she rolls her eyes at me.
I pour my coffee as Cheryl sets down her tablet and turns it on.
“Would you like to go over the plans so far for the launch?” she asks me.
I look at Cheryl. “It’s 7:30 in the morning, Cheryl…” I begin, but if she cares, she doesn’t show it.
“We are three months away from releasing the one product that will revolutionize the pornography industry in ways that dwarf what the VCR did, Ethan,” she tells me sternly. “7:30 in the morning means absolutely nothing to me.”
She’s got a point. I need to not go soft.
“Let’s go to the living room,” I tell her, and grab her a cup of coffee and take it with me. I sit down on the sofa and she remains standing.
“Like I said, we’re launching in three months, and we’re going directly out to 192 countries,” she begins.
Now I’m in work mode. “How many retailers have signed on?” I ask. I’m not hopeful. I mean we’re talking about a virtual reality porn product.
“We’ve gotten commitments from Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon, and CostCo for superior product placement,” Cheryl says and I do a double take.
“Really? Holy fucking shit,” I exclaim. She nods her head.
“They all see the intrinsic value in this,” she tells me. I shake my head. A lot has certainly changed since I was a fucking kid.
“We’re working with other major retailers such as Dollar Tree, Sears, as well as independent retailers to take us on, and we’re still waiting to hear from Google and Apple,” Cheryl finishes.
I nod my head. “Press?” I ask.
“Generally favorable so far, and I think the announcement we did in Times Square got us on the front page,” Cheryl says. “It has also attracted a fair amount of unwanted attention,” she finishes.
“Unwanted attention?” I ask her, cocking my eyes.
Cheryl nods, looking glum. “Our cyber security people have stopped 18 attacks designed to compromise our internal networks in the last week alone,” she tells me and I start looking over a report that she places in front of me. “Mostly it was attempts to get at the plans or the strategy behind the I.E.” Cheryl says.
“Who was it?” I ask her.
She looks at me. “Who do you think?”
There’s a moment of pause between us.
“He’s still out there, Ethan,” Cheryl says. “And he wants the plans for this device. He’s not going to stop and he’s going to spend as much money as he needs to until he gets it. And just hacking into our systems isn’t all I think he’s doing.”
I look at Cheryl in alarm. What the fuck is she talking about?
“How else is he going to get it?” I ask her sharply. “He’s going to rob me?”
She shrugs. “He would if he could, but I think he’s trying to get someone on the inside. He’s trying to put in a mole.”
“Who?” I ask.
Cheryl looks at me. “You know who I’m talking about,” she tells me.
No.
Don’t look at me like that.
You know who Cheryl is talking about.
But I don’t believe it.
“Who’s sleeping in your bed right now, Ethan?” Cheryl asks me. I don’t answer. “Who have you been spending more and more time with and who is closer to you now than even I am?”
“Cheryl,” I start and get up. “You’re getting irrational.”
Cheryl doesn’t have time to answer. Because that’s when I hear a cute little voice behind me.
“Hi,” is all I hear and I turn around to see Brittney wiping the sleep from her eyes. She’s wearing one of my button down shirts and it comes below her waist and makes her look fucking innocent and sexy at the same time.
I stare at her and can’t stop, but I hear Cheryl walking to the door.
“Think about what I said, Ethan,” she tells me and doesn't wait for me to turn around. “And watch your back. I’d love to be wrong.”
Fucking Cheryl.
She doesn't even say hello to Brit. She just treats her like a piece of furniture.
“Brittney,” I say to her as I take a step closer.
“What was Cheryl doing here?” Brittney asks me, her eyes big. “And who does she think is trying to steal your I.E.?”
I stop and take a deep breath. Brittney waits for a second and then her face gets serious.
“Tell me, Ethan,” she says, coming close to me and putting her hands on my robe. “I need to know.”
This is way too much fucking drama for this early in the morning. I swear to fucking God. I’m about ready to tell her to fuck off.
But then I look into her face. She’s looking up at me, her eyes wide, open, trusting.
Is Cheryl right?
Is she playing me?
Only one fucking way to find out.
I sigh, and take a sip of my coffee, and start.
“I started this company shortly after I quit working in marketing,” I say, and Brittney looks at me as her gaze softens. “I didn’t work for someone else anymore, and I don't know how, but I got into representing models at first.”
She nods to me. “I started porn through a modeling contract,” she tells me.
I nod back. “Same here. Before you knew it, I was selling pictures for models that agreed to magazines and websites, getting paid royalties. It seemed like easy money, and I was good at getting the girls paid more than they would have modeling for Baby Gap or whatever the fuck was hiring.”
Brittney is silent, waiting for me to continue.
“It was only a few steps away from eventually moving into shorter movies and videos, and I began to dabble in creating my own content,” I tell her, thinking back to those days long gone by.
It’s a fucking cliché that I’m some idiot bad boy if that’s what you’re still thinking. Sure, I say ‘fuck’ every other sentence. Maybe I talk about my foot-long cock too much. And yes, I produce pornography. But I’m a fucking hard worker. Everything that I have, everything that I own, I built on my own. No one fucking handed this to me. I built this. All of it.
But I had help.
“But I needed money to grow,” I continue, and Brittney narrows her eyes. She must have heard this line before. “I got into business with some people. Nothing permanent at first, and for a while it was good.”
So far, she hasn’t given me anything other than the fact that she’s listening.
“But as time went on, I began to work more and more with one man. Simon Connors. He had the money and he was willing to invest it in me. We got along great. And for a time, our growing pains were behind us. Things were looking good,” I tell Brittney.
She nods. “But?” she asks and I smile.
“But that was at first. When we were small,” I say with a smile. “We had some huge hits eventually. Got big. Became wealthier than we thought we would ever be. He started getting jealous. Never got over the fact that he was a minority investor.”
Brittney nods. “You guys didn’t part well?” she asks me.
I shake my head. “It’s not that. He let the success go to his fucking head. Started getting caught up in shit that I stayed away from,” I say to her. “Drugs. Self-destructive shit. More self-destructive than me. He was pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars in his investment and ending up broke each month.”
“What did you do?” Brittney asks me, coming closer.
I shrug. “At first I looked the other way,” I tell her and pause, thinking back. “But eventually it got to be re
ally bad. He started embezzling money. It got to the point that one month the company couldn't pay its employees without taking a loan because Simon had taken the money for himself. That’s when I knew he needed to go.”
I pause again. Brittney looks at me and takes another step closer, putting her head on my chest.
“We had a huge fucking fight. He told me that I’d be nowhere if it weren’t for him. Tried to pull a gun on me, but eventually I bought him out,” I tell her as I wrap my arms around her. “He took that money and tried to clean up, but he also started a porn company with the express intention of taking me down,” I say.
She nestles her head into my chest and I think back to all the times in the past Simon has tried to fuck me over.
“The entire business plan of Connors Media is to take me out,” I tell her. “He’s using hate to chase after me. He used his hate at being thrown out of the company to become the second largest pornography distributor in the world. And it’s likely that he’s using hate now to try and stop me from ascending to another industry altogether.”
I sigh, finishing my sentence. Brittney is holding onto me, not looking at me, but comfortable to be close.
“You okay, babe?” I ask, running my hands over her body.
“I will be,” she says to me and I wonder how this story could affect her so much. If she were working with Simon, it’s possible she may be having second thoughts after hearing this.
Normally, having her firm body pressed up against me does wonders to make me forget everything, and for a moment I draw in the smell of her shampoo.
Brittney feels the same way and it's not long before I feel her tiny hand navigate under the folds of my robe. She unties the sash, opening it up, and with total concentration, brings her hands to my cock, slowly jerking me off.
She looks up at me and gives me a lascivious stare. “Thank you for trusting me with that, Ethan,” she says to me. “It meant a lot to me.”
I smirk at her. She’s in the mood to play. Well, fuck, so am I.
“How much?” I ask her, grinning.
She doesn’t answer with words, but rather by sinking to her knees and running her tongue over the tip of my cock.
Finally. Something good is happening this morning.
150
Brittney
Five thousand.
That’s how many dollars I’m spending every month to keep a one-bedroom apartment near Riverside Park even though I spend most of my nights with Ethan at One57. I don’t mind the cost, really. I mean, I’m not complaining about that. Besides, it gives me a sense of independence. Until I’m completely honest with him, I don’t think I’d be comfortable moving in with him. I mean, you tell me, has he ever once told you anything about wanting me as his girlfriend? Or that we’re exclusive?
We haven't had that talk on my end.
What?
I swear. We haven’t had any sort of discussions…oh, wait, we had that one time.
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and we had both gone out to some party the night before. It was a cast party I think for someone who was leaving the set of Hamilton and we had both had too much to drink.
We woke up the next morning slightly hung over. After eating a greasy breakfast over at the Red Eye Diner, Ethan looked over to me.
“You get that hang over horniness, babe?” Ethan asked, his hand on the small of my back as we crossed the street.
How did he know? All I wanted that morning after food and water was to get his giant cock inside of me to scratch an itch. But I was too much of a lady to say anything. Instead, I looked over at him once we crossed the street.
“Let’s wait till we get upstairs and I’ll show you,” I told him. He smirked at me.
He wasn’t smirking ten minutes later as his hands were grabbing my tits and squeezing my ass as I desperately shucked myself over and over on his thick, hard cock and came. Then, he turned me over on all fours and fucked me doggie until I had another orgasm. He fucked me on the sofa, then moved to the balcony where he bent me over the railing and drilled me, and then brought me inside and fucked me missionary where he came all over my tits. And he came in gallons. It was intense.
I scooped it all up with my fingers. Yummy.
Okay, yeah you’re done listening to my crazy sex life with my hot handsome stud, but this is the important part.
As we lay naked on the sofa together, Ethan turned to me.
“You have enough clothes for next week?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “I thought you like it when I’m naked,” I replied, doing my smart ass thing that I use on him sometimes.
“Yeah, but you know, to go to work and shit,” he replied.
“I’m usually naked at work, filming scenes for I.E.,” I told him.
“Fuck, if you need to go to your place and get your shit, I’ll help,” he said, getting annoyed at me.
I turned over to him. I knew what he was going for. But I didn’t want to have that conversation.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I asked him with a pout.
I knew it would fuck with his head.
I know, why did I spoil the chance?
Because I was scared, I think.
I don’t know, hun. I’m fucked up in the head. After Robert. After running away.
Ethan just dropped the subject and went back to watching television. Which at the time was fine by me.
Now I’m wishing I had told him that it might have been easier to just move in—that this going back to my apartment over and over to get things was time consuming. Because an hour after our conversation, that’s exactly what I had to do. Trek all the way uptown and get my stuff.
But, no! Don’t you dare tell him that.
Seven.
That’s how many times I’ve had to go visit Simon. Go give him progress reports on the I.E.
Thank God Simon has no way of knowing that I’ve actually tried it on. That I’ve had sex with Ethan on the I.E. Thank God he doesn't know just how utterly realistic and life-changing that device is—how much it’s going to revolutionize pornography as we know it.
But still, he has questions. He has threats.
“Aren’t you telling me that you’re the one who's going to be the face of it?” Simon asked me on the last time that I went there to give him my report. “That you’re going to be the star?”
I nod my head. I didn’t know what else to tell him. He dipped his head onto his desk and used a $100 bill to do another rail. When he was finished, his eyes were bloodshot.
“So, you’re not only taking the money that I’m paying you to infiltrate Illicit Entertainment,” Simon said snidely before taking some coke and using his fingers to slide them over his gums. “But now you’re also going to be a star again?”
I shrugged. There wasn’t much I could do to respond to him in a way that he’d be satisfied.
“I hired you for a job, Ms. Roman,” Simon said to me, getting up from his chair, his body already tweaking. “I expect you to carry it out or be prepared to face the consequences.”
I mean, each time I see Simon, it’s pretty much the same formula every time around. I give him my progress report, which isn’t that much progress, and then he gets upset at the lack of progress and follows by threatening me.
That’s the same thing that happened this time. I’m hoping that’s the same thing that happens next time, and the time after.
Although last time, Simon ended the meeting by glaring at me.
“For three months, I’ve asked you to get me a copy of the prototype!” he yelled at me.
“They only have one working copy!” I yelled back at him. “Not even he’s alone with it. I’d have to sleep with half the office to get them to turn the other way while I take it,” I shot back.
The thing was, and I had been thinking this for a while—once we get close enough to the launch date, maybe that buggy old prototype that they were working on would get me out of this mess.
“Never mind about steali
ng the physical prototype now,” Simon said however, dashing my hopes. “It’s too late to do anything with it. What you need to do is get me the underlying computer code that runs the software,” he said. “A copy that actually fucking works. Unlike your brain, which doesn’t apparently.”
I remember looking at him and blinking.
“Simon, how do you even expect me to do that that?” I asked him. “I barely know how to use SnapChat. Last time I tried I brought what you said was junk.”
But all Simon did was look at me and smile evilly.
“If there’s a will, there’s a way darlin’,” he hissed. “This is what happens when you dilly dally on getting the prototype. If you had just gotten that, it would have been a lot easier. But I guess you’ll have to be extra clever now. Or maybe you want me to just call Robert up on the phone so you can say hi?”
I nodded and left.
Little does he know that Walter and I already had the plans once… and the beta computer code… all downloaded on a USB drive. But by the time I gave it to him, it had become junk.
But yeah, I guess I keep that information to myself. I’ll also keep to myself that Walter and I talked about whether we even want to try again to steal the computer code, or we try for the physical prototype. I don't want to tell Simon any of our plans. It’s the only way I can keep some sort of control over this fucked up situation.
I don’t know what else to do, okay?
I can’t let him point Robert in my direction. Not after what he put me through. I mean, I ran away from porn and moved across the country to get away from him.
On the other hand, I can't betray Ethan.
Not after everything we’ve done.
Not after I’ve fallen in love with him.
Three.
That’s how many months have passed since I’ve first infiltrated Illicit Entertainment. It’s been three months of filming simulated sex for the virtual reality marvel that is the Illicit Escape. Three months where I’ve become the face of the new product. Three months where I’ve fallen in love with Ethan.
I know what you’re thinking, babe, and you don’t need to worry.