“Well?” Simon asks again, “How’d you get it?”
“Switched it after sex,” I lie shrugging. “He was asleep, didn’t notice.”
“Well they’re going to notice pretty soon,” Simon says.
“I’m not going back, so it’s no bother for me,” I tell him and turn around to walk out.
What? It’s true.
Ethan basically fired me. From his company. And I’m pretty sure from his life.
Have you ever been in a crowd of people but felt utterly and completely alone?
Well, hun, welcome to me right about now.
I mean, that overcast sky might as well just open up and start raining right about now as I walk down 7th Avenue because that’s my mood.
As if deciding to play a cruel joke on me, I hear something that seems like light rumbling as I approach 52nd Street and 7th Avenue, and the first bits of water start to fall on my head.
Great, now even Mother Nature is deciding to hate me.
The bits of rain quickly turn into a downpour as people scramble around me. The skies darken even farther as I approach Columbus Circle, the horses whinnying along Central Park South.
I’ll tell you one thing though, hun. It’s a good thing it's raining. Because the tears kind of get washed away when I see the giant billboard next to the Trump International Hotel & Tower advertising Illicit Escape.
Right there, holding the futuristic glasses, is my smiling face. The tag line, “Revolutionizing Pleasure” written in a sexy font.
I’m glad you can’t see my tears.
It's in these moments that the biggest city in the world becomes the loneliest place on earth.
But it’s nothing that I don’t deserve after everything I’ve just done.
***
The next week is basically like that day. Cold, sad, depressing, and rainy.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been like this. I mean, I had a chance to be happy. I had a chance to settle down with a man that truly, really loved me.
I know what you’re going to say, though. I had an impossible choice. It was either protect myself from Robert or run again.
And why exactly did I sell Ethan out?
Because I didn’t want to run. Because I wanted to stay in New York City and make a home for the baby that I’m carrying. Hoping that Ethan would understand.
I mean, I did go and tell him—at the end. I confessed to lying to him, trying to steal from him, and taking his heart under false pretense.
And what did he do?
He gave me everything I wanted.
He gave me the computer coding for the software that runs the Illicit Escape. He let me keep my home.
He gave me everything I asked for.
But it turns out, while I was on my knees pleading to him to show me mercy, I never once asked him to forgive me and hold me.
To take me back.
But isn’t that the story of my life?
Always thinking about myself?
Leaving teaching to get into modeling full time? Not even thinking about the people who were relying on me when I began to split my time as an elementary school teacher and a model.
And then when a better offer came along, not even considering the implications to others when I moved into porn.
Maybe I deserved someone who used me as casually as Robert did. Maybe I never hit him, but I abused others with my lack of consideration just the same. I never thought about them. Only what was good for me.
That’s why when I finally found out about him, I never gave a second thought to thinking about his wife and child. I just drove.
Got out of there.
I could have gone to the police, maybe?
If not that, I could have tried to warn others. His wife had said there were other women, hadn't she?
And then in New York.
From the very first time Simon came into my life, I’ve thought about myself first and foremost.
Sure, hun, if you’re saying I had to think about the baby at the end, I’ll agree that I thought about the baby.
But there had to have been another way than asking Ethan to give up what he’s worked on for so long.
I just never bothered to see what it was.
To his credit, Ethan seems to keep going full speed ahead with the release.
Only this time, Conners Media, led by Simon has also stepped to the plate. They announced two days ago that they too would be releasing wearable technology designed to let the user experience porn through virtual reality. They call it Wicked Wear.
Ethan seems to not even care, if that’s the right word.
Maybe the plans are so fully committed that he has no option now but to see things through.
In the last week, there’s been a media blitz, including front page ads in the the New York Daily Journal, television spots, a marquee every hour at Madison Square Garden, skywriting, giveaways during lunchtime with Illicit Entertainment starlets, and a massive launch party in Times Square.