You remember I was asking what the fuck was wrong with me? Why I was acting like a horny 16 year old?
Well, forget I ever said anything because feeling that beautiful ass on my dick is enough to remind me of the reasons that I'm so fucking in love with this woman.
Don't get me wrong; it's not just the sex. She's honestly such an amazing person that I can't even begin to describe it. So warm. So loving. So pure.
Yeah, pure. I know her past. A porn star who's starting over. But inside that, past that, is a purity that you don't see in a lot of people.
I know she's struggling with something more though. I just can't-
Wait, did you hear that?
I stop thinking and pay attention and a moment later I hear the doorbell chime once more.
Sighing to myself, I realize that whoever is at the door probably has a good reason to be here at 7:30 am.
With great fucking reluctance, I slowly extricate myself from Brittney. Even though she's sleeping, I can tell Brittney misses my body. She gives off a little mewl as I get out of bed and put on a robe.
I pad over to the living room. The sun is just rising above the buildings on 5th Avenue. It's a fucking beautiful sight that reminds me why I love living in New York City.
I open the door and somehow, I'm just not really fucking surprised at all to see Cheryl.
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 really 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."