Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Yenni Montoya had not ordered production to fire them.
Bryn stared blankly at her email, still half asleep like the sun that had only just nudged the sky awake.
Harvey said little in his response to Vivian’s email sending yesterday’s raw files, but what he had said felt like a damn ticker-tape parade down an idyllic Main Street: “Looks like the third time’s the charm. Keep it up.”
That was it. No notes. No demand to start again. No modern equivalent of a pink slip. Just an unelaborated thumbs-up.
In her borrowed bed, Bryn exhaled. Eyes on the ceiling, she let relief flood her nervous system.
She wasn’t sure that there was anything noticeably different in her performance, but even Vivian seemed more at ease on their second attempt.
It was hard to replicate something when Bryn didn’t know what it was, but she pushed aside her worries and focused on the positive.
A green light from Montoya to keep going.
She checked the time, suddenly giddy like she’d shotgunned a gallon of espresso. She had an hour and a half before breakfast.
Chewing the inside of her cheek, she debated whether to record a new audio or upload one of the ones she’d banked for emergencies. Eighteen months of consistently posting twice a week on Siren—the audio erotica app—had been critical to her success, modest as it was.
She had three ready-to-share audios left in the file labeled: brEAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCIES. With so much of Magpies still to record, she might need to use all of them. That would risk running out of material and faithfully posting on a schedule was so crucial.
She could make something new and leave the banked files for a true emergency.
Bryn mostly performed short scripts she commissioned. They were explicit, but fully plotted. There was no way she could record that without her good mic and pop filter and editing software.
There was only one option. She’d have to lean into the grainy quality of her earbuds and phone. She’d have to pretend that was on purpose.
Bryn wasn’t a writer, but that didn’t matter for the idea whirling to life as she opened her recording app. Both earbuds in, Bryn closed her eyes. She imagined herself as a professional on a conference trip. A woman who missed her wife and wanted to show her just how much.
With a grin, she dropped her voice to sound like her alter ego Kelly Craves. “Hi, baby. I miss you,” she muttered as if she were talking to her partner on the phone. Talking directly to her 8,000 subscribers with a sleepy, sultry voice.
But she never pictured so many people listening. She conjured a single person and imagined herself talking only to her. Shifting under the sheets for her. Aching only for her.
“Yeah?” She chuckled as if her wife had returned the sentiment. Having a one-sided conversation had taken getting used to, but it was second nature now.
“Still in bed? Don’t you have to get ready for work?” Bryn’s tone was playful, like she didn’t know exactly where the conversation would lead.
“I wish I were there with you right now.”
Bryn visualized a nice bed. White sheets and a plush duvet. In her fantasy, a woman sleeping in a thin T-shirt stirred.
“You know I hate hotel beds. And I really hate sleeping without you.”
Bryn imagined full lips pulling into a little grin. A satisfied grin. Her fictional wife was happy to hear that she was mildly miserable in her absence.
“Oh? Thinking about me? What were you thinking about?”
“Nope, yep, yeah.” She cleared her throat, pretending to be caught off guard. “Yes, that was quite a send-off. I haven’t stopped thinking about your—”
Bryn laughed like she’d been interrupted.
“Babe, you don’t ever have to worry about anyone else snagging my attention. You’re the only woman I see. I’m not even sure there’s anyone else at this damn thing.”
She paused, giving the illusion that the other person was talking. That her fictitious wife was sharing her insecurities.
“No, not even Sierra the Sales Queen,” she assured with a soft chuckle. A pause. A beat. A flirtatious tone. “Baby… are you jealous?”
She shifted her weight, making the sheets rustle so they’d get captured by the recording.
“Don’t get shy. I like it,” she muttered reassuringly.
In her mind’s eye, Bryn saw a flash of blonde. A hard jaw and intimidating countenance easing. She resisted painting the rest of the picture. Refused to let herself see a face. See her face.
Bryn focused on the task. “What are you wearing?”
She imagined Vivian’s white camisole. The line of her biceps. Nope. She wasn’t going to be an objectifying creep. Absolutely not.
“What do you mean I can do better than that?” She smirked, forcing herself back into the scene. “It’s a fair question. How can I picture—”
A feigned interruption. She pretended to check her text messages. She did not imagine what Vivian looked like in some massive Montana king-sized bed or whatever the hell was the biggest commercially available mattress.
“God, I miss you,” she whispered. “You’re so beautiful.” A breath. “Of course I mean it. You’re stunning, and I can’t wait to be in that bed right next to you.”
Eyes closed, Bryn visualized the space. Imagined the weight of a body next to hers. Inhaled the scent of perfume and tried to keep her stomach from tightening when it was Vivian’s.
“What’s that sound?” Bryn asked playfully.
“Uh huh. I hear that buzzing. Turn it off,” she said with a hint of authority.
“Because it’s too fast. I want it to build slowly.
And I want you to imagine those are my hands sliding into your little shorts.
” She grinned. “Plus, isn’t everything always better when you work for it? ”
A pause.
“Whining won’t work, baby. Turn off your vibrator.” Bryn’s laugh was a warm rumble in her throat. “Come on. If you’re good, I’ll let you be a brat when I get home.”
Bryn took a deep breath and settled against the pillow again.
“Don’t worry. I promise I’m better than battery-operated.” She feigned arrogance. “Yes. Even from a thousand miles away. Close your eyes.”
Exaggerating her movements so they’d get picked up by her inadequate headphone mic, Bryn shook the sheets.
“Don’t worry about what I’m doing,” she teased.
“Close your eyes.” She chuckled softly, but her voice was low, signaling to her listeners that the warm-up was over and it was time for business.
“Because I know they’re open. I know the woman I married, and she’s stubborn. Close them.”
She lost herself to the scenario she’d created.
“Stay over your underwear. You know I like to tease you.” She grinned. “You only pretend to hate it. Now it’s your turn to listen. To do everything I tell you to do.”
Her listeners loved the escape of being told what to do. Of taking something just for themselves under the guise of obedience.
“Just like that.” Her cadence was slow, comforting. “I want you to feel that heat start low in your belly. Not a fire yet. Just a slow, liquid warmth…” She exhaled. “Like honey starting to melt but it’s not dripping. Not yet.”
Brow furrowed, Bryn tried to shove away the image of elegant hands. Of manicured nails dragging over fine fabric. She shifted as if that might suffocate the spark before it caught.
“You were already turned on, huh?” She moistened her lips, but this time she didn’t have to pretend to take a steadying breath.
A flash of blonde hair, loose and brushing over a bare shoulder.
“I am too, but this is about you.” She bit her lip. “Stop… You know I can’t resist when you beg like that.” She cursed under her breath. “Okay, okay. You can slip under your—”
She couldn’t stop her brain from conjuring the sound of Vivian’s gasp. From imagining Vivian’s full lips parting. Her stoic expression easing into delighted surprise at her own arousal.
“You feel so good,” Bryn whispered. “Don’t stop.”
She broke free from her wayward thoughts and focused on what her listeners loved: praise. This wasn’t about Bryn’s fantasy. It was work. She had to make herself remember that.
“That’s it, baby,” she breathed into the phone, her voice huskier now, less performative despite her best efforts. “You’re incredible. I love how well you listen.”
She counted in her mind, giving her listeners time. Giving herself time to collect herself. To slow her own pounding pulse.
“I love that little sound you just made,” she continued, throat dry and breath uneven. “That little hitch—yeah. That’s it. Do it again for me.”
Eyes closed so tight a million silvery points appeared in the darkness, Bryn couldn’t stop seeing Vivian. Skin flushed and body writhing with unguarded need. The image was so sharp, so dangerously specific, it was a vice around Bryn’s lungs. A hand at her throat squeezing in the best way.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this. You’re perfect.”
She couldn’t catch her breath.
“Are you arching your back? I bet you are. You’re doing so well, baby.
You’re such a good listener.” Bryn’s own hips pressed into the mattress, a desperate, involuntary movement.
She imagined a hand—not hers, hers—slipping under the sheets.
Elegant fingers relieving the throbbing ache between her tense thighs.
“Tell me it’s just for me,” she demanded in a low, desperate plea. “Yeah… just like that. That little whimper. You do that so well. You’re unbelievable. Keep telling me you’re mine. While you—yeah… just like that.”
It wasn’t a whimper Bryn imagined, but a sharp, controlled moan.
The kind of sound a woman who was always in control would make when she finally, unexpectedly, lost it.
The thought was too electric to touch, even just to shove it away.
It took over Bryn’s field of vision and turned into the heat flooding her skin.
“Keep going,” Bryn commanded, and she wasn’t sure whether she was acting when her voice cracked. She was losing the thread, losing control. “Don’t you dare stop. You’re so close and you are absolutely perfect.”
Panting, Bryn laughed. She spent a few minutes muttering affection into the recording.
A scene like that didn’t require the same aftercare as something more intense, but she liked to stay with her listeners for a little while.
To talk them through their comedown so they didn’t feel jarred by being suddenly alone.
She whispered a last, “I’ll be home soon,” and hit stop. She saved the file, intending to listen to it while she showered before uploading it.
When she yanked out her earbuds, the room was so much quieter than she remembered. So empty. All she had was her pulse still fluttering too fast in her throat, her skin slick with a fine sheen of sweat, and sheets bunched up around her legs.
She hadn’t touched herself. Not once.
Bryn repeated the fact to herself over and over as if it might fight the tide of shame rising in her belly.
Thinking wasn’t doing, she told herself.
Fantasizing was part of the job, a necessary tool to make the performance believable.
As long as she didn’t act on it, she hadn’t crossed a line.
The logic felt flimsy, but it was all she had.
Getting up as if she were fleeing the scene of a crime, Bryn leapt out of bed. She stalked to the bathroom and turned on the shower to just short of scalding. The billowing steam covered the mirror and saved Bryn from seeing her own flushed reflection.
But the shower did nothing to erase the vision of Vivian seared onto the back of her eyelids. Bryn groaned, scrubbing at her hair and trying to convince herself that she wasn’t as bad as some creepy old dude with a Times Square billboard fetishizing a stranger.
Wrapped in a towel, she stared at her hazy reflection as the steam cleared. She had to face Vivian in less than an hour and act like she hadn’t just spent the morning imagining her in the most intimate way possible. She had to act normal. Ugh, why had she let her imagination go so far?
She mentally scrolled through the day’s scenes, pulling on a pair of leggings and a tank top to combat the heat of the booth. If they kept up yesterday’s easy pace, they’d get to the first real steamy scene by the end of the day.
A new thought, sharp and intrusive, cut through the haze of her guilt. If she couldn’t shake this inappropriate desire, she might as well use it. She could take this want she was failing to drown and pour it into Maggie’s attraction to Jo.
That wasn’t wrong, was it? She could let her character feel everything Bryn had to suppress. Wasn’t that method acting?
The idea took shape as she combed her wet hair, the simple, repetitive motion calming the frantic edge of her thoughts. By the time she’d dried her hair and put on a little lip gloss, she was sure it was the only way to go.
Bryn couldn’t want Vivian, but Maggie could sure as hell want Jo.