Chapter 2 Morning Glory Hole
Morning Glory Hole
Science has proven that sexual climax is great for pain relief, improved sleep, and mood boosting.
In evolutionary terms, this is supposed to incentivize reproduction.
If sex lifts you up, soothes your worries, or kicks period cramps to the curb, then you’re probably going to keep doing it, aren’t you?
As an engineer in the field of sex science, I’d read the literature. I’d even conducted thorough follow-up studies on myself, and the data checked out. Orgasms always made me feel better.
“And what does ‘glory hole’ mean in this context?”
Unfortunately, the next morning, with every word that he uttered, Hudson made all those delectable happy-horny chemicals disappear.
Together, we sat at a small table at the OFest convention’s farewell breakfast, surrounded by vulvar croissants and bacon strips and sausage balls artfully arranged like penises.
I hadn’t wanted to cut him in on this morning’s bagelside engineering chat.
But Hudson was as charming as he was persistent, as persistent as he was handsome, and as handsome as he was inept, which meant that he’d weaseled his way into my meeting with Ichiro Ose and took every opportunity to make a fool of himself in front of our biggest buyer.
To his credit, Ichiro laughed at the glory hole gaffe. His eyes, though, flickered from Hudson to me, a small gesture that told me everything I needed to know.
Hudson was making a very, very bad impression.
Great. Fantastic. The guy had fucked me in my dreams last night, and now here he was, fucking me over professionally…
while making my stomach flip with that oblivious, perfect grin of his.
This meeting was the entire reason Clara had sent me to this regional OFest during the height of crunch time on The Fantasy.
Success was vital here. It also seemed less and less likely with every word Hudson ventured.
“Scout,” Ichiro said, picking playfully at his plate of lukewarm scrambled eggs. “What a charming gentleman you’ve added to your team. Where’d you steal him from? LoveHoney?”
“LoveHoney? Me?” Hudson answered before I could. “No, my last job was at GulfZGH.”
A beat as Ichiro chewed his eggs way too many times. “The oil rig manufacturer?”
“Yep, I helped develop an early-warning app to alert the crews when to evacuate in the event of an oncoming natural disaster.”
Nothing could hide the note of pride in Hudson’s voice.
It may have sounded unbelievably sexy, but I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.
Didn’t he know how this came across, him bragging about his total inexperience in our field?
It made BuzzCorp look like complete amateurs, giving the reins of such an important project to a knob-headed novice.
“Well,” Ichiro persisted, keeping a friendly, jovial air one only developed after a career in sales. “At least that means you’re very familiar with lubricants, hm?”
Hudson just blinked. After a beat, he was forced to explain the joke.
“Petroleum is used to make some forms of intimate lubricants, son. Just a little industry humor.”
Realization dawned and Hudson laughed. I forced myself to join, trying to focus on Ichiro and not Hudson’s prominent dimple.
“Well, I’m happy to say that this job is much more fun than oil rig work.” His eyes flickered in my direction. “And my colleagues are much prettier.”
My stomach twisted as I thought back to last night. He thought I was pretty?
No. No, he was just playing Ichiro. And, God help me, it was working. Ichiro’s slightly condescending chuckle broke into shards of real laughter.
As Hudson artfully turned the conversation from sexy fossil fuels to the banana nut muffins Ichiro had been eyeing at the center of our generic hotel breakfast table, I quietly reassessed him.
Maybe…ugh. Maybe Clara did have a point in sending him here with me.
The entire purpose of attending OFest Midwest at such a critical time in our development of The Fantasy was to assure Mr. Ose, who would undoubtedly tell the rest of the buyers in the industry, that our ambitious, ground-breaking—and top-secret—new toy design was worth their time and attention.
With pre-orders from a company like Ichiro’s, not to mention those who followed his movements closely, we could convince our investors to infuse us with some sorely needed cash.
It was our job here not to give lectures or eat our weight in cookies (though I’d done both on this trip), but to prove to this giant of the sex toy retailers that the tech we were building was solid—even if we couldn’t actually show it to him yet.
Hudson may not have been able to tell a wand from a rabbit, but he did have people skills.
People skills I sorely lacked. Oh, I could hold a conversation about specs and drafting all day, but lighthearted banter about muffins and the big game last night?
Not a chance. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people or want to fit in at a cocktail party.
I just spent so much time working that my people skills were as rusty as a Dremel saw after a rainstorm.
Their masculine chatter continued. A flicker of hope caught light in my chest. Yes, this had to be why Clara put him and me together: so I could talk toys, and he could talk with the boys.
The perfect combination of business and pleasure.
He would soften Mr. Ose up with chitchat, and then I would convince him to buy countless Fantasy units with my technical prowess.
Why hadn’t I seen it before? Of course this was Clara’s plan.
“So, Mr. Ose,” I interjected, ready to be useful. “We really wanted to talk to you about The Fantasy today.”
The old man’s face fell slightly. A twinge of disappointment hit me as I realized I’d made a mistake.
Once again, reading the room wrong. That was the thing about me—you could always count on Scout Porter to bungle a social interaction.
“Ah. Well. I should start by saying that I’ve read the brief you sent over last night, and after this talk with you and Hudson, I’m excited by the new direction the company’s going in. ”
I furrowed my brow. “New direction?”
“Well, for starters, you’ve hired a man. It’s about time.”
“I actually have two men on my engineering team,” I pointed out, as gently as I could.
“Yeah,” Hudson added, “when I was first brought on, I was told that the company was almost forty percent women.”
“But it’s not really your brand, is it? Scout, you and Clara are the faces of BuzzCorp.
Your entire identity is women. Women-owned.
Women-designed. Women-first. Women, women, women.
Hudson, with all respect, you may be completely inept when it comes to the world of sex toys, but at least you’re bringing a new facet to the company. I hope you will be, anyway.”
I always felt that I was two people. The calm, professional, remote, and reserved person I allowed everyone else to see, and then the slightly neurotic, highly emotional, tightly wound person I was on the inside.
I kept them separated for so many reasons. Public Scout was like argon—a totally nonreactive element. Very difficult to do harm to anyone with her. But private Scout? She was like fluorine—unpredictable and highly reactive.
In science, you have to quarantine elements like fluorine. If you don’t, they’re liable to run havoc through your lab. And through your life.
That was why I had such a hard time connecting with people outside of work. If I tried to get close to people, they might see the real me, and well…I couldn’t let inner Scout ruin everything for outer Scout.
But oh…did I want to unleash a can of Fluorine Scout all over Ichiro’s picturesque breakfast plate.
“And what, exactly, are you hoping he brings to the company?” I asked, voice strained.
“Men. I hope he brings men to your sales demo, anyway. I can’t keep the lights on just selling your products to girls.”
“You won’t be worried when you finally see The Fantasy in person,” Hudson said. “That toy is going to fly off the digital shelves, and people are going to become totally brand-loyal to BuzzCorp.”
I didn’t believe in knights in shining armor. But if I’d been brave enough to give him a look just then, I might have had to shield my eyes from Hudson’s glistening chain mail and sword.
Because if he hadn’t interjected, I might have lost my composure.
Working at BuzzCorp hadn’t been my first choice of profession, but bringing people pleasure, giving them control over their own sexual autonomy—those things mattered to me.
I hated to see them written off as “girls’ stuff” that needed a “man’s perspective,” especially by someone who clearly believed that he was helping me in some way, delivering folksy, paternalistic, tough-love truths.
With his brief interjection, Hudson saved me from myself. Which annoyed me and turned me on.
Ridiculous, confusing man. I couldn’t wait until I got the hell back to my office in Dallas, where I barely had the time or energy to see him, think about him, or masturbate to the thought of him.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Exactly what he said.”
“I hope he’s right, then, Miss Porter.” Ichiro gave a little shrug. “Or else that will be you out of yet another high-profile job, won’t it? At least this time, nothing blew up.”
The air evacuated my lungs. Even as a joke, throwing my biggest professional disappointment back in my face turned my stomach.
Though clearly confused, Hudson once again stepped in to pick up the conversational slack.
“I guess that means you’re not committing to buy any Fantasy units today, then?”
“No. I won’t. I understand that keeping the toy top-secret is your prerogative as an up-and-coming industry player, but I can’t just take your word that this thing of yours will work.
” Ichiro turned his attention to me. “And considering the inexperience of this guy you’ve put in charge as your software engineer, as much as I may believe in your and Clara’s vision, I don’t have much faith that he has the skills to make this project a success…
It would be unwise to commit to ordering any volume of this product at this time. You understand, don’t you?”
Ichiro stood up. Hudson mirrored him. I briefly wondered if I could fake amnesia when having to report back on this meeting to Clara.
“Of course,” Hudson said, shaking his hand. “We look forward to sharing more about The Fantasy when we can.”
“If there’s nothing else, I’ve got to get going.”
“Have a safe flight, then.”
Ichiro clucked his tongue. “Will do. This trip has given me much to consider. Your offerings, not to mention this new player entering the space who I met with yesterday…”
I snapped to attention. A new toy manufacturer was a big deal. I hadn’t heard anything about it, not even rumors.
“There’s a new competitor out there? No one new presented at the festival,” I said.
“I’m sure they’ll be at the national New York convention in November. The new owner’s rollout strategy is a bit unorthodox. He wants to sneak-attack his competitors.” Ichiro’s cheek lifted playfully. “But ssssshhhh. You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Why’d you mention it to us, then?” I asked.
My relationship with Ichiro had always been complicated.
He was friendly and polite. I sensed good in him.
But his greater demons of capitalistic excess hung on to him like a parasite.
One minute, he was friendly and insightful.
The next, he was assessing your work at a sexual health company like an internet weirdo ranking women on their “feline hunter eyes” and “forehead ratio.”
But when he looked at me, I didn’t see any of that second Ichiro. The bottom-line devotee was gone, and in his place was a man who’d been around the block a time or two and needed a place to park his advice.
That worried me more than if he’d been a total asshole.
“Because I like you, Scout. You’re a weird fish, but you’re smart and good at your job. And I like Clara and your new friend here, too. I want to see you succeed. But with this fresh blood coming in…you should be very, very worried.”