Chapter 4 Clocking in at the Orgasm Mines
Clocking In at the Orgasm Mines
Monday mornings were for the fuck reports. I know what you’re thinking. Scout, I’ve worked in an office before. I know that people come in on Mondays and give way too many details about their personal lives, but really. Fuck reports? No need to be quite so unprofessional.
Sure. I’d give you that. If my office were a normal office and I was just talking about my small engineering team chattering away about who they got lucky with this weekend, I’d be in total agreement with you that “fuck reports” was inappropriate.
However…
“Morning, Scout! Have you gotten through those fuck reports?”
“Not yet. There are a lot of them today, aren’t there?”
“Huge storm front pushed through the Pacific Northwest this weekend. Guess people took the rain as God’s way of saying Go fuck yourself.”
The thing is, a sex toy company isn’t a normal office, and appropriate is very relative when you’re looking at pocket pussies all day.
To be clear, fuck report was not my terminology. And in my line of work, it didn’t refer to my colleagues and their sex lives. Instead, it referred to the metric tons of data currently cluttering my laptop screen.
At BuzzCorp, we prided ourselves on being user-first. Testing was conducted at every phase of new toy development.
Our talented QA team would be sent a product, use the toy for a certain number of days, and then write detailed summaries of how those toys functioned in solo use and (if applicable) with a partner or partners.
Being the head of engineering, I could have delegated the work of poring over the fuck reports to someone else, but I never did.
When it came to work, I was a control freak.
And when it came to sex, it was nice to know someone was having it, even if it wasn’t me.
Our testers ranged from a grocery clerk at the center of a polycule to a housewife trying to reinvigorate her sex life to a single mother hooking up between work and her daughter’s soccer practice.
Rich or poor, fat or thin, sexually adventurous or meek, beautiful or ugly, young or old, nondisabled or disabled, men or women or otherwise… it didn’t matter.
People were having sex. Great sex, with the help of the toys I was engineering.
Reading about them was my Monday workload. Just another day at the office.
The BuzzCorp offices took up one floor of a “reimagined” workspace in downtown Dallas.
What had once been the cold, Office Space-y confines of a multinational bank was now an open-concept, glass-walled, potted-plant oasis built with collaboration (and splashy, stylish magazine spreads, probably) in mind.
Most of the time, I worked in the safe and secure confines of my lab, a private glass box of sterile space that made me look like I’d been sentenced to a thousand years in movie supervillain jail.
It was as uninspiring and unsexy as a room could be, but I loved it.
The seclusion gave me space to think and kept me from getting too mixed up in my coworkers’ lives.
But on Mondays, the fuck reports called, and I was forced to answer them in the communal space in the office’s open-concept center, which was comprised of a kitchen, call booths, a community garden, and group workspaces—the typical trappings of a too-hip-for-its-own-good, late-stage-capitalism office.
And not even the fuck reports could take my mind off Hudson.
I’d been checking the door all morning, waiting for him to pop his unreasonably attractive head into the office.
I needed to go back on my offer. As I flipped through fuck reports, his sweatshirt (which I’d forgotten I’d been wearing until I collapsed on my couch last night) sat in a little bag near my feet.
Every time I brushed against it, I imagined how that conversation would go.
Hudson, I regret to inform you that I will be unable to teach you about sex due to a prior commitment. I have to get a Brazilian wax. I haven’t shaved down there in a while, so by the time the waxing tech gets finished, your contract will probably be up anyway.
Or—
Hudson, here’s my password for this women-owned porn site I visit regularly. They’ll teach you more than I ever could.
Or—
Hudson, I’d love to teach you about sex toys, but then I might stupidly give in to my urge to ride you like a mechanical bull. You understand. It’s for the best I keep my distance.
“Scout? Are you in one of your scientific fugue states again?”
I looked up at my small engineering team.
There was Jared Blotcher, the loudmouthed wiring specialist who’d asked the question.
Addie Cao, a fresh-faced recent grad whose parents still believed she worked in microchip development at an electric car company.
And Terrence Ramirez, our fabrication expert, who I would have been able to describe in more detail if he ever talked about himself.
“No, I’m fine,” I replied to Jared. “Just a little jet-lagged. Addie, how are things going with the marketing department?”
Addie, as the most junior of the team, was our technical liaison with the advertising folks and helped prepare all the packaging, branding, and marketing materials for The Fantasy. She scrunched her pert nose.
“I’m not totally sold on their concept, but we’re looking at alternatives.”
Jared wouldn’t let it go, though. “Jet-lagged? There’s only a one-hour time difference.”
Addie cocked her head, turning on him. “Hey, didn’t you miss almost an entire day of work the Monday after Daylight Savings?”
Thank God for Addie. I should have her nominated for sainthood.
“We’re not talking about me here. We’re talking about our extremely exhausted-looking boss.”
Oof. Spoke too soon.
“You’ve been pretty quiet this morning, boss,” he continued. “Going to regale us with all the shenanigans you got up to in Cleavage-land?”
He waggled his eyebrows.
Gag.
“She’s going to refer you to HR,” Terrence muttered, not looking up from his work.
“Sorry that I’m trying to ask my friend how her trip went. I didn’t realize being nice was a fireable offense.”
“Cleveland was fine,” I said. There weren’t many things I disliked about working at BuzzCorp, but Jared was certainly at the top of that very short list. If Hudson had a talent for making me want to at least peek past my strong in-office barriers, Jared reminded me why I kept them steel-nailed shut.
“Now, if you’ll all look at the fuck report from Mary Brighton—”
“Did you and Hudson get along all right?”
I made a mental note to cancel Addie’s application for sainthood. She blinked at me with her wide eyes, completely oblivious that she’d just asked the worst possible question.
“Mm-hmm,” I hummed. “Fine.”
“You don’t look like it went fine. Those bags under your eyes tell me it was exhausting. I guess you didn’t get any sleep with Hudson Bailey around, did you?”
Terrence narrowed his gaze at Jared. “Man, why are you gonna say that to your boss?”
“I’m worried about her,” Jared said, adopting an oh-so-innocent act. “Scout was out in a big bad city all by herself with some strange weirdo Clara scraped off the street somewhere.”
Addie rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You’re just fishing for more information.”
“I think he’s shady. Nobody can be that nice.”
“Yes, they can,” I said, the words out before I could stop them. If there had been a scientific experiment in man’s capacity for kindness, Hudson would have thrown off the whole data spread.
Jared leaned in. “And she speaks! Finally! Details, please.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We went to the conference. I showed him the ropes—”
He cut me off. “I bet you did.”
My blood ran hot. Jared always had a bro-y tenor to him, like he’d applied for a job at a sex toy company as a way to pick up chicks, and while I probably should have reported him to HR like Terrence suggested, I knew doing so would just rock the boat.
And rocking the boat was the last thing I wanted to do.
Not when the stakes were so high with The Fantasy and it required all of my focus—and my entire team.
“And we didn’t land an order from Mr. Ose,” I continued. “So, if we’re all done picking apart my personal affairs, could we please get back to work and try to salvage this project before we’re all filing for unemployment?”
Addie and Terrence both recoiled. Jared just blinked. I didn’t blame them for their surprise. Snapping and harsh talk was not my managerial style. I preferred the aloof approach. Less complicated and messy. Less chance to get close to people and take my eyes off my goals.
Today’s goals?
Recover after the psychic damage of that Mr. Ose meeting.
Retract my agreement to teach off-books sex toy lessons.
Stop thinking about fucking Hudson Bailey.
And stop thinking about fucking Hudson Bailey.
“Great,” I said, once I believed their silence. “Now, no more distractions.”
Famous last words. Because from behind me, the elevator dinged, and a familiar—too familiar—voice rang out over my shoulder.
“Morning, all! Scout, have you seen my sweatshirt?”