Chapter 44 Standing O
Standing O
We’d gone over the order of operations a dozen times in rehearsals.
I would step out. Wave. The crowd would roar.
I’d introduce the hype video. The hype video would play.
And then I would give the pitch to end all pitches, selling this entire room, from Mr. Ose in the front row to Lloyd Exeter glowering on the sidelines to the sinfluencers in the back, on the fact that The Fantasy was the future of our industry.
The future of pleasure. The future of sexual autonomy.
It went according to plan. The reception from the crowd left my ears ringing. My team cheered loudest of all, shooting me encouraging thumbs-ups from the middle of the convention hall, each decked out in a wall of matching black-and-pink BuzzCorp T-shirts.
However, then the auxiliary lights went out, and the hype video began to play.
Only it wasn’t the final one that Addie had shown me last night.
Not the one I’d given dozens of notes on over the last few days.
It was similar, to be sure. The theme of the video was “I want.” I want freedom.
I want to feel good. I want to chase excitement.
I want to explore. I want, I want, I want…
It was part Apple commercial, part “Why I Love Chick-fil-A” ad, and part manufactured authenticity, featuring testers and BuzzCorp superfans talking candidly about their sex lives and the ways in which our products have helped them.
A group of older married women who had their own “postmenopause book club,” only instead of reading the same book every two weeks, they tried the same toy and swapped reviews and stories over chardonnay and pot brownies.
The newly disabled woman who rediscovered her sexual power after an accident.
The dead-bed queer couple who rekindled their spark.
The religious apostate who took control of her own sexuality.
A trans man exploring his true body. Divorcées, college kids, pensioners…
And Hudson.
Yeah. Hudson Fucking Bailey, staring right down into the barrel of the camera.
I startled at the sight of him. As he spoke, though, the coiled muscles in my body relaxed until I was totally transfixed. Hypnotized by the larger-than-life motions of his lips and the sight of his big hands gesturing across the screen.
“Hi. I’m Hudson Bailey. I actually used to work at BuzzCorp.
Don’t anymore. But when I came here, I thought it would be just another job, you know?
That what I was building was just the same as weather systems or online payment processors.
I didn’t know anything about sex toys. There’s a million reasons for that, but mostly, I think, I was afraid of such intimacy. ”
Oh my God. He was doing it. He was stopping his ridiculous people-pleasing act on the most public stage of them all.
“It takes guts, you know, to be vulnerable enough with someone to bring them that pleasure and let them bring you pleasure, too. What if you say the wrong thing or suggest the wrong toy? What if you’re so inexperienced and weird that your partner, the person you care about most in the world, decides to stop calling you? ”
Those words lingered in the air. My stomach twisted. I wanted to reach up, grab video Hudson, and hold him until he knew that there wasn’t anything he could ever do to push me away.
“Anyway, as I got more familiar with sex toys, I realized that I hadn’t just been holding myself back in the bedroom, but in so many other ways, because I was afraid.
So as I got more confident in the bedroom, I got more confident in general, too.
I…I fell in love. And I guess doing this little interview is my way of expressing that love.
Of finally refusing to let myself be silenced.
My time at BuzzCorp taught me we should never be afraid of who we are or what we want. Or who we want.”
With that, he looked down the center of the camera once again, as if he knew he was talking directly to me, despite this being recorded (I could only guess) a night or two before. His smile was honest and sincere. My Hudson smile, not the one he usually reserved for everyone else.
The music behind his confessional swelled. Here it was. The big finish.
“My name is Hudson Bailey. I’m a big fan of The Penetrator. And I want to take my voice back. Because I want the woman I love to know that I’m hers forever.”
He loved me.
He loved me. And I’d let him go.
As the video played out its final moments, I realized that Hudson wasn’t the only man in the video. There were several of them in this edit, each speaking more enthusiastically than the last about BuzzCorp and our products.
Oh my God.
He’d given them the courage to come forward.
Him going on the record in front of the camera gave the other men in our focus groups the belief that they could do the same.
Hudson had solved our marketing problem.
I scanned the crowd, hoping to find him. The real him, not the projected image.
It was really for the best that I couldn’t. I probably would have pulled a silly stunt, run off the stage, jumped into his arms, and kissed him like in one of Leelah’s rom-coms.
Instead, with the confidence of a loved woman—a woman not just loved by a man but by her cheering friends in the audience and by, maybe most importantly, herself—I gave the rest of my launch speech.
Reader, I don’t like to brag.
In this case, though, I will make an exception.
I fucking crushed it.
By the end, the entire auditorium was eating out of the palm of my hand, and when it was over, a mob of financiers, led by a beaming Mr. Ose, cornered us for handshakes and congratulations.
I was Cinderella, magically transformed in a matter of minutes from forgotten business outcast to the belle of the ball.
A state of affairs that deteriorated like hydrogen-5 when Lloyd Exeter rocked up to congratulate me.
“What a triumph, Scout. You should be proud.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank God for making you better at fuck toys than rockets.”
Experimenting was the furthest thing from my mind. I was no longer interested, for the moment anyway, in guesswork and trial and error. I wanted unflinching fact. What happened next wasn’t an experiment, it was a newly discovered universal constant.
And that universal constant?
Fuck Lloyd Exeter.
“You know what, Lloyd? I’m going to say this because I don’t think anyone else is ever going to tell you.
You’re a guy who doesn’t ever hear the truth, so listen up.
You’re a bad person. You’re lazy. You’re entitled.
You have a much higher opinion of yourself than you deserve, and at the end of the day, you’re going to die alone surrounded by people who only suffer you for the paycheck.
And you may not believe me now, but when you’re lying on your deathbed, you’re going to remember this moment and say… Oh my God, Scout was right.”
His eyes burned. He worked his jaw. Mr. Rich Boy had insulated himself from face-to-face criticism with cronies and lackeys and yes-men and the Jareds of the world, and he’d just been read in person by the one woman whom he’d used up and thrown away like so much useless space debris.
Scout was right should have been my closing line. I couldn’t help it, though. Before I left, I added one final parting shot.
“By the way, you have a weird penis.”
Not my best work. Still, despite all I’d said, that was probably the only thing that would stick.
Good enough for me.
I stalked off, scanning the crowd for any sign of Hudson. Instead, I found Addie and Leelah. Dodging potential investors and engineers looking to talk shop, I cornered them.
Waving off some nearby chatty dudes looking to talk to anyone in a BuzzCorp T-shirt, Leelah engaged me first. “You were giving total girlboss up there.”
“Ugh, Leelah, don’t say giving. Or girlboss. You’re such a millennial.”
“Shut up—”
Not the time for their bickering. “Guys! Do you know where Hudson is?”
The two shared guilty looks. My stomach dropped. “I think he left.”
“What?”
“He had a flight to catch!” Leelah said in his defense. As if he needed defending.
The entire OFest audience wanted a piece of me. Clara would, no doubt, be engaged for the next few weeks, talking about fulfilling orders and expanding our product line. I should be there with her.
But I couldn’t. “Well, I’m going after him.”
“Obviously,” Addie said, rolling her eyes.
“After us and like three of the marketing people stayed up all night last night to get that footage into the hype video, you’d better be running after him!
He recorded his part, then showed it to the other focus testers so the guys would go on camera, too.
It was amazing. You should have seen it. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I hissed. “And if he was in love with me, why didn’t he tell me?”
“Besides the fact that you pushed him away at the first sign of trouble?”
I shot Addie a sharp glance. “Before that, I mean.”
“We might have had a few drinks with him after you two broke up.” Off my look, Leelah added: “What? We were worried about you!”
Addie took up the baton. “He mentioned entropy?”
“Right. That he wanted to tell you he loved you. And he wanted to ask you to be with him after The Fantasy rollout and his contract ended. But he was going to wait until after OFest because you told him that you couldn’t handle anything serious right before the launch.”
“And then when you said all that shit about him being a coward during the breakup, he decided to try and win you back…with this video thing today. He wanted to finally be honest. And boy, was he ever.”
This news rattled me. He’d been holding back because of me? Because of some stupid offhand comment I’d made about entropy?
Because he was so kind and so good that he was willing to play friends with benefits until after the convention just because it was what I wanted?
I twisted my hands together. “You mean…you mean he’s loved me this whole time?”
Addie boxed out a strange man approaching us for conversation. “C’mon, Scout. You’re one of the smartest people we know. Figure that one out for yourself.”
“Classic rom-com misunderstanding bullshit. Why didn’t you just communicate?”
“Not helpful, Leelah! I’ve got to go.”
“You do,” she agreed. “But first!”
She threw her arms around me, hugging me like I’d never been hugged before. It was a teenage girl hug, a hug you only saw in movies about finding yourself at cheer camp or whatever. But when Addie joined in, however reluctantly, I couldn’t help but soak in the moment.
I had friends. I’d finally opened up and found my people. My life was finally, finally, falling into place.
Damn, did it feel good.
“I love you guys,” I said, squeezing them both tighter.
Addie was the first to let go. “We love you, too. Now run. We’ll hold off this crowd of vipers.”
Over her shoulder, it felt like the entirety of OFest was waiting for their moment to pounce and monopolize my time.
“But—”
“We’ve got this! Trust us.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. Because, I realized as I walked away, I did trust them. And what a beautiful feeling that was.
They reached into their shoulder bags and produced The Fantasy swag—koozies and T-shirts and scrunchies. The crowds immediately flocked right to them, giving me a chance to sneak out.
On my way, though, I passed Clara, who eyed me with her usual knowing expression.
“Clara…” I began, but trailed off when I realized I didn’t know what to say. How do you thank someone for saving you? For being there when no one else was? For walking alongside me without judgment as I figured out how to unfuck all my messes?
For being the first person who ever really loved me and saw me?
No words would ever be good enough for that.
Turned out, I didn’t need words. Clara had them. Just like she always did.
“I know, darling. I know. And you have my blessing on the new job—wherever it may be and whatever you may want to do next. Not that you ever needed it.”
She pressed a kiss on my cheek and wished me her most heartfelt namaste. This time, I wished it right back to her. Not because I believed in her brand of spiritualism, but because I knew it would mean the world to her.
When I left, bouncing my way through the crowd as Leelah and Addie cleared it for me, my mentor had tears in her eyes. I blinked back my own. This wasn’t goodbye. Just a see you later, old friend.
And speaking of seeing old friends later…I had a date with Hudson Bailey.
I just had to find him first.