Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
People seemed to be under the impression that virgins were innocent creatures who knew nothing about sex, never thought about it, and wouldn’t dare to.
In Stella’s experience, it was the complete opposite.
She was a total horndog. And today was the worst because not only had she had her phone sex conversation with Max on repeat all week, she was also ovulating, which made her horny meter turn all the way up.
Usually this was the time of the month when she’d do something stupid like get on Tinder, swipe right on everyone, and then chicken out when someone asked her to come over.
Tonight, however, she actually had plans, and it was all she could think about.
When Melanie gave Stella her edits on her places-to-lose-your-virginity post, Stella accepted them with ease. She didn’t even flinch when Melanie suggested she try having Sparky write the post for her and see what it came up with. She simply ignored the suggestion.
When Effie asked Stella if she wanted to get Indian food for lunch, Stella politely declined instead of telling Effie for the hundredth time that if she was going to have curry it had to be the Jamaican kind.
And when an office-wide email went out about the upcoming Sprint Week, Stella merely glanced at it. It wasn’t until the chatter in the office intensified so much that she could hear it over her AirPods that Stella finally looked up.
“What’s going on?” Stella asked Effie, who was having a hushed conversation with Katy, who sat on Effie’s other side.
Katy had started at the company about a year after Effie and Stella, and at first they were skeptical of her.
She was a white girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and monogrammed everything.
She immediately reminded Stella of the girls she and Jackie had interned with.
However, Katy had subverted their expectations.
She was asexual and aromantic, which was what she mostly wrote content about, and why her WASP family didn’t keep in touch.
As Katy once said, “Honestly, I think if I was just gay they might’ve understood that better.
But not wanting a romantic relationship with anyone continues to escape their understanding. ”
So although Katy wasn’t exactly their BFF or anything, they were cool in the way that most queer people could be when it was them against the everyday straight, cisgender nonsense that sometimes occurred in the office.
“You didn’t see Miles’ email?” Katy asked.
Before Stella could answer, Effie turned her computer so Stella could see it.
Dear Yellow Sparks Content Team,
It’s that time of year again! SPRINT WEEK!
For anyone who’s new to the team, Sprint Week is a one-week competition where every content writer and quiz writer creates twenty posts as quickly as they can.
These posts can be our typical list posts or quizzes, regardless of your title, so this is a great opportunity for quiz writers to try out their craziest list ideas and for the content writers to have fun with quizzes.
No matter what you post, once you make your twenty posts, you’re done for the week.
That means if you do all your posts on Monday, you’ve just earned yourself a six-day weekend!
Now, while we of course want you to be quick, this is a competition!
And this year there’s a twist. To be qualified into the competition, you have to use our new AI tool, Sparky, for all of your posts.
Not only will this help you finish your posts quicker, but we’ve also got a bigger prize for you all.
This year the person who gets the most traffic during Sprint Week will receive $10,000. That’s right, $10,000! Second place will receive $5,000, and third place will receive $1,000. And again, to qualify for entry into the competition, you must use Sparky for ALL of your posts during the week.
My hope is not only that Sparky will help you all get through your posts quickly so we can have a nice long weekend, but also that this will lead us all to better understanding Sparky and guide us in using it going forward.
If you have any questions/concerns about Sprint Week, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your editors. And if you have any questions about Sparky, I’ve CC’d our AIX rep, Rashid, on this email, and there will still be office hours on Monday.
I’m very excited to see what you and Sparky come up with next week. This is the time to get creative, get wacky, and ultimately have fun. Good luck!
Best,
Miles
It took a moment for everything Stella just read to fully sink in.
When she finally digested all of the info, all she could say was, “Ten thousand dollars?!”
“Yup,” Effie and Katy said in unison.
Stella looked at both of them in disbelief.
“For Sprint Week?” Stella asked.
“Yup,” they said again.
During the last Sprint Week, the prize was a five-hundred-dollar Visa gift card and ownership of a little red sparkly cowboy hat that was known as the “viral cowboy hat.” Stella could see it right now, sitting on the desk of Aja Coates, the reigning champ of Sprint Week.
“He must really want us to use this Sparky thing,” Effie said, shaking her head. “How is it that he can afford to do a total of sixteen thousand dollars in cash prizes for this but we couldn’t get any swag for Christmas? Or better yet, why isn’t he paying us more?”
“And that’s the ten-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it,” Katy said, shaking her head.
“This is insane,” Stella said. “And if we don’t use Sparky, what? We still have to participate, but we don’t get a chance to win the money? Even if we bring in the most traffic?”
“That’s what it seems like,” Effie said. “Although I guess we could ask Melanie to confirm.”
“Ugh, she was just trying to get me to use Sparky for one of my posts earlier,” Stella said. “I know where her loyalties lie.”
“Well, unfortunately, he got me,” Katy said. “I want that ten thousand dollars, so I’ll give the little robot a try.”
“Katy, no,” Effie said. “Once we start using it, it’ll get stronger.”
“Perhaps,” Katy said. “But look around. Do you really think no one’s going to do it?
I’m sure there’s at least a couple people who have been using Sparky already, even if they won’t admit it.
Everyone here’s going to want that money, and if we don’t use Sparky, that improves the chances for those who do.
Even if we all don’t do it, if one person does, they automatically win. ”
“Wow, this may be the most competitive Sprint Week we’ve ever had,” Stella said, looking around the room.
She could already see people eyeing each other, whispering, and typing away furiously. It was like whatever solidarity they had in agreeing not to use the AI tech had shattered as soon as Miles’ email hit their inbox.
“I have to hand it to Miles,” Effie said, blowing out a breath. “This may be the smartest thing he’s done since launching Yellow Sparks. It almost makes you wonder if it was his idea.”
Stella squinted at her. “What do you mean?”
Effie shrugged. “I just wonder if maybe his brother gave him the idea.”
“Oh yes, AI guy,” Katy said. “Although he hasn’t been around lately. Maybe it was the other one. Rashid.”
“Or this is simply Miles’ doing and we’ve underestimated him,” Stella said, probably too defensively.
But she didn’t like what Effie was implying.
Max had told her he would stay out of this whole Yellow Sparks/Sparky thing, and as far as she could tell, he had done that.
There was no reason to believe he was involved in this.
Right?
“Regardless, we’re fucked,” Effie said solemnly. “We’re damned if we give in and use Sparky, and we’re damned if we don’t. Katy’s right. It doesn’t matter what we do if everyone decides to participate.”
“So are you going to do it?” Stella asked, glad they were moving on.
Effie chewed her lip before nodding.
“Yeah,” she said. “If this thing actually helps us get our work done faster, at least I’ll get more days off out of it. What are you going to do?”
“The same, I guess,” Stella said. “What choice do we have?”
Effie and Katy grumbled their agreement, and it was decided. It was time to learn how to use their new AI.