Mentally, I wrapped up the loose ends on my experiment.
Problem: Need to cum, have to sleep, can’t stop thinking about Hudson Bailey.
Proposed Solution: Find some way to stop thinking of him while also orgasming.
Test: Fucked myself silly with the biggest of big guns…and still kept thinking of him. It made everything way hotter, in fact.
Result: Absolute failure. Seeing him tomorrow is going to be very, very awkward.
2
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 withIchiro Oseandtook 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 eggswaytoo 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 ismuchmore fun than oil rig work.” His eyes flickered in my direction. “And my colleagues aremuchprettier.”
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—andtop-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 actuallyshowit to him yet.
Hudson may not have been able to tell a wand from a rabbit, but hedidhave 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 orwantto 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? Ofcoursethis was Clara’s plan.
