‘Because you told me to load them in the dishwasher,’ I reply, gesturing with an open palm to a job well done even as the realisation dawns that this is somehow mistake number 221 for the week.And I’m suddenly pleased I didn’t tell her about the interview yesterday...
‘Iaskedyou, not told,’ she corrects with the patience of a teacher dealing with an underachieving child. ‘But I didn’t think for one minute you’d bring them home.’
‘What was I supposed to do with them?’ I ask perplexed. ‘Is that what the rubber gloves were for?’ My face scrunches with distaste becauseeww! Hand washing other people’s fun from silicone?‘Please don’t say yes because that would be a new low—at a time that already feels like rock bottom.’
‘I meant in the studio dishwasher not the dishwasher at home, for fuck’s sake.’
I will never get used to the way she sounds when she swears. She looks like she’s just tumbled from heaven, all cherubic cheeks, blond ringlets, and doe eyes, and she’s just so goddamned posh, both how she looks and sounds, and is at complete odds with what sometimes comes out of her mouth. Especially when we’re on set and she’s giving out directions.
Milos, darling, if you could pull out of her before you come, we’ll get the money shot... yes, all over her bottom, if you will. Deena, can you try to deep throat him this time?
Welcome to my life because while Chastity is the owner, director, and producer for Fast Girl Media, I’m her new right-hand girl. That is, if right-hand girls fit like a left-hand glove with the fingers glued into a fist. But I also do on-set makeup, which is what I did in my previous professional life. Only then, I applied it mainly from the neck up...
That aside, we’re an odd pairing, Chastity and me. Her with her blue blood and me with the Upstate New York hay still stuck in my hair. But I don’t know where I’d be without her.Or her spare room. Not after the shit my fiancé pulled.
‘For the record,’ she begins patiently again. ‘Toy washing isn’t your responsibility. Ever. But these toys? They’re new. I’m thinking of stocking them on the website and thought I’d ask the professionals for their opinions. But I say again; they’re new—unused. I would never... ’ Her expression twists indelicately. ‘But I appreciate your help, anyway.’
‘Even when I get it wrong?’
‘Yes, even then.’ She pushes the dishwasher door closed with her foot as though it’s contaminated.
‘For someone who spends her day watching people stick their bits into other people’s bits, you’re awfully squeamish,’ Max, her brother, suddenly gloats from the doorway.
‘Leave her alone,’ Chas warns.
‘I was talking about you,’ he responds.
‘I’m not talking about thiswithyou.’
‘No, you won’t talk business with me at all,’ he complains mulishly.
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; go play porn star somewhere else. I have no issues with you being in the business, but I’m not watching or paying you to fuck.’
‘Backing away slowly,’ I say, doing just that.
‘Good,’ Chas retorts. ‘Go put on your pretty dress. We’ve a wedding to attend.’
Dammit.‘But I don’t want to go,’ I reply on a whine, stamping my slipper-shod foot against the tile. ‘It’s just plain cruel to make me.’
‘But there’s a kindness in my cruelty. And I think you know that well.’
‘Why don’t I just fuck her?’ Max pipes up. ‘It’d save you a wedding gift. Look, she’s already in her dressing gown. And I bet she’s wearing a little Agent Provocateur under there.’
‘Have you been peeking!’ I squeak, grasping the neck of my robe tighter. Neither of us take his suggestion seriously. Max is Chas’slittlebrother, though he towers over us both. He’s twenty-two, fresh out of university, and has no idea what to do with his life. While he might be interested in the business, he’s joking about being in front of the camera.I think.
‘We all know a suitcase full of Louboutins and fancy underwear was all you brought with you when you walked out,’ Max replies. And though his delivery is light-hearted, it still burns because what he’s referring to is when I left my fiancé after finding he’d somehow tripped and accidentally inserted his dick into someone else.
I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. My chest feels tight, panicked by a lack of air suddenly.
‘And possibly a case of only left feet shoes at that,’ he then adds.
‘Stay out of her room, pervert,’ Chas warns on my behalf, patting his cheek as she passes. ‘It’s probably him hiding your shoes, darling,’ she says, turning back to me.
But it’s not Max. My shoes have an awful habit of hiding themselves, and they have done so for most of my life. It’s like they can sense when I want to wear a particular pair, then make only one of that pair available to me. It’s a curse, I’m sure.
Chas pauses dramatically at the door. ‘And while I’m sure Paisley is, no doubt, touched by your generosity, brother mine, go near her, and I’ll sell you into sex slavery.’
‘Don’t look too excited,’ I add, following her out of the room. ‘She means the gay kind.’
