by Lex Martin
He’s still every bit the all-American football star he was before an injury sidelined him, complete with broad shoulders, a charismatic presence, and that beautiful boyish grin.
When he spots me creeping in the hall, I put my finger over my lips. He nods slightly, hiding a smile, the one that makes me wish I hadn’t been friend-zoned.
Malcolm and Angela stand in front of his huge mahogany desk with their backs to me as she whines, “Please tell Mac about the call Penny sent to Miss Frumpy last week.”
Who is Miss Frumpy? There are only three female attorneys at this firm, and one is on maternity leave.
I peer down at my brown pumps, brown slacks and boxy tan blazer.
Oh, no. No, no, no. I’m Miss Frumpy.
Dread and humiliation drain the blood from my face, and I wipe my damp palms on my pants.
So maybe I’ve gone overboard on neutral colors, but I don’t think I look bad. Although… I suppose I don’t need to button my blouse so high. But just because I don’t put my chest on display doesn’t mean I’m frumpy. Does it?
Nate clears his throat, and that’s when my mortification spreads like a wildfire on the dry plains. While Malcolm and Angela are busy complaining about Penny, Nathan offers me a sympathetic smile.
Yes, this will really help him fall in love with me. Loser, thy name is Evie.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve won awards for kicking ass at my job. Because when a stunning woman criticizes you in front of a beautiful man, it stings. I’m twelve years old all over again, being laughed at by eighth grade boys for having big boobs. The pity in Nate’s eyes only makes it worse.
This is one of those times I need to channel Madonna. Don’t laugh. It works. I’ve always loved how she’s a confident, strong woman. Internally, I search for the perfect song, vacillating between “Keep It Together” and “Bitch, I’m Madonna.”
I settle on the latter because I might need to call someone a bitch.
Taking a cleansing breath, I stay half-hidden behind the door.
Malcolm motions toward the reception area and asks for any more examples of Penny’s ineptitude. God, could he sound any more pompous?
Nate and I lock eyes, and I shake my head, pleading, Don’t do it. Don’t sell her out.
He taps a pen on his desk. “Wish I could help you, Malcolm, but I can’t say I have any complaints about Penny besides that one phone call Angela mentioned, which really wasn’t a big deal.”
When Malcolm turns back to Angela, Nate winks at me.
Thank you, I mouth before the butterflies in my stomach take flight from having his megawatt charm aimed my way. Turning on my heel, I race back to my office, hoping that Penny can get off Angela’s shit list before she loses her job. I’ll have to warn her to stay out of Poison Ivy’s way for the next few weeks.
My heart is still galloping when I plop my ass down at my desk and take a few more deep breaths. One crisis down, one NSFW blog to go.
When I click to enlarge the browser, I’m greeted by Josh’s enormous penis, which is winking at me as only a dick can. The logo at the top says All About the D with his behemoth erection towering over it like it’s the Chrysler Building.
A laugh escapes me. Is this supposed to be funny?
Seriously, it’s Photoshopped to look like the Chrysler Building.
Once I’m over the shock of the X-rated python before me, I take a good long look. Because, truthfully, I’ve never seen one this size in real life. I feel like I’m paddling down the Amazon, and I just spotted my first anaconda.
All jokes aside, there’s no wild jungle. Everything is neatly trimmed like a freshly mowed lawn.
His cock is strangely attractive.
Smooth and firm and thick.
I look down out my palm and then back at his photo. I bet I wouldn’t be able to close my hand around it.
The long lines of his body lead to a wide crown that sits proudly on top as though His Majesty might storm the castle any minute now.
I can only imagine taking a slow lick up that muscular body…
Evie, stop perving on the potential client.
Shaking my head, I blow out a breath and ignore the damp fabric between my legs.
Guess it’s been a while since I’ve had some personal time. Maybe I should pencil that in this weekend.
Fanning myself, I try to regroup and check out the other elements of his layout, which are surprisingly engaging. The lighting is artistic, the cropping and placement are amusing, and the captions crack me up with quips like, “Warning: Pressure-treated wood” and “A little caulk for your tongue and groove.”
My eyes sweep over another erotic photo, and the throb between my legs intensifies.
I realize I might need to reevaluate my life if I’m turned on by a skyline of New York with a giant dick Photoshopped in the middle, but I suppose I can’t be the only woman who’s wildly intrigued. Josh-With-No-Last-Name has millions of followers and at least two corporate sponsors who are interested in collaborating on sex toys.
After a few minutes scrolling down the page, I close his blog, erase my browser history, and push the bangs out of my face.
Now how the hell am I going to sell this client to the firm?
2
Josh
I can’t look.
God, I don’t want to look.
It’ll only piss me off.
But I gotta do it.
Sitting forward in my black leather Herman Miller chair at the desk in my loft, I slice the fold of the thick, creamy envelope with a silver Georg Jensen letter opener and take out an engraved invitation from my mother. Rubbing my temples, I brush the frame of my horn-rimmed glasses with my thumb.
The news is a double-whammy. My presence is requested next weekend at the celebration of the birth of my nephew—an event that I would give my left nut to avoid—and the groundbreaking of my oldest brother Spencer’s new high-rise, mixed-use, LEED-certified office building in downtown Portland. Which is really another way to pimp himself out for his senatorial run and show the world what a reputable guy he is.
I roll my eyes. Yeah, it’ll be a spectacle—Spence for Senate and the next Cartwright heir, a two-for-one extravaganza of bullshit and breeding.
My mother downloaded Emily Post into her operating system at birth, so etiquette runs through her bloodstream. She’s the kind of woman who owns an ice cream fork—because a regular spoon won’t do—and uses it.
I’m probably the only kid who was mailed an invite to his own birthday parties.
The thing is, this invitation?
It’s the politest way possible to give me the finger.
In other words, as the youngest and least successful in a family of overachievers, I am formally invited to kiss their collective ass.
I sit back in my chair and look out the windows of my top-floor loft. It’s evening and the lights of the city are starting to sparkle in the rain, like a film noir movie come to life.
Little do they know…
They all think that even though I run my own business—I have a thriving architecture firm, JC Design, that focuses on green building design—I haven’t amounted to much because they did it first. All the milestones? First step, first lost tooth, first million, first billion?
My siblings—two brothers and a sister—already did it, so whatever I do now doesn’t quite measure up.
Ha. It actually does measure up, they just don’t know it.
They run respectable businesses.
I run a dick blog.
If you’d have asked me six months ago if I would ever post my junk online, I would’ve laughed and checked you for a head injury. If you’d have told me that the internet would respond the way it has to daily pictures of my peen, I never would’ve believed you. Seriously, who’d have thought that people would want to look at my dick that much?
Well, a lot of people do. Millions, in fact.
I’m internet-famous for my website, All About the D.
And I can�
��t tell anyone about it except my best friend Drew, who in essence dared me to do it, and the two major corporate sponsors courting me, although they don’t know my real name.
And the attorney.
Her.
I chuckle to myself, thinking of my call to Waller, Goldman & Associates. While they have a blue-chip, impeccable reputation, they also have absolutely no connection with me or my family. When I picked up my cell and dialed WGA, I was expecting an awkward conversation with an old dude. Instead, I got an awkward conversation with a younger woman.
How do I tell her that I need legal services to protect my intellectual property, namely prized pictures of my dick, without telling her that I need legal services for my, uh, dick?
“So you need a transaction reviewed? I can do that. What area of law are we talking?” Her voice was confident and sure. And sexy as fuck.
“A new product.” About ten inches of product.
“I have experience reviewing various types of business contracts, including licensing agreements, as well as securing copyright protection and forming corporate entities. I’m confident that we can service your needs.”
I knew I’d been spending too much time with Drew, because the moment she mentioned she could “service all my needs,” I only barely kept back a laugh.
Shoving Drew the fuck out of my head, I quickly looked up her attorney profile on the firm’s website while I wedged my cell phone between my shoulder and my ear.
Evelyn Mills, graduated summa cum laude Georgetown Law School.
Intellectual property and business transactions.
Represents medium to large businesses and high-net-worth individuals.
This sounded right. No picture on the website, though. Just a “No Photo” gray box where it was supposed to go. Their web designer should be sacked.
At least this firm had a website. My family’s traditional firm, Sullivan Montgomery, didn’t believe in them.
I had a choice. I could ask to be transferred to Waller and do this all over again, or I could keep talking to her.
Easy decision. Sexy voice won. I mean, Waller was fine and all, but I’d take a calculated risk with Ms. Mills, even if it was possible that she had a face only good for radio.
And I needed an attorney. Now.
When I’d hit “publish” on that first post, I wasn’t sure anyone would actually see it.
Going viral is bizarre. Turns out I stumbled into becoming a popular—and potentially lucrative—anonymous social media presence. But if I move forward with some of these deals—dildo in the shape of my penis, anyone?—I have my name, my reputation, and my family’s reputation to protect. All good reasons why I need the confidentiality and protection of a lawyer, arousing voice or not.
Because the Cartwright name must not be part of this. Ever.
“Is your company online?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, let me look you up. What’s your web address?”
I paused.
She really should not be viewing my site at her office.
I didn’t want to tell her my last name. Because, for fuck’s sake, I don’t know her.
But.
“I have to tell you. I run a pornographic blog, and if you’re uncomfortable with the subject matter, we don’t have to continue.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “That’s not a problem. Email me the link. I’ll review your blog, and send you comments and a potential engagement letter within a few days.”
I hung up, sent her a link to the blog, warning her that it was NSFW—an understatement if ever there was one—and went back to work on a proposal for a city center rebuild in Sellwood. And as I worked, I smirked to myself, imagining what she’d think of my dick’s architectural adventures.
Then I realized what the fuck I’d done: I’d told someone about my blog, its success, and its content.
That meant she’d seen all the ways I got off. I never even shared those details with my ex.
Somehow this attorney now knows this part of me better than anyone else. Most people don’t share their habits with their best friends. I’d just done it with a complete stranger over the phone, which, let me say, is not the same as anonymously jacking off online. Not when Evelyn Mills, Esquire, soon will be able to attach my name to the rest of my anatomy.
The kid in me who wanted to lose the tie and jacket and roll around in the yard was laughing his ass off, but the guy who’d been raised to “be an upstanding Cartwright” was mildly nauseous.
Because fuck, my family would lose their shit if they knew.
That was Friday. It’s Saturday evening, and I have the rest of the weekend to drive myself crazy thinking about it.
The buzzer for my condo sounds, ringing through the airy space, momentarily jarring me from my spurt of anxiety.
When I renovated my loft in the rejuvenated northwest part of Portland, I’d wanted to take advantage of the views, as well as maximize the windows to counteract the dreariness of the normally rainy city. So while the room is spare, clean, and modern, the natural light gives it warmth instead of making it feel like a museum. My expansive view of the city skyline has its eccentricities, however. From any part of the room, I can stare at Big Pink, our second tallest tower—with the irreverent local nickname—rising over the rest.
Which makes me want to digitally add my own “big pink” to the Portland skyline. I scribble down the idea before I forget.
Speaking of eccentricities.
Drew Merritt yells into the intercom, “Dude, let me in now.”
I press the button, allowing him into the building, and question my sanity. Ever since I moved here, the security guard at the reception has given me the weirdest expressions, and I don’t know if it’s because of Drew’s Drewness, or if he secretly knows about AATD. I suspect the former since, really, Drew on a good day is much more scandalous than an anonymous dick blog.
I’ve known the guy my whole life and he’s never not like this—making me laugh and forcing me to do things I don’t wanna do. We went to pre-K together, our mothers are old friends, and we’ve had almost every class together growing up. But while I studied—the last of the Cartwrights has a reputation to uphold—Drew has been, and is, a complete fuck up. He knows it and doesn’t care. Since his family built a wing at every school he attended, he never got kicked out. Not for the pranks, not for ditching class, not for bad grades, not for anything. Hence his nickname, Demerit.
Bastard.
But he’s my best friend.
He bursts into my space, a thick mass of barely contained energy and out-of-control hair. Although he’s as tall as me, he weighs about fifty pounds more—and it’s all around his middle. I’ve given up trying to get him to work out with me in my basement gym. While I take care with what I wear, he’s a total ‘90s grunge slacker in a flannel and ripped, baggy jeans. You’d never know his parents own the biggest department store chain in the United States.
“Did you do it?” he asks without preamble as he plops himself down on my black leather couch and props his feet on the glass coffee table. I try not to cringe, but he sees, grins wide like a Cheshire cat, and starts wiggling, settling his ass in more, scraping his Converse across the top of the table. Asshole knows I like things neat and clean, and he knows that shit gets to me.
I pretend not to notice as I open the stainless-steel fridge, take out two beer bottles, uncap them, and hand him one. Local microbrew, of course. This is the beeriest city in America. “Do what?” I’m not being intentionally obtuse. There are a number of things he could be talking about—getting a new client, getting an idea for a new design, getting a lawyer, getting a corporate sponsor.
Getting laid.
But Drew’s idea of good sex is a quickie in a bar bathroom. Random hookups aren’t my style. I’m not after quantity. Never have been. Finding women isn’t a problem for me—finding the right one is.
He raises an eyebrow. “Forget about her yet?”
I r
oll my eyes at the idiot. “You do realize that reminding me of her will have the opposite effect, right?”
“How long has it been, seven months?”
“Yes, dumbass, now stop.”
Drew ignores me, of course, and takes a gulp of beer, then burps so loudly I think they hear him in Lake Oswego. “I’m gonna send her your blog link anonymously as a ‘fuck you very much.’”
I stare at him in horror as he roars with laughter, then dribbles some beer on my coffee table when he sets down the bottle. Double dumbass. “Fucker, that’s not even funny. She’s the only one who’d be able to identify me.”
He howls even louder. “The only one? You’ve been with more women than that.” Now he’s doubled over, practically drooling on my furniture. It’s nice leather, and he doesn’t care because he likes to fuck with me.
Still, I grin. “True. So maybe she’s not the only one.” I hand him a rag to clean up his spilled beer. He takes it, rolling his eyes, and wipes his mess, then hands it back to me. His breathing returns to normal, and he takes another drink and glances over at my laptop.
In the open floor plan, he can see everything—my bedroom, office area, living room, and kitchen space are all one big room. Only the bathroom is separate. I follow his eyes to my laptop, which is open. I should never leave it open. It’s not safe for work or home or anywhere, really. Especially with Drew around. Walking over to it, I snap it shut and take a sip of my beer.
“Now you have what, almost two million women watching?”
“I’m sure a great percentage are gay men.”
He shakes his head, his wide grin permanent now. “I still can’t believe you did it.” He does a little wiggle dance on my couch, again digging in his ass, and I want to punch him.
“You know me. I don’t do anything half-cocked.”
He snorts. “You did this full-schlong, dude! I said you’d be off the hook once some girl saw your dick. Meaning one. I didn’t mean you had to go viral.” He chuckles. “You’re so anal retentive, Clark Kent.” He drops his voice and looks around my space. “This is getting awkward. I mean, not that I study your blog. I’m just looking at your dick because it’s you. Gotta keep tabs on my oldest friend.” Then he says in a louder voice, “Only you would have stage sets for your wang. Only you would have a fucking artsy blog. Meticulous architect gets creative.” He stands up and bursts out with a pretend sob, pretending to wipe his eyes. “I’m so proud of you. Man hug?”
