“It’s the title of your book. If it bothers people then it’s a problem, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess, but. . .anyhow, it means a guy who sleeps around, but only wants to hookup with girls and will tell them anything they want to hear, and who doesn’t want anything close to a relationship. There are other definitions, but I’m easing you into it.”
“Other definitions?”
“Yeah. A lot, actually. Have you ever looked on Urban Dictionary?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Can’t say that I have.”
“You should. There are some hilarious definitions on there. Way better than I just described.”
“You care to share one?” I ask. I don’t really care what a fuckboy is, but the conversation I’m having is way more interesting than this feminist drivel she’s trying to pitch me. I’m just trying to keep myself awake and sane at this point.
She pulls out her phone. “My favorite is from the guy who said, and I quote, ‘a "fuckboy" is the lowest possible form of the vile, degenerate waste pouring from the proverbial asshole of society.” There’s more, but I think it gets a little vulgar.”
“We sure wouldn’t want to let that happen, would we?”
She can finally sense my sarcasm, and she makes that sexy face of hers into a scowl that excites me and turns me on at the same time. She really is gorgeous.
Tori Klein.
I read up on her a little after Elissa set up this meeting.
She describes herself as a, and I quote, liberal third wave feminist (I didn’t know they came in waves, but whatever), and apparently, she’s some kind of hot shot social media person. But as far as I’m concerned, the only thing this girl has going for her is her face and body, because Lord knows her book is some man-hating craziness. But back to that face and body for a minute—both are ridiculous! I can’t stop staring at her neck. She’s wearing this necklace that hangs just to where I can’t see the things I want to.
Her hair hangs to her shoulders, and she has these legs that make my dick twitch right here in my seat. I can’t keep my eyes off her, no matter what I think of this crap she thinks I’m crazy enough to actually publish. She’s not just the hottest woman to ever pitch a book in this office, she’s one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. It’s getting harder and harder. . . to concentrate, that is.
I snap myself back into reality, and out of the fantasy I was just having about bending her over this conference table. I see Elissa still has that shit-eating grin on her face. I have partners—two of them, both women—and they both loved the sample chapters that Tori provided to us. But they know as well as I do that our company has a policy of ‘unanimous or no’ – meaning that we all have to agree that we’re going to accept a book for publication or the book gets rejected. Every one of us has veto power, and based on the silly, happy grin on Elissa’s face, I think I’m going to be the only sane person who actually uses theirs.
She keeps talking for a few more minutes, going through all of the horrible things men are—let me see if I remember her words accurately: sex-crazed maniacs, fuckboys, slaves to their dicks, which she gave a verbal ‘hashtag’—a pet peeve of mine in case you were wondering—until finally I can’t take any more “Okay, okay, I’ve heard enough.”
“Cormac?” My partner is looking over at me with more than a little judgement in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Elissa, but I really can’t listen to any more of this drivel.”
The only reason I’m still sitting at this table is because of how sexy this woman is. She’s bat-shit crazy if she thinks this book is getting published by us, but with a body like that I’m almost ready to forgive her. Almost.
“What’s the matter?” She asks. She’s looking right into my eyes. Thank God I’m sitting down when she does. For a second, I forget her question, but when I pause way too long Elissa jabs me in the side.
“Cormac,” Elissa says, interrupting what I’m about to say. “Why don’t we just let her finish what she was saying?”
“Because I don’t want to waste her time. Or ours. I don’t need to hear anymore of this.”
I’m not trying to be a total dick, but that’s how it’s coming across. I can see Tori’s face change as soon as she sees where this is heading. First, it’s a look of concern, but then pretty quickly I see a tinge of anger replace it.
“Look, Mr. . .”
“Cormac is fine,” I tell her. “Or should I call myself. . . hold on, let me find it.” I page back through her last chapter until I find what I’m looking for. “Ah, here it is. Maybe I should call myself a ‘…cis man patriarch.’ But I guess that’s a little wordy to say, huh? Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?”
Tongue. I wonder what hers would feel like in my mouth. Fuck, Cormac, focus!
My partner jumps in to do what she always thinks she needs to do—apologize for me and make excuses for my behavior. She thinks I’m rude. I think I’m honest. “Tori, I’m so sorry, he’s just a very blunt person.”
“Now Elissa, don’t go mansplaining away my behavior.” Not sure why I’m using the sharpest tone I can find, but every word coming out of my mouth is fire. Don’t get me wrong, she seems like a nice enough person, and she could stop traffic with her face, but every time I think about all the man-hating bullshit she’s peddling my way I get angrier and more defensive. And the more sarcastic I get, the more aggravated I see her becoming. “Wait, did I use that right? There are so many derogatory terms beginning with the prefix ‘man’, it’s hard to keep them all straight. You’d think these radical feminists would be more creative with their made-up terminology.”
“Cormac!” Elissa yells again. Even though she’s younger than me, she’s starting to sound like my mom.
“What is it?”
“I’ve got this one, Elissa.” I turn back from my partner to the sound of Tori’s voice. “Listen, Cormac, I’m not sure what your problem with me or my work is, but. . .”
“Really?” I interrupt. “You don’t see how a male publisher might have a problem with some of the ideas that you’re trying to put out regarding all men. Or, as you call us, the patriarchy?”
“I wasn’t talking about you.” She says. “You’re getting a little defensive considering it’s a book. If you disagree with the content of the book you could at least handle it with a little more professionalism.”
What the hell did she just say? On top of insulting my entire gender, she also just called me unprofessional. It takes a lot of balls to insult a guy who holds the fate of your publishing future in his hands. I don’t know if I should be offended, or proud of her for defending her work so hard. Nah, I’m going with offended.
“Excuse me?” I ask. “Are you saying that I’m being unprofessional?”
“You cut me off in the middle of my pitch and you’ve been pretty sarcastic with everything else you’ve said to me. I’d think, for a company this large, you’d at least let an author finish before politely rejecting her—politely being the key word.”
“Well I’m sorry for my sarcasm, Ms. Klein, but. . .”
“Tori.” She says, cutting me off. “If we’re on a first name basis then it should go both ways, right?”
“Fine.” I say. “Tori, then.”
“It’s short for Victoria, but no one really calls me that.”
I start to feel bad about this whole thing, but I really can’t have a book like hers published with my company’s name on the back cover. I don’t think she’s a bad person, but she’s got some really bad ideas about men. “I see.” I soften my tone a little. If we keep going like this I’m going to confirm all of the bad things she clearly thinks of me. “Look, Tori, I didn’t mean to cut you off, and if you want you can certainly finish anything that you wanted to say to us, but I also don’t want to waste anyone’s time here—yours or ours—and the truth is, that unless your last words are about how this whole book is some long piece of satire, I can’t vote yes to have it published here. I fin
d a lot of what you wrote insulting and way too general.”
“Insulting?” she asks.
“Yes, insulting. Half of the population is male, Tori, as I’m sure you know this already, and it’s about the same percentage of people who buy books that we publish under our banner. I can’t publish something that’s going to alienate fifty percent of the people who keep our doors open. My opinion aside, that’s just bad business.”
“So that’s how it is here, huh?”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning I didn’t know you made your publishing decisions based on money. I thought maybe the artistic integrity of the book would be something you’d take into consideration.”
Artistic integrity? Is she serious? “Of course it matters what the book is about. And for the record, it’s not about me liking or not liking it, it’s about what kind of fit it’s going to be for our company and our audience. This is a business, Tori, not an art gallery.”
“Cormac,” Elissa says, jumping in before the conversation gets too heavy. “Can I talk to you for a second, privately?”
I feel another scolding coming on, but I’ll always hear Elissa out. “Of course. Excuse us.”
I prepare myself for the lecture that I know is coming. The background to this whole meeting is that it was Elissa who reached out to Tori in the first place—which I think is completely inappropriate. The truth is, our company has been losing popular authors to up and coming rival companies for a while now, and Elissa is the most ambitious of the three partners. She’d do anything to keep Tori around.
“Listen,” she says. “I get where you’re coming from, that’s why I tried to warn you as to what her book was about.”
“Warn me? Elissa you said she was—wait, I think I remember your exact line—you said she was ‘a progressive social media personality that vlogs and has a podcast about women’s relationship experiences.’ You didn’t say she was a full-fledged radical feminist who hates men! You might have warned me about that part.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe I was a little conservative with how I described her, but Cormac, you’re not a social media person, you have no idea how popular the woman sitting there watching us talk really is. She has a rabid following.”
“Including you.”
That last part was a dig. I’m not a conservative guy—at all—but when it comes to things like this, I find Elissa’s behavior a little south of appropriate. Apparently, Elissa reached out to Tori on social media and tried to court her business. Usually it works the other way around—authors pitch us, we don’t pitch them. We’re not a bunch of literary ambulance chasers, but I think Elissa is starting to panic about our bottom line.
“Yes, including me. Regardless of what you think—and it’s clear what you think—her messages to women have a lot of value. Especially in the #metoo era. Her platforms are all about female empowerment and self-actualization. I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
Self-actualization? My partner sounds like a bad self-help book you pick up on the discount rack at a bookstore. “I’m fine with empowerment, just not at the expense of trashing an entire gender. Do you really buy into all this man hating stuff?”
“She’s not like that, I promise you. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s more complicated than you think.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Look, I don’t have time to convince you of her message, but what I can do is tell you that you need to stop thinking purely like an editor and more like a businessman. You had it backwards in there.”
Here it is. The money pitch.
“Meaning I should just blindly say yes because she has a lot of followers and subscribers and can bring us money we so desperately need? That kind of businessman?”
“For every man she might alienate with the content, she’ll bring in five women. It’s still a net gain for us, which means more sales. This could be a New York Times bestseller, no matter what you think. And we can’t afford to lose another popular author.”
And that was her dig right back at me. She still blames me for our most popular and bestselling author leaving the company, even though that decision had nothing to do with me.
“I’m sorry.” I say, trying to compromise. “I’ll let her finish, alright, but I can’t sign off on this just because you’re scared we’re going to go out of business. No one author has the power to make or break a whole company. It doesn’t work like that.”
I can tell that she doesn’t like what I’m saying, but I can’t make everyone happy. I have to do what I think is best, and no matter how many new readers she brings to the table, I can’t give this book the green light.
But there is something I want to know—something that’s been bothering me this entire pitch—and not just the content of the book. I have a question for my favorite feminist. “Sorry about that, Tori.”
“No problem. Should I go on?”
“Actually, if you’ll indulge me, I have one last question for you about this whole book.”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“Something you wrote in the introduction struck me as odd. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it since this meeting started.”
“Which part?” she asks.
I flip back to the beginning of the book. “Here it is. Your book is mainly transcriptions of interviews you did with women on your podcast and in your vlog, right?”
“Mostly,” she says. “Like, maybe 75% that and the other 25% are my own thoughts and conclusions. You know, the parts you hate.”
“Right, that. In your first paragraph, you talk about how even though you’re writing a book all about men, that you’ve never really been in a serious, long term relationship with one yourself. Is that true?”
She takes a big deep breath, which gets me even more curious. “Technically, I’ve only been in one real relationship—in college. It didn’t end well.”
“I see. And is that how you came to all your conclusions on men? Based on one bad experience?”
“No, Cormac,” she says with an edge to her voice. “It’s not. You really think I’d have one bad experience and then write a whole book? It’s not as simple as all that. Like you said, most of the book is other women’s experiences. But the whole social media thing started with my own.”
I think about what she just said, and I’m torn between wanting to ask my next question and not coming across as too much of an asshole. The curious part of me wins out. “So, can I ask you something else, then?”
She takes a deep breath, so loud that I can hear it from across the table. Clearly, she’s had enough of me, but I can’t help myself. “Go ahead.”
“How can you claim to be some kind of expert on men when you’ve never been in a real relationship, save for one relationship in college? Doesn’t that seem a little contradictory to you?”
“Contradictory?”
“Yeah. Meaning, you’re repeating other women’s experiences, but past your one experience in college, you don’t have any of your own.”
“Cormac, I think you’re out of line here,” Elissa interjects.
“It’s okay, Elissa,” Tori says. “I don’t think I need to be in a bunch of relationships to draw some basic conclusions about them.”
Wrong answer. I was hoping for some self-reflection. Some acknowledgement that maybe she’s not quite the expert she thinks she is. Instead, she just dug her heals in and killed any chance of me saying yes to this drivel. “Alright, then.” I stand up. “With all due respect, I have to say no to this. I don’t think you have a leg to stand on with it, and I don’t think it’s even marketable, save for maybe to your followers. You have some interesting stories in there, but all the other things—your conclusions—I just can’t get there, Tori. I’m sorry.”
I get up to head back to my office.
Before I’m completely out of the room I steal one more look at her.
She really is so beautiful, even though she looks like she’s ready to kill me.
Tori
What an arrogant asshole!
If I’d known my first book pitch was going to be like my actual first time—messy, uncomfortable, faster than I imagined, and ultimately disappointing—I would have mentally prepared myself. But I believed Elissa when she said that this was just a formality. She said that she loved the samples I gave her, and so did their other parter, Cynthia. She never mentioned that the third partner I’d be facing was their hanging judge.
“What the hell?” I don’t mean to sound bitchy—Elissa did me a favor by reaching out to me in the first place, but I definitely feel like I got sideswiped.
“I’m sorry, Tori. I had no idea anything like that was going to happen..”
God, that Cormac was a total jerk to me! I mean, who does he think he is? Like it matters that he has crystal blue eyes you get completely lost in when he talks, or that he’s over six feet tall and built like a gym rat. That doesn’t give him free range to be a douche. I feel so silly that I walked into this.
If I didn’t have so much respect for Elissa, I would have followed him out of the room and told him what I really thought of him. But I appreciate the opportunity she gave me, even if the whole thing went south. She comes around to the other side of the table and sits down next to me. She’s only a little bit older than me, but she’s treating me like she’s my mom.
“I feel terrible Tori. I know I made it sound like this was going to be. . . easier than it was.”
Easier. That’s an understatement. She made it sound like I already had a book deal and all I had to do was sign the paperwork. “You didn’t know he’d react like that? He’s your partner.”
“He is that,” she says. “He’s also a friend, and I have to be honest, I’ve never seen him treat an author that way. Something in your book must have really rubbed him the wrong way. Trust me, the last thing I’d ever do is purposely walk you into something like that. I really had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
The Three Kiss CLause Page 3
