by Mia Ford
“Good grief… It feels as if someone is banging on my head with a hammer or something,” Stacy says and I know exactly what she means. I have a throbbing headache and we both stumble over to the kitchen to have some black coffee and aspirin. After while I start feeling slightly better and Stacy and I go and sit in the lounge, just to talk.
“What exactly are your plans now?” Stacy asks, “I guess you no longer have to go and grovel in front of fat old men for a job?”
“Nope, that part of my life is over… I’m definitely going to start something of my own and I’ve kind of been thinking that I’d like to open up my own magazine. Would you be interested in coming on board?”
“Interested?! I’d absolutely love it!” Stacy says and I suddenly feel very excited, despite the fact that my head still hurts. We talk about it some more and decide that there’s no point in allowing any grass to grow under our feet. We make plans to go and look for office space that very same day and it’s not long before we start thinking about various possible names for the magazine.
“What about Jenny’s travels?” Stacy suggests and I immediately like the name.
“But won’t you feel like you’ve been left behind if your name is not also in the title?” I ask, slightly apprehensively. I really value the contribution Stacy has made to all of this and I don’t want her to be left feeling as if she’s pulling on the short end.
“I can’t feel that I’m being left behind when the name was my idea?” Stacy asks with undefeatable logic and I nod my head.
“Okay, Jenny’s Travels it is!” I say and we clink our coffee cups in celebration of the birth of our magazine. We spend some more time sitting in the lounge, drinking coffee and recovering from the excess of the previous night. When we finally feel up to it, we get dressed, put on some makeup and then hit the streets to start looking for some office space. It doesn’t take as long before we find an office which looks really nice and we quickly call the number on the sign in the window which announces that the space is for rent.
“Yes, how can I help you?” A male voice asks at the other end of the line.
“My name is Jenny and I’d like to rent this office space on seventh Avenue,” I say, getting straight to the point.
“Okay… Have you got any collateral to put up as security?” the man asks, clearly apprehensive.
“Well, I don’t own any real estate or anything like that, but I do have money in the bank if that would set your mind at ease,” I say with a smile and Stacy sticks both her thumbs up in the air to indicate that she loves what I just said.
“Oh! I think that would be just fine!” the man quickly says and an hour later we are sitting in his office, signing the lease for the office space.
“Isn’t it amazing just how easily these doors swing open now that we have some cash on our hands?” I say and Stacy heartily agrees with me. “You can say that again, I can still recall how my mother had to sign surety for me when I got my shitty little apartment… I definitely prefer this way of doing things!”
Over the next couple of days we get real busy and buy office furniture and everything else we need to get the magazine started. We spare no expenses and a hundred thousand dollars later we stand in front of Jenny’s Travels, watching the guy as he paints the name of the magazine on the window.
“This is just like a dream come true!” Stacy exclaims and we hug and dance around excitedly on the sidewalk. Then we go inside and get down to the business of preparing our first issue for publication. Stacy has a bit of background in publishing, as she used to work as an intern at another magazine. But she’s quit that job now and I have offered her double her previous salary to work with me, as well as giving her twenty percent shares in the business. At first, she objected to my generosity, but then I reminded her that none of this would have been possible without her input and her suggestion that I should take part in the virgin auction. We’ve decided to concentrate on Internet publishing, so I’ve also called in the help of an appetizer to get the word out about our new magazine. The bulk of our articles are going to be about local attractions in Los Angeles and we’ve already decided that we will be visiting some great restaurants in the area to write reviews and articles about their food.
“I guess we’ll have to behave ourselves slightly better when we visit these new restaurants than we behaved in that French restaurant right after the virgin auction,” Stacy says as we sit and discuss which restaurant to visit next.
“Yes, you probably have a point there!” I chuckle. I think about the tough times Stacy and I have been through and how we often went out to bars and restaurants in the past where we knew there would be free snacks, just to have something to eat. I realize that those days are now gone forever and that going to bed hungry would never be part of our lives ever again. It feels great to think that we will now be eating out in Michelin star restaurants as part of our job. I’m also planning on traveling around a bit and writing additional articles about the sights and tourist attractions around the area, just to add a bit of flavor and variation to the content of our magazine. Stacy is going to be taking care of the technical side of things, such as putting the pictures, text and advertisements together on well composed webpages.
“How are things looking with our advertisers? Have we got any companies yet that are interested in advertising their businesses in our magazine?” I asked as Stacy gives me an update on her progress.
“Yes, I had to give some of these companies a special rate just to get them started, but I’m happy to say that we do have some people who seem to be very excited by this magazine of ours and I think you will soon see our advertising revenue climbing sky-high,” Stacy says with great confidence.
“And subscriptions? I ask.
“I’m happy to say that we already have more than twenty paid subscriptions, just from the teasers and email blasts we sent out to announce the creation of the magazine,” Stacy says.
“That’s absolutely amazing! You mean there are people willing to pay three dollars a month for a magazine they’ve never even seen before?”
“You forget that I worked at another magazine before,” Stacy says with a naughty grin, “I still have some of the email lists which they used over there and I used all of the addresses on it to send out the information of our new magazine to people who already trust me when it comes to subscriptions, special offers and the like!”
Over the next couple of days Stacy and I work really hard and it’s not long before we are ready to put out our first issue. It consists, mainly, of some restaurant reviews, articles about tourist attractions in the area and short references to coming attractions. As soon as the magazine goes live, Stacy and I sit in front of my laptop, trying to gauge the kind of interest it is generating. We soon see some remarks in the comments section below the articles and they are all very positive.
“I just love your new magazine!” and “I never knew that Los Angeles had so many wonderful attractions, thank you for publishing this!” and many other similar comments along those lines. But it is the subscription page which really stuns and amazes me and Stacy. On the very first day, within the first hour after our first issue has gone live, we have more than fifty new subscriptions!
“That means we now have in excess of seventy subscriptions… and at three dollars per subscription, that means we are already getting in two hundred dollars a month in our very first month of publication!” Stacy says and we high-five to celebrate the success of the magazine.
“At this rate we will soon be looking at clear profit,” I say with great satisfaction and Stacy nods her head.
“Who would’ve thought that selling your virginity at an auction can lead to such a wonderful opportunity,” Stacy remarks and I have to agree with her that I am totally blown away by how all of this has worked out. We spent the next couple of days working on our second issue and I feel truly happy professionally for the first time in my life.
The only thing which feels like a slight void
in my happy new life is the fact that I still don’t have a man to hold me at night… and I keep thinking back to that evening at the mansion and the incredible passion I shared with those eleven bikers, especially some of the moments between me and the gorgeous hunk with the blonde hair and the swirling dragon tattoos all over his muscular torso…
Chapter 6: Brad
At least now I have her surname, even if I don’t have any specific idea of how this is supposed to be helping me find her. Having spent some time on Facebook and the Internet without any success, I decide that the next best thing would be to just start asking around some public places in the area, such as libraries and schools.
The first thing I do is to go to a couple of libraries and ask them if they have someone by the name of Jenny Williams on their books. This is more successful than my Internet efforts, in the sense that I don’t find scores upon scores of people by the name of Jenny Williams at the various libraries where I make inquiries. The downside of it, of course, is that I don’t find any trace of a person by the name of Jenny Williams whatsoever… It’s almost as if this is the exact opposite of my Internet search and I start wondering if people by the name of Jenny Williams perhaps simply aren’t interested in books.
“Okay Jenny Williams, let’s see if you did manage to get some kind of high school education, even if you are not the kind of girl who likes to sit around the library and read books,” I say to myself with a laconic smile as I walk out of the last library.
I start driving off to some local schools in the area, but quickly realize that this is going to take me a very long time. Not only do I have the traffic to navigate, it’s also quite a mission to get to see someone, at any of the schools I visit, who can actually help me. People simply aren’t that willing to hand out information about past pupils at any of the high schools and they also don’t seem to be interested in my cash bribes.
“How dare you try to bribe the information out of me… I think you’d better leave before I call the police!” an old lady at the admin office of one specific school shouts at me as I try to buy some information from her for a hundred dollars.
I keep driving around and after a while I start wondering if this is just going to be a wild goose chase with no happy ending. I stop at a local restaurant just to have a bite to eat for lunch and order myself a chicken mayonnaise sandwich with soda. Out of boredom, more than anything else, I start chatting with the waitress and happen to mention that I am looking for a girl by the name of Jenny Williams.
“Jenny? Curvy girl with long blonde hair?” the waitress asks and I immediately sit up straight in my chair.
“Why? Do you know her?!” I ask excitedly.
“Know her? She was practically my best friend at school!” the girl says and proceeds to tell me all about the way she and Jenny used to sit and chat in class when they should have been paying attention to the lectures. I cannot believe my luck and start thinking that, just perhaps, the universe has decided to assist me in my quest to find this incredible woman.
“I know this is slightly unusual, seeing as you don’t know me at all, but would you be so kind as to give me Jenny’s number?” I ask, very carefully.
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind giving you her number at all, except I lost contact with her about two years ago,” the girl says and shrugs her shoulders before turning around and walking away to serve another customer. I shake my head at my rotten luck and cannot believe that the waitress has lost contact with Jenny. But I’m not about to let this little lucky break fall by the wayside and when the waitress returns, I continued to question her.
“What exactly was the name of this high school that you and Jenny used to attend?” I ask and the waitress thinks about it for a moment before she replies.
“I guess I can tell you, as long as you promise not to go and stalk her or something… The name of the high school was Willow Bridge High.”
I pay for my food, leave a handsome tip for the waitress and then jump on the back of my Harley to race off to Willow Bridge High as fast as I can. I stop in front of the school and, having had some valuable experience in how to approach, and not approach, the admin staff at these places, I very gingerly knock on the office door with a plaque which says ‘admin’ once I get to the main building.
An elderly gentleman opens the door and inquires whether he can be of any assistance.
“Hi sir, I’m urgently looking for one of your past pupils in order to deliver an important message to her regarding the estate of her late grandmother,” I say in my best lawyer’s dialect. The man looks slightly hesitant and I quickly proceed to describe Jenny Williams to him in detail as a beautiful girl with long blonde hair and green eyes. He looks at me quite quizzically and tilts his head slightly to one side before saying, “You mentioned that you need to deliver an urgent message to this girl regarding the estate of her late grandmother, but how do you know what she looks like? Have you met her before?”
I stand there, absolutely stumped. I felt so proud of the bullshit story I came up with concerning the late estate of Jenny’s alleged grandmother that I totally forgot to think of a back story to explain how I know what she looks like. I cannot very well tell this kind gentleman that I got a good look at Jenny Williams when I and ten of my biker friends had a sex orgy with her a couple of days ago… I somehow get the feeling that it won’t go down too well!
“Uhm…ahh, yes… the thing is,” I stutter, but I can tell that it’s already too late. I should’ve had a short, sharp answer to the gentleman’s question and the fact that I cannot give him an explanation is already sunk my boat.
“If you don’t mind, I have a lot of work to get on with and I wish you a wonderful day,” the gentleman says and slams the door shut in my face. I turn around like a high school boy who’s just been told he didn’t make it into the first football team and walk over to my bike with droopy shoulders.
I drive home without any energy and go and lie down on the couch after asking my butler to put the bike in the garage. I get the terrible, sinking feeling that I’ve run out of options and I have absolutely no idea what else I can do to try and find Jenny. I was so excited when I found out what her last name was and now it seems that this specific piece of information ended up helping me nothing whatsoever.
I walk over to the fridge and get myself a cold beer. I drink about half of it and then walk back to the lounge, not sure what to do next. I sit down in front of my laptop and, not knowing what else to do, type in ‘Jenny Williams’ in the Google search box again. I know that I’ve done this at least ten times before, but you never know…
To my utter surprise and amazement, there is a brand-new entry on the third page of my Google search. The heading of the search item is Jenny’s Travels and, just underneath the heading, it’s mentioned that the owner of this specific business is a girl by the name of Jenny Williams. I click on the link and it takes me to a website which, according to the Google search reference, has just gone live within the past six hours.
“No wonder I never saw it when I searched the Internet yesterday,” I mutter to myself and start reading the webpage. It seems to be some kind of travel magazine with lots of interesting articles about restaurants and tourist attractions in LA. It’s really well put together and I’m quite impressed… I would never have figured a sexy girl like Jenny Williams to be a journalist or something along those lines. I suddenly feel an incredible excitement welling up inside me and I jump to my feet and quickly down the rest of my beer
“I’ve found her… I’ve located the sexiest woman on the face of this fucking earth!” I exclaim and march off to the fridge to go and get myself another beer to celebrate. I go back to the webpage and it doesn’t have any phone number for Jenny Williams, but it does have an address and I quickly glance at my watch. It’s already 6 o’clock, so there wouldn’t be any point in going over there right now, but I’ve already decided that I’ll be visiting Jenny’s Travels first thing tomorrow morning, in person!
Ch
apter 7: Jenny
The magazine is doing very well and we soon have our first five hundred paid subscribers. That, coupled with our advertisers, has us breaking even within the first month of operation. I know it’s not about the money, but the fact that the magazine is already paying its own expenses means a lot to me and Stacy. It proves that we are really capable of making this work and I know that it won’t be long before we start seeing actual profits.
With the confidence of a very successful first month of operation behind us, I hire some more writers and photographers to help us do even better articles the next month. Stacy and I go to a lot of restaurants and take turns writing reviews about the food. Fortunately, the quality of cuisine around Los Angeles is so high that we never find ourselves writing anything other than really glowing and positive reports. We soon become well known around the city and when we get to any new restaurant we are treated like royalty. I feel incredibly fulfilled in my professional life, but still haven’t found any man that I consider starting a steady relationship with… Or even just a meaningless fling.
I keep thinking back to the passion filled evening I spent at the mansion and, even though I know it’s not the common way for a modern 21st-century woman to lose her virginity, I cannot think of anything more exciting I’ve ever done in my entire life and I wish I could experience that same kind of delicious pleasure and passion again.
