by Jamie Knight
“Oh. Wow,” I said, feeling a bit stunned.
I had heard about the virus but my life had been so busy that I hadn’t been paying enough attention.
“That’s really crazy,” I added. “As if we’re living in some kind of sci fi movie.”
“I know, right? I wonder how they are going to keep the show going,” Mercy mused.
“Just what I was thinking.”
Of course, when I talked to Tobias again, I found out they had a plan. I should never have expected otherwise. It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was a plan just the same. It didn’t require me giving up and going home, so I was already in favor of it.
“You want me to do what?”
“Online dates, with video-calls,” Tobias calmly explained.
I don’t know how they did it, but they had gotten me into the office without any trouble. The lockdown hadn’t started yet but was coming soon. Not that Tobias seemed worried. Not in an invincible, He-Man idiot kind of way. More like the ten-steps-ahead, thought-of-everything way. I got the strong sense he had a deck of aces up his exquisitely tailored sleeve.
The dates were set up in rounds. Video-calls were a lot cheaper and could be shorter. There was lot of concern about the show getting boring, so they were just going to shoot as much as they could and edit together the most interesting bits. It was the age-old approach of throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck.
“Ready?” Tobias asked as a skeleton crew set up the video-date equipment in the hotel room.
“I guess.”
“That’s the spirit,” he teased.
“I’m just not sure about this. I mean, I’m not a Luddite or anything, but dating by computer just seems odd.”
“I know what you mean. It seems like it would take out the human element.”
“Exactly,” I said.
He really did understand. At least I had an ally in my dissent, even though there was nothing either of us could do about it. I still wasn’t sure how he had gotten to the hotel without raising alarms.
Maybe he had some kind of underground tunnel network. Then again, maybe they let him travel because he was on important business. He and those he brought with him were wearing masks and gloves as per the recommendations. They, like everything else about Tobias Ford, were stylishly understated.
With the equipment in place, the techs quietly left. Their work there was done. That left just me and Tobias alone in the luxury room. I sat at the newly upgraded desk and Tobias sat on a plush chair nearby.
The first in line was a doctor from Jersey. He was nice enough, but a bit boring. We tried to make conversation, but it was difficult. Tobias politely ended things after about twenty minutes. I sat back in the chair, half hoping that all of the interactions would be so uneventful. The last thing I needed was an online version of the fiasco from the night before.
The second contender was a lawyer. The very word made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I knew it was unfair, but the brain makes its own associations that are difficult to control.
Happily, he turned out to be great. He was only twenty-seven but had his own practice where he worked on civil liberties cases, primarily for artists. He was sweet and humble and didn’t seem to have much of an ego about him. Little did I know that he and the boring doctor would be the best interactions I would have that day.
Bachelor number twelve actually whipped out his cock and number twenty whispered all the disgusting things he wanted to do to me, most of which I was fairly certain were physically impossible. Tobias ended those right quick.
At the end of it all, I was expected to message the other producers of the show and tell them which guy I liked the best. The only problem was that I couldn’t. If I was honest, particularly with myself, the one I really wanted was Tobias. The one man I couldn’t have.
I had to say something so the show could move forward. Not able to tell the absolute truth but also not wanting to lie, I told the truth as far as it went. I nominated the young civil liberties lawyer as my favorite, which was true enough.
“I have to get back to office,” Tobias said.
“Okay.”
I wanted to argue but repressed the urge. It was way too early to show my cards. Tobias left, ever so slightly making me want to cry, but I held it together.
When he was gone, leaving me very much alone, I searched my brain as to what I might do. The idea came up fast as mercury. A wonderful, awful idea.
I needed to speak to Duncan. I was worried about how he was feeling during this whole lockdown phase, on top of the already different temporary change in custody. Even though he was the one who had agreed to it when Dave had demanded it, perhaps he had had a change of heart and was afraid to express it. Or maybe he was just afraid in general, with all the changes in the world lately.
I had tried to call every night, but Dave never answered. I left message after message. But my idea was to use a service I’d recently heard of that changed your number on caller ID to make it look like someone else’s. I randomly chose the number for the state lottery, hoping to trick Dave into thinking he’d won, since I knew he had been a daily player.
“Hello?” he answered hopefully, right away.
“Dave. Don’t hang up.”
“Hey, bitch,” Dave said, with a change in his tone. “Thought you could trick me by using some other number? Nice try.”
“Dave, I just want to talk to Duncan.”
“Having fun sleeping around, you slut?”
“I-I haven’t. It has just been dates, none of which have gone well at all.”
“It doesn’t matter really. You’ve still been gone. Abandoning your son.”
“In the care of his father,” I pointed out. “You said it would be good for him. He agreed…”
“That’s not what I am going to tell Child Protective Services.”
“We’ll see about that. Let me talk to Duncan, please.”
“Fat chance, bitch.”
He hung up on me. I slammed the phone down so hard I nearly broke it in half. Or least I felt like that might happen. Such was my burning, righteous anger.
There was nothing I could do. Dave knew that. What he didn’t know was about the ace up my sleeve.
Chapter Seven - Tobias
It was no use. I tried everything I could think of, but I just couldn’t seem to get Addie out of my mind.
It really wasn’t good, falling for a contestant like I clearly was. Not good for the show, anyway. It was difficult to tell what impact it might have on us as individuals in the world, when everything else was stripped away.
I tried to imagine a world free of complications. It was a wonderful place. Free of pain, but still interesting enough and with sufficient new experiences to make life worth living.
Challenges could make life fun, but there was a world of difference between challenge and outright obstruction, especially the kind of obstruction with no logical or even functional basis behind it. The sort that exist just because someone who thinks they have to power to do so say that the obstruction exists, and everyone just takes their word for it. There might be consequences, but that was hardly the same thing as reason.
“Deep in thought?” Clementine asked as I got into the backseat.
“You could say that, Clem.”
“I got you a treat while you were up there.”
“I thought all the stores were closed.”
“Never said I got it at a store,” she said, with a wink.
Sure enough, there on the seat beside me was a brown paper bag. There was something hard and square in it.
“No, it’s not porn, I know about your philosophies,” Clementine assured.
I picked up the bag careful and slid out the contents. It was the French first edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. I honestly could have cried.
“Thought it was on theme.”
“It is. It very much is,” I agreed, fighting the urge to hug her.
Not only might it cha
nge our relationship, social distancing was in effect and we couldn’t take the risk. The window was even up between the front and back, which it almost never was. The car hadn’t come with that feature. I’d had it added later, wanting the features of a limousine without the ostentation.
“Thank you,” I added, remembering that I hadn’t actually said it.
I had only given Addie part of the story about Clementine. I didn’t want to shock her or confirm any prejudices she might have. The fact was, Clem was gay, and from a part of the nation not known for their tolerance for the different, to put it very mildly.
Clem had hidden who she was as long for as she could, but as soon as the hormones kicked in that was it. She had to be careful, but she started dating girls. Sadly, the girl she loved most was the daughter of a fire and brimstone minister who honestly believe that his god had put a ban on apples because of the genesis story and that holding hands was fornication because it was a form of physical affection.
He found out about Clementine and his daughter and thought the Devil had gotten into both of them in the most literal sense. He had a ‘cleansing ‘ceremony for his daughter. One that nearly killed her by drowning, and some of his followers, most of them almost as mad as he was, hanged Clem from a tree behind the church.
Except they didn’t do the rope right, being complete bloody idiots, and just left her hanging in the most literal sense. Something else they didn’t know was that Clementine carried no less than three knives on her person at any one time. The found two but left the one in her boot.
She was a mess when we met. She had hitchhiked all the way to New York from Virginia, not having a lot of chances for showers. I had been advertising for a driver at the time. The last one quit on account of my ‘crazy-ass schedule.’ Clem just seem to be happy to have something to do. The fact that the job came with an apartment and a hefty salary didn’t hurt either.
I wasn’t a hero or even really a ‘good guy’ in the moral crusader sense. I always leaned more toward the chaos view of the universe. The one that has the bollocks to outright contradict Big Daddy Einstein and point out that much of the time God does, in fact, play dice with the universe. It’s a knowledge that different people take in different ways. My particular take was that humanity already had enough going against us, so why be terrible to each other? As such, I really couldn’t stand to see people getting kicked for no good reason.
The solace of great literature, sweet as it was, lasted only so long and much too soon I was back to pondering more moral concerns. Like the money the studio would lose if the show tanked, either because it can’t be made interesting enough under the new constrains or Addie and I both lost interest in the very premise, giving in to our obvious, if allegedly ‘forbidden,’ attraction to each other.
I honestly couldn’t give a damn about the money. I wasn’t some wealth addict under the delusion that millionaires are next door to destitution. I did alright and would continue to do so, still making more money than the majority of people saw in years.
The main downside would be the headache the executives, particularly the board of directors and their silly little threats of firing me or whatever it was that they did to make most people so afraid of them.
I just really didn’t have time for their nonsense. Better to try and avoid it and keep the babies happy. At least for the time being. If there was one thing I could do, it was wait.
The buzzing was gentle and quiet. The phone barely making any sound at all from deep in my pocket. Addie.
“Hello?”
“Tobias, it’s Addie. Addie Harris. I-I’m really sorry to this but I need your help.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s my ex. He’s had visitation with our son but now, because I’ve been gone, he says he’s going to report me for abandonment. Even though Duncan was with him the entire time, so I hardly abandoned him. I left him with his dad who claimed he wanted him. He’s the one who abandoned him, but after all this time he came back, saying he wanted to make things right and be a dad again, and that it was good for Duncan to spend time in his custody. I stupidly believed him, and I never should have.”
“What’s the name of your ex?” I asked, cold flame burning bright.
“David. David Harris.”
“I’m on it.”
Phones really could be powerful tools. If one had a tool of communication and the will to use it, there was almost nothing they couldn’t do. Like the hacker who started on a cellphone while in court as a witness in a federal hacking case. The line between brave and crazy were thin at points.
“Hi, Candace?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Tobias.”
“Oh, hi! How have you been keeping?”
“Oh, can’t complain.”
“Very droll, my dear. What can I do for you?”
“In this case, it is more what I can do for you. I’ve been warned of a possible false alarm call. If you get a call from a David Harris regarding an Adelaide or Addie Harris abandoning their son, you might want to ignore it. I can vouch for the fact that Ms. Harris is taking part in a show being produced by my studio and left her son in the care of the child’s father, who is David Harris.”
“Got it. I’ll spread the word.”
“Thanks, Candace.”
“No, no, thank you I bloody hate these petty calls. We have better things to do than chase false leads because an ex gets pissed off.”
“Indeed,” I agreed.
It also helped if, in addition to a communications device and the will to use it, one also had some friends in powerful positions. Ending the call to Candace, I dialled Addie to tell her the good news. She picked up on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Taken care of,” I said.
“It is?”
“Indeed. If he even tries to call them, he will be completely ignored if not told of for being a prick. Depending who he gets.”
“Wow, how did you manage that?”
“I’m friends with the deputy director. Went to college together.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck good?” I asked.
“Fuck very good,” she said.
“Really?” I asked, intrigued.
“Never had any complaints.”
“What do you like to do?”
“Suck cock,” she said, with surprising candour.
“What about you?”
“What about me what?”
“What do you like to have done to you?” I inquired.
“Serious?”
“As a firing squad.”
“I like having my feet rubbed. Nothing turns me on faster or better. Give me a good foot massage and I’m putty in your hands. The best way to get me to cum is to lick me.”
“Lick you were?”
“You know,” she said, suddenly turning bashful.
“You’re pussy?”
“Yeah.”
“Say it,” I prompted.
“I like getting my pussy licked,” she confessed.
“Are you blushing?”
“A little,” she said.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Yes. Anything.”
“A dangerous thing,” I warned.
“I know.”
“Where is your hand right now,” I asked.
“In my panties. On my pussy.”
“Stroking or just cupping?” I asked.
“Stroking,” she said, breath slightly heavier.
“Feel good?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
I hadn’t been expecting that. I suspected the attraction might be mutual, but I didn’t know it was to pussy-stroking levels. Particularly not telling me so with such forthrightness. I couldn’t help but feel flattered.
“What am I doing?” I asked.
“Eating me out. I’m sitting down and you’re on your knees, face between my
thighs, going to town.”
“I’m doing spirals now, mixing it in with figure 8s, flicking your clit as I pass,” I said, trying my best to paint the picture.
“Yes!” she screamed, stroking herself so hard I could hear her clothes rustling over the phone.
“Slow down,” I ordered, not wanting her to hurt herself.
“Okay,” she said.
She started again, but not nearly as intensely. I could still hear it but not to the same degree.
“Feel good?”
“Yes,” she gasped, edging on desperation.
“Keep going,” I urged.
“Yes, Tobias,” she said, continuing as she was.
I stayed with her until she finished, encouraging and getting her to ease off when needed, until she had come to completion.
“Good night, Addie,” I said, before hanging up.
Chapter Eight - Addie
I thought it had been a dream. There was no way Tobias managed to defuse Dave’s threat with a single phone call. Did producers really have that kind of power? Then again, maybe he wasn’t always a producer. He had lived long enough to pack in a lot of living, especially if he was an early developer like I was.
I more or less considered the seven or so years I was with Dave to be a write off. I also didn’t remember a whole lot before the age of six. But really, that still gave me a good twenty-seven years that weren’t awful. I actually found it a bit odd that the show was supposed to feature a woman in mid-life, yet the minimum age they were looking for was forty. Were there really that many people, particularly women, still dying at 80? From what I heard was the average life expectancy, at least in the west, had gone up to between 95 and 100. Maybe someone was at the studio was just really bad at math. If that were the case, I doubted it was Tobias.
It came flooding back into my mind. After the first call, he had called back. He was just so powerful but also sweet. He did a major thing for me but acted like it was no big deal at all. I had already been turned by him but having behave like some sort of sexy protector pushed me of the edge. It wasn't really phone sex, what we had done, but pretty close and the closest we had gotten to that point. At least I knew for sure that he shared my interest in the physical side.
