by Amy Brent
“Long, but profitable,” Ari said, the dollar signs dancing in her eyes. Ari had been a successful lawyer and accountant before I convinced her to chuck it all and roll the dice on a no-name psychiatrist and first-time author with big dreams of building an empire like Dr. Phil’s. We weren’t quite there yet, but we were getting closer and closer every year.
I smiled at the look on her face. She was grinning like the Grinch and counting dollars in her head. “I bet you know exactly how much we made today,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. I licked the beer from my lips and waited. “Come on. Give. How much?”
She pushed her thin shoulders up and down. “We’re looking at a couple hundred thousand net, give or take the price of lobster.” She was referring to the cost of the VIP dinner of one hundred steaks and lobsters. Attendees had paid a thousand-dollars a head, giving us a hell of a profit margin. Ari smiled with the bottle at her lips and said, “Either way, we came out okay.”
“That’s good,” I said, stifling a yawn with the back of my hand. “Maybe now we can take a break and enjoy some of that cash we’ve been stockpiling since this book tour began.”
We’d been on the road nearly six months promoting my newest book, Trade Offs, with book signings, speaking at seminars and big events, and I had no idea how many personal appearances. And we had done an endless stream of radio, TV, cable, and satellite promotion. I had talked so much about the fucking book that I wanted to poke my eyes out. It was fun and nothing like real work, but the road was kicking my ass. I hadn’t been home to my place in Malibu in months and it was starting to wear on me.
“We have another month of this,” she said. She propped her bare feet on the coffee table with her ankles crossed. For a woman of her age, she had exceptionally pretty feet. And don’t ask me why I noticed that. Ari is a lesbian and old enough to be my mom. Still, I’m a dude. Dudes notice shit non-dudes never do.
“Another month?” I whined, blowing out a long breath. “Fuck, Ari, I need a break. Six months on the road is too much.”
“You want that villa in Tuscany?” she asked, one penciled-in eyebrow cocked.
I huffed into the bottle. “You know I do.”
“Then stop your whining because when this tour is finished you’ll be able to pay cash for it.”
“Well, I just hope I’m still alive enough to enjoy it,” I said, leaning my head back on the cushion to stare at the ceiling. “It just gets old sometimes. You know?”
“I know, sweet cheeks,” she said, her head bobbing. “Just think how I feel. I’m doing all this with you for a lousy fifteen percent.” We smiled at each other. Her fifteen percent had totaled over five million dollars last year, not to mention another million in bonuses, and a new Tesla that she had never even bothered to drive.
“Tell you what,” I said, turning on my side to face her. I propped up on one elbow and aimed a finger in her direction. “You get me some time off and I’ll raise that to twenty-percent for the rest of the tour.”
“As tempting as that sounds, my dear one, the schedule is set in stone,” Ari said, mocking me with a sad face. “Quit your fucking whining. It’ll all be over in a month. Just hang on. Then you can spend an entire month at Northwoods decompressing with your usual gaggle of girls.”
The mention of Northwoods, my secluded, luxury retreat in the California mountains made me sigh. “Gaggle of girls?” I echoed with a broad grin. “Is that like a gaggle of geese?”
“If geese had great tits and asses,” Ari said with eyes wide. She finished her Corona and let her feet drop to the floor. She set the empty bottle on the coffee table and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. “Okay, hot shot, I’m done. I’m gonna turn in. How about you?”
“After I finish this,” I said, tipping my bottle at her.
“All right. Good night, my love. See in you the morning. Get some sleep. We’re on a plane to Chicago at ten.”
Ari pushed herself out of the chair and came over to give me a goodnight kiss on the forehead. She hooked her shoes with two fingers and padded barefoot across the plush carpet toward her room As great as my life was, it was a little sad that my best friend in the world was a middle-aged lesbian who treated me like a whiny little kid, mainly because I often acted like one.
I swung my feet to the floor and picked up Ari’s empty bottle. I finished off my beer as I walked into the little kitchenette, and set the bottles on the counter. I was about to head to bed when I heard a tap-tap-tap on the door. Somehow, I knew immediately who it was, but checked the peep hole just to make sure. I opened the door with a tired but happy smile on my face.
“Why, Meredith Wilson, what are you doing back here at this time of night?” I asked, hooking my thumbs in the waistband of my boxers and wiggling my eyebrows at her. My cock twitched as my eyes sent word down its way that Meredith was in view. “I thought we finished our interview.”
“Oh, we finished the interview,” she said slyly, stepping into me until her lips were an inch from mine. She slid her right hand inside the boxers and grabbed onto my plump cock as her left hand went around to squeeze my ass. “But you didn’t finish me.”
“Well, well,” I said, wrapping my arms around her as her hands went to work. I slid my hands over her luscious ass cheeks and ground her pussy into my hard on. “Let’s see what we can do to remedy that.”
Like I keep saying.
I just love my job.
Chapter Four: Lane
Four weeks later…
Northwoods Resort & Spa, California
I had never been so freakin’ happy to be off the road in my life. After leaving the lovely Meredith sleeping in my hotel room bed in Vegas, and after one more month of traversing the country peddling books and cookie cutter psychobabble to thousands of lovely ladies (and a few gents), I was almost ready to slit my own wrists.
You would think knowing what I know about how the brain works, I could control my feelings of angst and frustration. Just because I know what causes something does not mean I can control. I am, after all, only human. I sometimes have to remind myself of that fact, especially when others seem to think I’m not.
Ari knew I had about reached the end of my rope, too. I was as snippy as a teenage girl on the rag by the time we wrapped things up with the big event in New York City. She did what she could to keep me sane but sometimes it wasn’t enough. I’d blow a gasket over some little something, and she’d patiently let me vent then give me a motherly hug and tell me to shut up, stop whining, and get back to work.
Ari was great at keeping the bullshit to a minimum, and she dealt with things so I wouldn’t have to, but putting on a smile for twelve hours a day and keeping the energy up was exhausting. I did not know how Tony Robbins did it, but after this tour, I had a newfound respect for the guy. I still thought he was full of bullshit, but I respected his energy and work ethic, nonetheless.
The last night of the tour I didn’t even stay at the hotel. We were in New York City and Ari wanted to stay for the weekend because she had met a group of lesbians and wanted to fuck her way through them all. I understood, but I was all fucked out. I left Ari in New York City, chartered a private plane back to LAX, then climbed into my Jeep and drove up to Northwoods all by myself. It was the first time I’d been truly alone in months. I knew that I’d quickly get bored, but at that moment I was in Heaven.
Northwoods was my haven, my retreat, my getaway, purchased with the money I’d made from six bestselling books, lots of six-figure speaking gigs, high-dollar seminars, and dozens of weekend boot camps.
Northwoods was located in the mountains north of San Diego. It covered fifty wooded acres with a 30,000 square-foot luxury lodge that contained twenty-five rooms, a 5-star restaurant with a Michelin chef, an Olympic sized swimming pool, a huge sauna and full-time masseuse, and every amenity you could imagine and money could buy.
And for an extra ten-grand, you could get a private session with yours truly to help work out all your sexual issues, so to speak.
Northwoods was also the scene of some of the wildest orgies you can imagine, real Roman-style shit, both spontaneous and scheduled.
Northwoods was closed for the month because Ari had scheduled no retreats knowing that I’d be beat to hell coming off the road, so other than a few staff members, I had the place to myself.
As I sat on the balcony of my penthouse suite at the top of the lodge, looking out over the mountains as the sun set in the west, I thought about how truly fortunate I was. This moment reminded me why I did all the things I did. Six months on the road were swept away by the cool mountain breeze.
I was proud of myself. Not bad for a poor kid from Encino who worked his way through college waiting tables and playing on a partial football scholarship. None of this had been handed to me. I had worked my ass off for everything I owned. I also knew how lucky I was. I knew a lot of people who were much smarter than me but had seen far less success.
I started thinking about my best pal Wynn Driver, a classmate at UCLA who had published his first book a year ago and was following in my footsteps, more or less. His book, cleverly entitled, What’s Your Vagina Thinking, was a runaway bestseller and had put Wynn on the fast track.
Despite the somewhat comical name, which probably came out of a three-day brainstorming session by a bunch of marketing geeks, the book tackled a serious topic and offered lots of helpful advice.
Wynn’s book focused on the connection between a woman’s brain and her vagina, and how that connection made women make the decisions they made; good, bad, and indifferent. Sort of like guys thinking with their dicks (which never comes to any good). Wynn put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, and his book—and message—was a hit.
Wynn was now doing book signings, and appearing on talk shows, and getting invited to seminars and events that couldn’t afford me. In this business, like most, the more you’ve accomplished, the higher your price. Wynn was on the fast track, clearly in my rearview mirror. Success could not have happened to a nicer guy, and I could not have been happier for him.
Wynn’s success had also not gone unnoticed by Ari, who one day came into my office holding Wynn’s book with that look on her face, the one that said, “I have a wild fucking idea that’s going to make us a shit load of cash.” Whenever Ari came in with that look, I just closed my mouth and listened to the cash registers ring.
“Have you read this book?” she asked, holding it up and tapping the cover, which was a white background with a Rorschach inkblot image that could have been a pussy or a butterfly. Again, very clever, those marketing wonks.
“I have read it,” I said, lying even though I had not, but had meant to for months. Wynn had sent me an autographed copy the week the book came out. It was in my master bathroom with the rest of the books I promised to read, but knew I never would. “The author is a pal of mine from grad school. Dr. Wynn Driver.”
Ari plopped down in the leather chair across the desk from me and sat flipping through the pages. “There’s some really brilliant stuff in here,” she said. “I mean, nothing as good as yours, of course.”
“Of course,” I said with a smile.
“But really great insight into the way women think, based on signals from their vaginas.”
“Like men thinking with their cocks,” I said, the smile still in place. I watched her for a minute. She was frowning as she perused the pages. I could almost hear the gears grinding inside her head.
I stopped rocking and hitched my chin at her. “Ari? What are you thinking?”
She snapped the book shut and clutched it to her flat chest, then wiggled her drawn-on eyebrows at me. “How well do you know this Wynn Driver?”
I shrugged. “Pretty well. We were at UCLA together. I played football, he played rugby. He’s a regular at the Northwood parties. We’ve shagged a lot of the same girls.”
“So, you’re pals,” she said, head bobbing slightly.
“Yeah, good pals.”
“He’s very good looking,” she said, turning the book over to stare at Wynn’s photo on the back. “Again, not as good looking as you…”
“Jesus, Ari, just get to it,” I said with a long sigh. I leaned my elbows on the desk and propped my cheeks between my hands. “What are you thinking?”
“What would you think of maybe co-authoring a book with Wynn Driver? Then doing a book tour together? And seminars with you as the star attraction and him as the opener?”
“You make us sound like rock stars,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“To a lot of people, you are.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you think?”
I frowned, not because I was opposed to the idea, but because it had never even occurred to me. When you were a narcissistic asshole, you didn’t think too much about others. And when you did, it was in terms of what it meant to you.
“Co-authoring a book with Wynn on what topic?” I asked.
“On the topics you’re both experts at,” Ari said. “The brain, the human psyche, the female anatomy.”
I snickered at her. “Ah, there it is. It always comes back to the pussy for you, doesn’t it?”
“Fuck you, pot, said kettle.” She opened Wynn’s book to the acknowledgments and ran a thin finger down the page. “He doesn’t list an agent or manager. Do you know if he has representation?”
I sat back and laced my fingers behind my head. “Representation as in someone like you?”
“Someone exactly like me,” she said. “I mean, it would be easier to convince your publisher to take on the project if you were both represented by the same agent.”
“That does make sense,” I said. I cupped a hand under my chin and drummed my fingers to my lips. “I suppose I could give Wynn a call. Just to feel him out.”
“Why don’t you do that,” Ari said, a little smile itching her thin lips. “Just to gauge his interest.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure there’ll be interest,” I said.
“Then you’ll give him a call?”
I leaned back and folded my arms over my chest to give her a long, hard look. “You sure you wanna take on another me? You’re always saying what a handful I am. Wynn’s a nice guy, but his star is on the rise. He’ll need a lot of hand-holding and guidance. Are you sure you can handle both of us? Without a negative effect on my career?”
“You will always be my priority, my darling,” she said, holding up her hands, wiggling her skinny fingers like the Wicked Witch of the West. “But I have two hands. Make the call.”
“Fine,” I said, patting the air between us with my hands. “I’ll make the call.”
“That’s my boy,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair. She set Wynn’s book on the desk and tapped a finger to it. “Maybe look through that before you do.”
I winced. “You want me to read a book? Seriously?”
“Lane,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.
I held up my hands in defeat. “Fine, fine. I’ll read the book.”
“And make the call.”
“Yes, mother, and make the call.”
* * *
I hadn’t talked to Wynn Driver in a while. I took that afternoon and read his book as Ari ordered. I have to be honest. I had no intention of reading it, but once I started I couldn’t put the damn thing down.
His insights and theories into the topic of the female libido’s persuasion on the female brain was cutting edge stuff. Not only that, he was a much better writer than me.
Hell, there’s no need to bullshit you. I wasn’t a writer at all. I just dictated my thoughts into a recorder and had a professional put it all into coherent form. The ideas were mine, but putting my words on paper in coherent form was beyond my skill set and attention span. Besides, Ari says my time is too valuable to spend doing something as mundane as writing. The money was in the ideas, she said, not in the execution of the ideas.
I found some videos of Wynn on YouTube, speaking at various events, and even a Ted Talk. He was just as good a spe
aker as me. Maybe even a little better. He had this presence about him that most speakers didn’t have. I had to work to be likable. Wynn was a natural. And he had a twelve-inch cock that the ladies loved. I knew because I’d seen women arguing over who was going to ride it first at those aforementioned orgies.
I set my Corona on the glass patio table and glanced at my watched. It was still early where I was in California. I had no idea where he might be, but I tapped the speed dial to find out.
After a few rings, Wynn’s voice came through the speaker. “Hey, Lane, what’s up?”
“Dude!” I said, grunting the words like the old football player that I was. “What’s up with you?”
“Oh, I’m just heading to a little conference for the weekend with my pal, Holden at Midwestern,” Wynn said modestly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m at Northwoods,” I said with a happy sigh.
“You’re having a Northwoods event this weekend and you didn’t invite me?” Wynn asked. “My feelings are hurt.”
“Hey, I’d never leave you out of a party, but don’t worry, the place is closed this week,” I said. “I came up here to work on the next book. I needed a little peace and quiet. It’s just me and the woods. And a few select female friends.”
“God, your life sucks,” Wynn said, echoing a sentiment I heard more and more lately. “That’s okay. I’m at Northwestern with Holden for a few days anyway. Hey, you should fly out and hang with us.”
