“Oh, he just wants to watch, Ark.” Ray gets up and walks around his desk to take the seat next to me. It’s a ploy to make me feel like he’s not the one in charge here by sitting behind the desk. He wants us to feel like equals. “It’s a personal favor, Ark. For me. You owe me two films and I need this. She wants you. She gets you.”
“You don’t own me, Ray. I’m not a whore you can pimp out. I make movies and give them to you in exchange for money. That’s all. If you’d like to cut our business short, I’m happy to sell my holdings, my loft, and get the fuck out of here so you can run your porn site all by yourself. I’m not your whore.”
He sighs and gets up to pour a drink. “Scotch?”
“Fuck, no,” I say. He knows I don’t drink that shit.
He shrugs and helps himself to three ice cubes and three fingers of the golden oak-colored liquid. “Look, it’s one day. Today, in fact. One afternoon. They’ve got the hotel room booked and everything. All you have to do is show up, fuck her senseless, and that’s it. The husband will be in the other room, he’ll walk in on you at some point. He’ll slap his wife around a little, and then you get to finish her off.”
The whole time he’s talking I’m shaking my head. “No way.”
“I’ll tell you what, Ark.” He stops to take a sip of his Scotch. “I know you’re all set to launch Public Fuck America in December. I know you need start-ups to get you off the ground. Just like I needed you when you came to me four years ago. So if you do me this favor, if you get this asshole off my back, I will personally hand you ten of my best producers to give you one video a week.”
“What?” I must be hearing things. He thinks I’d sell myself out to get producers?
“Not all top-tier, of course. I can’t give you all my earners. Plus you and JD are number one, so I only have nine left after you leave. Make that eight, if you take this deal. So one producer from the top ten, one from the top twenty, and the rest from the top one hundred.”
I say nothing. But I’m still thinking about the implications of him asking. What am I to Ray? An asset? That word in my head sends a chill up my spine.
“It’s a good deal, Ark. A great deal in fact. It sets you up just the way you wanted. No more camera work. No more legwork. No more hustling girls every week. You get ten videos a week coming in, that’s a nice easy start to a billion-dollar business. You know none of my guys are gonna walk with you. You know you’d never get a top-ten producer to make films for you once a week. This is gold. And all you have to do is fuck a pretty woman to get it.”
Even though my head is shaking no, I can’t stop my mind from racing with the possibilities of what this might mean. More money. More power. More excuses to stick around and talk myself into thinking this life I’ve made is my destination.
“Ark, it’s an easy out.”
“No.” I laugh. “It’s an easy in. And I’m not doing it. I’ll have your movies by the end of the day.” And then I stand up, ready to walk out, when he grabs my wrist. I look down at it and he lets go. When I find his face, it’s got a look I’m not sure I like.
“Why, Ark? Just give me a good reason why you’re too good to let a woman suck your dick. You watch JD do it every day. You let him sell himself every single day. And yet you’re always too good.”
“I’m not too good, Ray. In fact, I’ll be back with three movies of lips wrapped around my own cock. But you’re not my fucking pimp.”
“You’re JD’s pimp.”
I stare down at him. He crosses his legs like he hasn’t got a care in the world. “What the fuck is wrong with you today? I’ve never said yes because it’s not my job. It’s JD’s job. You don’t see him running the camera. He likes getting his dick sucked in public. Me, not so much. So that’s why I do what I do and he does what he does.”
“And there’s nothing more to it than that? I mean, what? You have a girlfriend? Is that who’s gonna suck your dick on film today?”
Alarms are going off in my head right now. “That’s none of your business, but no, Ray. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Then who is your go-to girl, Ark? And why don’t you have a real name? I’ve known you four years and never a real name.”
I laugh now, but it’s a nervous laugh. “What the hell is going on? If you’ve got a problem with me, say so. Otherwise I’m outta here. I’m gonna go make your movies and be back tonight with the product. On time. Fully edited. Ready to be uploaded. And we’re gonna be settled until next Sunday. Got it?”
He stands and walks back around to the other side of his massive desk. He shuffles some papers, making me wait for an answer. I huff out a breath and turn to walk out, with or without his acknowledgment, when he talks. “There’s something about you, Ark.”
Where is this coming from?
“There’s something strange about you. There’s always been something strange about you. You blew into town from… where again?” He lifts his eyes up from the desk and trains them on me. “Where did you come from?”
“You know exactly where I came from, Ray. Miami.”
“But you weren’t born there.”
“You know what’s funny here? I’ve worked with you for four years and now that I’m getting ready to break ties—a legitimate break that you’ve known about since the day we started business—you’re turning into an asshole. I was born in Nebraska, Ray. I ordered my birth certificate online right in front of you and had it delivered right here. To you. You fingerprinted me. You scanned my retina, for fuck’s sake. You paraded me in front of every criminal you knew at a party in LA. And none of them knew me. And no dirt ever materialized. And I’ve worked for you for four years and nothing ever happened. So what is going on? Because from my end it looks like you’re out to screw me over now that JD and I are making this move.”