Dirty Daddy

"They're creative," I say. "I'll give them that much."

"I guess that's one way to put it," Walter shrugs.

The elevator chimes open on the second floor, and to our right, we find a woman sitting at her desk. She looks to be in her early 40s with golden brown, wavy hair. This must be Cheryl.

"Hi, are you Cheryl? I'm Brittney."

"Of course! It's a pleasure to meet you," she says, extending her hand. "We're all so excited to welcome you to the Illicit Entertainment family. Ethan speaks highly of you."

He does? That's good to know. And if she's calling him by his first name, they must be close. I mentally shelve that comment in my brain. I wonder to myself what he's been saying to everyone. I guess my audition went even better than expected, which is good. I'm off on the right foot, and a step closer to my goal.

"I'm looking forward to it," I say. "And this is my assistant Walter."

He extends his hand to Cheryl. "Nice to meet you."

They shake, and he holds onto her hand for a few extra seconds. Is it just my imagination or does Walter seem to have a special sparkle to his eyes? Cheryl's kind of cute, I suppose. Plain, in a way. But cute enough for an older woman.

"Okay, let's get the boring formal stuff out of the way," Cheryl says, pulling a stack of paperwork from a manila folder. "These contracts walk you through our onboarding process."

"There's a lot of contracts—" I say. And there is. The stack is a formidable size.

"It looks like a lot, but these are pretty standard for the industry. There's an NDA—for the new technology we're rolling out, a W9, our codes of conduct—you get the picture, all the obvious documents," Cheryl says.

"Okay, where do we start?" I ask, ready to get through the pile of paperwork.

"Let's quickly go over this company's do's and don'ts. I think that's a good place to start," Cheryl says.

I look over at Walter—who hasn't said a word. He seems to be transfixed by Cheryl.

"First, your sexual health is important to us," Cheryl continues. "We expect a high level of personal hygiene on the set, and we have a strict testing and STD prevention protocol. Also, if you are escorting or thinking about escorting outside of your work with Illicit Entertainment, we strongly urge against that."

She puts her hands up almost apologetically and continues. "A stigma still remains in the industry you know toward those entertainers who choose to go down this path."

I nod my head as she continues her spiel. I've heard this all before.

"There may be gonzo scenes in the films you shoot to give it a more 'realistic' quality—of course that's you interacting with the director and cameramen. And you can expect a healthy dose of pop shots, facials, and creampies. I assume you're okay with all of the above?" Cheryl asks.

She's all business now, but is she for real? None of this is new to me from my days as Brittney White. "Sure, I get it; I've been out of porn, but I've been around this industry for a while," I say. "Where do I sign?"

At this point, I just want to get this over with. I watch as Walter excuses himself from the room. "I'll be right back," he says to both of us. He feigns that he needs to use the restroom, but I know better. I know he's scoping the building out.

Cheryl points her finger to the bottom of the fourth page and I add my signature. We continue on through the paperwork, and while I don't show it, the NDA makes my insides coil like a guarded snake.

I'm not a liar—at least I never used to be—but here I am, preparing to sign a document that asks me to not disclose anything about the technology that Illicit Entertainment is rolling out, which goes against the very reason why I'm even here. But Simon's high-pitched voice floats back into my mind.

I can almost hear him repeating those words in the limo that made my insides grow cold, "I can give Richard a file." Richard is not a name that I ever want to hear again. I've worked hard to move on. So, I place the blue ballpoint pen to the paper and scratch out my signature.

"We have high hopes for you," Cheryl says with a smile. "Ethan says you've got a star quality about you."

"I won't let you down." I force a smile.

Who have I become? It's like I've walked into a new body. I don't even recognize myself. One minute I'm helping women victimized by infidelity and abuse, and I'm doing well—Man Chaser LLC is actually kicking ass if I'm honest, and yet the next minute, I'm whisked back into the porn industry to steal some plans, and I'm trying to protect myself from some wannabe billionaire who seems to be coked out of his mind.

Now that the last of the paperwork is signed, I thank Cheryl again for walking me through it all, and I think of a pretext to go find Walter. "I need to make a call," I say, and I excuse myself from the room.

I quickly walk down the hall, peering into offices in the hopes that I'll see Walter. After walking around for a few minutes, I finally see him rounding the corner and we nearly bump into each other.

"Where have you been?"