Locked Down with Mr. Right

The sound was soft and distant. Like the sound of a pick at the end of a mine. Getting the phone, I tapped to read the message. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worse. As was my nature.

Ratings low b/c of lockdown changes. Meeting @ 9:00 to address issue.

Suits coming.

Mari.

‘Suits’ was our private nickname for the board of directors. Mostly because they were pretty much interchangeable. They even wore the same brand of glasses, including the younger members with 20/20 vision, and went to the same barber. But Easton had a slightly better haircut. Something to do with the shape of his head and having a natural part in his hair.

“I have to go,” I said, moving out of the bed.

“Am I coming?”

“No need. It is just an online meeting thing. Studio stuff. Get up whenever you want. There’s lots in the kitchen,” I said, pulling on fresh boxers.

“Cereal?”

“31 flavours,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.

Slipping into a fresh suit and shirt set from the free-standing, Lewis-esque wardrobe, I made the commute to my office, way down on the first floor.

I was met with a “pending” notice upon logging into my company account. Stealing a glance at my Rickenbacker leaning up against the wall, I thought better of it. The last thing I needed was for the suits to see me hammering out some Motörhead before a meeting. Not the most professional look possible. That was something they cared about a lot more than I did.

It was like magic. The notice screen disappearing to reveal an eight-way split screen, including myself in the bottom right corner. It was kind of odd being able to see myself, being of the generation in which for a very long time, it was a big deal to get on a screen. The novelty part of that pushed the boom in the home video market for the first few years. Of course, back then they were the size of a bazooka and cost as much as a good used car.

“I have been running the numbers,” Maria started, phone in hand, “and things aren’t looking good. We have been struggling to adapt to the new reality. The digital dates have been working in theory, but the results aren’t exactly riveting. It is all we have to go on. Live dates are no longer tenable. On the upside, the digital dates are a lot quicker and cheaper to shoot, so we are both ahead of schedule and under budget.”

“So, we need to find a way to make the current format more interesting. To up the stakes,” Easton said, being a genius among the idiots.

“Exactly,” Samantha said, stealing Maria’s thunder.

“I’m really just happy we can keep going during the quarantine,” said Wilson, the elder of the board of directors. Everyone agreed.

“How do we make things more interesting?” Adam asked, sucking up to Easton.

“Well, I haven’t really thought about that. I guess we could try and make things a bit sexier. Addie is an attractive woman. Our demographic was supposed to be older women, who we actually do have in spades, but the show has also proven to be popular among younger men. The 18-25 demo in particular.”

I was glad someone else noticed. I also felt a slight pang of jealously, which really wasn’t like me. Of course, Addie was attractive. That was apparent to anyone who could see and to be honest I was glad the show was attracting a diverse audience, if not a particularly large one.

“I’m just spit-balling here but could we sex it up in a literal sense?” Samantha asked.

“How so?” Easton inquired.

“Well, how about we pick one of the guys she liked best from the sort of marathon of digital dates we shot for the first episode and set up a situation where they have video-sex. Nothing too explicit so it doesn’t get age restricted. Everything above the waist but still very sexy in terms of context and banter.”

I kept my rage in check. It was something I had gotten exceedingly good at over the last decade or so. Besides, it would not be good form to Hulk out in a meeting, even if it was online. Instead, I just sat and seethed like an emo teen, trying to figure out how I was going to tell Addie what she was going to have to do. The consensus approving Samantha’s daft idea as swift as it was enthusiastic. The only absent voice was my own. I was out voted anyway, and I made it a point to know when I was beaten.

I knew Addie wasn’t ‘mine.’ Not in an ownership sense. This simple fact still did nothing to prevent me from feeling very protective of her. I knew she had been through a lot. It was pretty obvious. Perhaps not to others, but it was to me. It hung around her like a fog. One I wanted very much to try and clear if I could.