Calla Enterprises is ambitious. It’s a fledgling start-up that promises women around the world easy, nonembarrassing access to tampons because tampon access is apparently an important first step toward gender equality. According to the website copy, tampons remove a critical barrier between women and important things like an education and a job. And while I’m all for vaginal self-care, this company will fail long before the grenade I planted in their e-commerce system ever detonates. In the company’s brief life span of thirteen months and two days, it has yet to close a round of venture capital funding or bring its product to market. Cue the death march.
In addition to lacking both operating capital and actual product, the company naively assumes that its customers possess genuine humanitarian spirit. Calla promises to donate one box of tampons for every box purchased online. Think about that for a minute. If you were dating and scored two girls for the night, would you really want to hand one off to an unknown guy at the club? Nope. You’d keep them both for yourself and have a threesome. No one is as altruistic as Calla’s founder hopes.
And hope is clearly said founder’s strategy. Calla is located in a repurposed loft/warehouse deep in San Francisco’s Mission District. The neighborhood reads like a Who’s Who of busted start-ups. Despite constant tenant turnover, the building’s great—a loft-style, three-story workspace with a big atrium, an open-space kitchen that reeks like lunch and an enormous disco ball. A handful of flip-flop-wearing, jeans-clad twentysomething women hunch over laptops on tables.
Oblivious to the impending financial doomsday, Hippie Chick flip-flops her way inside a conference room separated from the main space by a wall of glass. It’s like a gigantic fishbowl, except it holds a lone woman and an odd collection of furniture instead of fish and fake mermen. The woman perches on yet another inflatable yoga ball. She’s also head-down on her laptop—I’d have fired her on the spot.
When Hippie Chick bounces in, however, Sleeping Beauty somehow rolls off the ball and onto her feet without serious bodily harm. Seconds later, she marches toward me. Hello. The reason for my visit flies out of my head as the blood in my body heads south and stages a fiesta in my dick.
I think I know this woman. She’s the one who crash-landed on me Friday. She drowned me with her champagne. She all but gave me a lap dance, and then I tipped her off and left. At the time all I could think was what the fuck was that? I scowl. It was dark and I didn’t get a good look at her face—although just remembering the luscious peach of her ass wriggling against my dress pants... This woman is my thief?
I may need to revisit Friday night’s rejection. Lola Jones is unexpectedly, seriously hot for an engineer turned CEO. Dressed even more casually than her receptionist, she wears black yoga pants and a tank top with skinny straps. The tank top is cute and pink, and even though I’d have bet my man card that she isn’t wearing a bra, my thumbs itch to check. To nudge those thin strips of cotton down her shoulders. To mark every creamy inch of her with my mouth, my teeth and my body. I promptly start a Lola to-do list.
Lick her
Explore that sexy shoulder hollow
Nip
Suck. TBD what and where—or everything
Palm a sweet little tit hard
Catch her nipple between my teeth and—
Focus. The porn film in my head is simply reflex. See a pretty girl, think dirty thoughts. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Just as soon as I’ve finished here, I’ll retreat to my Porsche and handle the problem she’s created in my pants. Or I could be a gentleman about our other problem and let her make amends. On her knees, on her back, on top as she rides me like an enthusiastic cowgirl—I’m unexpectedly flexible about the terms.
She shrugs into an oversize, black-and-white flannel shirt, doing up the buttons as she gets closer. Dragging my eyes away from her now-covered tits doesn’t help. Her hair is long and dark brown. She’s twisted it up on top of her head in a spectacular feat of engineering. Perfect for fisting. We should totally try it. She wears tortoiseshell glasses that rest just above a spray of freckles on her right cheek (hello, dirty librarian fantasy). And since she wears no visible makeup, including no nail polish on her bare feet, my brain—both the big one and the smaller, temporarily in charge one below my Gucci belt—fixates on one thing. She’s wearing pajamas.
And yet even half-dressed, she radiates confidence as if she knows this is her space and she completely owns it. I admire that assuredness, even though it’s probably the reason she thinks she can get away with pirating my software. For those of you who’ve ever contemplated doing that: don’t. Like many things in life, software is worth what you pay for it.
Despite my reputation as a bastard, I try to stay friends with karma. I buy flowers for my dates, I routinely spot the panhandler on the corner five bucks and I donate generously to animal charities. I can’t and won’t, however, let people steal from me. It’s like sex and marriage. Why buy the cow if the milk is free? Why pay my premium subscription fees if you can just download what you want from a mirror site in Asia?
Oblivious, my sexy thief pads to a halt. She looks stunned, but only for a brief second. “You.”
“Me,” I agree.
“God,” she groans. “This is so embarrassing.”
Pink creeps up her chest and over her cheeks as she looks at me. She’s staring, but I stare right back. I won every staring contest growing up.
Yes, you sat on my lap.
Yes, you felt me through your dress.
Yes, I know you weren’t wearing any panties.
She has a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and that distracting spray of freckles beneath a pair of melting brown eyes. A crinkle grows between those eyes as she frowns. I imagine kissing away that little look of confusion. She doesn’t look impressed by who I am. Or scared. Or even, ever so slightly, wowed. It’s more the embarrassed kind of look when you’ve just bitten into the last doughnut and realize you were expected to share. Perhaps Friday night’s crash landing was an accident after all and she wasn’t a founder hounder trying to meet and marry a tech billionaire.
She abruptly shoves a hand at me. “Perhaps we can start over? Lola Jones.”
Ballsy but nice.
“Devlin King, but the jury’s out on the second chance.” I wrap my fingers around hers. Smooth and delicate, her hand would feel better wrapped around my dick. No polish, no rings, short nails, but that’s okay. She can scream my name instead of digging her nails into my back.
She purses her lips as she reclaims her hand, skepticism written all over her pretty face. She rocks back on her heels. “You’ve never screwed up and needed a do-over?”
“I don’t make mistakes.” I lead off all my interviews this way, but my trademark quote doesn’t appear to ring any bells.
Instead, she snorts. “Despite your unhuman good looks, I’m certain you’re Homo sapiens. Ergo, mistakes happen. Crap.” She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Let’s pretend I never said that.”
“It might be hard.” Something about her makes me want to break my rules and flirt shamelessly. Her touch is electric, making my body burn, my hands itch to touch her more.
“Come with me.” She’s already turning, and anticipation hums through me.
Happily.
I follow her toward the fishbowl. I assumed she knew who