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“Oh, I didn’t tell you who I was praying to,” says Lacey. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
The first time Owen and I had sex—and the second, third, or the hundredth, for that matter—I thought to myself: Is this it? Can that really be what all the romance novels are about? What caused the Peloponnesian War and the siege of Troy? This is why Romeo and Juliet died? This is why Lacey is always glowing and looking for her next conquest?
The easiest answer was to blame myself. I was probably the one doing something wrong. Owen had always seemed to be enjoying himself. During, I mean. But he enjoyed sex the same way he enjoyed coins and ramen noodles: with gravitas and decorum. Not exactly the stuff to set anyone’s bed and panties ablaze.
“It’s high time you get some satisfaction,” says Lacey.
“Oh, what’s the occasion?” says the bartender, coming over to watch the festivities. The Maître D appears at his side just in time for me to remove the lid from the box.
Inside is a vibrator which looks like it’s about the size of a Nerf football.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” says Lacey, pulling it out of the box and pointing at my face. “Owen who? That’s what you’ll be saying. Tell her, boys!” She waves the vibrator at the two guys who are now receding into the background, vanquished by the suggestion that their anatomy is now superfluous to our conversation. “This is what you need to be writing about. Owen 2.0 right here. You’re bored with all the local gigs? Take this bad boy for a spin and you’ll burn the damn front page down.”
“Oh my God.” I grab it away from her, stuff it back into the box, and put the lid on. In my haste I manage to knock the box off my lap. When it hits the floor the vibrator spills out at the feet of an elderly couple who has just arrived.
“Good for you, dear,” says the woman of the pair. “Variety keeps everything revving.”
Lacey gives her a high five while I drop to my knees and quickly snatch up the colossal vibrator to hide Owen 2.0 back into his box.
“But I have to warn you” says Lacey, “You’ve got to beware of its powers. It’s not going to be a substitute for a real man forever. But it’s more than a match for all these weenies who would rather flip a coin than give it to you the way you deserve.”
The thought of coins make me gulp down another drink. I don’t want to think about Owen at all. Lacey’s definitely right about one thing, though: I’m bored with my journalism job and would do just about anything to escape the local beat for a while. Maybe Owen 2.0 is just the ticket.
As soon as Lacey leaves (the Maître D in tow), I go home with my consolation prize - determined to treat myself to a night of…well, I guess I would just have to find out.
***
After my meeting with Lacey, I go home and fire up Owen 2.0. Once I get over the whirring noise—the contraption sounds like it’s about to take off from a launch pad—and as I dial it down to its lowest, least-intimidating setting, I’m able to induce something like pleasure in myself. But Owen keeps intruding on my fantasies. This is one of the problems with being so inexperienced: I don’t have a wealth of mental material to draw from when it comes to pleasuring myself, and I’m not that good at inserting men I have never been with into the scene. The Maître D, for instance, or anyone from True Blood.
Later that night, I have weird dreams. Owen is chasing me around, begging me to take him back and begging me to look at his latest coin, something from Prague. When I wake up, I feel extremely hung over.
I glance at my bedroom clock and gasp. I only have an hour before I have to be to work. Given the commute—two trains and three blocks on foot—it’s going to be a hell of a sprint. I jump in the shower and jump back out before my hair can even start to get wet. I get into my clothes so fast that it’s like I’m doing it to win money during a challenge on a game show. Breakfast isn’t the most pitiful it’s ever been—which was once a handful of croutons and pickle chips—but neither is it sumptuous. It’s a dry bagel that I chomp through on the elevator down to ground level, leaving brittle flakes and crumbs in my wake. Oh well, I pay a ton and my place sucks, so they can clean up after me.
I manage to make it into the meeting room two minutes late. I’m one of the only ones there, which means either everyone else is late or I made a mistake and there’s no meeting today. Turns out it’s the latter.
My boss, Trinity, looks up and says, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Sam here to…wait, what exactly are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be covering the firehouse thingy? No, scratch that - that was someone else. Let’s talk. Readers are complaining that we’re not entertaining enough and drying out. Let’s come up with new ideas, and I don’t want to hear about anything you’re already working on.”
This dizzying display of confusion and managerial expertise at an end, I sit and put my purse down.
“So how’s it going?” says Trinity. “I can tell you’re bored so don’t bother lying to me. I just want to know what’s boring you.” She picks up a pen and starts chewing the cap while locking her eyes onto mine.
“Well, as long as we’re being frank,” I say, trying to come up with something to say. “I guess I’m bored by…everything?” I hate the rising note at the end of my sentence. I used to be driven, like all youth. Jesus, listen to me, I’m only twenty-five and I make it sound like I’m just counting the days until my retirement. But it was true. “Yeah, basically everything.”
Trinity puts the well-chewed pen down and crosses her arms. “So what’s going to make it better? You’re one of the best writers we’ve got, but it’s clear we’re not challenging you enough, or using your assets as best we can.”
Trinity continues to chewing the pen cap before she finally raises her head.
“So I’ve got some good news for you, cub reporter of mine. It just so happens that there’s a job, far off the local beat, that nobody else wants to do.”
“Oh, this sounds wonderful. Please tell me everything,” responding in a cynical tone. Was this what it had come to? She offers me a job that no one else wants?
“Don’t say it like that. This is good stuff. It won’t win you a Pulitzer, but let’s face it, that’s not really what we do here.”
She’s right. Our tabloid, The Inner Eye, is just a notch above The National Inquirer and about ninety rungs down from everything else. We write for people who think that David Icke’s lizard people sound outlandish and too stupid to even discuss, but who clamor about news of Bigfoot and the Illuminati. Pulitzers are most definitely not in our foreseeable future.
“It’s in Washington,” she said.
“Oh! Is it a political story? Why wouldn’t anyone want that?”
