Twenty-Five

New rule: I don't date lawyers unless they're closet oddballs on a mission to redefine the word "worshipful."

After staying up talking to Lander (and fucking him two more times), I finally crash at four in the morning. When I awaken two hours later, I find Lander's sheets rumpled, cold, and lacking a six-foot-three, life-size reincarnation of something the Renaissance sculpture curator at the Louvre would shit his pants over. Luckily, I only have to endure ten minutes of unprecedented longing before he bursts into his condo, sweating and decked out in running gear, and triumphantly holding up the first of many gifts.

This first one: a humongous dildo like I described last night. As if the gift weren't enough, he pulls me into his lap, kisses my forehead, and tells me, "I know they reacted badly to the ball gag, but once they see how happy this makes you, they'll love it. At the very least, we'll love it."

The second gift comes Tuesday morning: a leather bracelet to match my choker.

The third, Tuesday night: a tin of homemade Mexican wedding cookies with a note composed in rough (but greatly appreciated) Spanish: Every day is better with you.

The fourth on Wednesday: another ball cactus for my windowsill.

And the fifth on Thursday: Dinner for three from The Dabney delivered to my condo when Essie and Cora arrive to prep for our stream. Essie is ecstatic and Cora (once she accepts we won't be ordering Korean-Mexican fusion tacos) looks deeply impressed.

My favorite gift is still the first one.

"Lander bought you that?" Essie questions with her eyebrows sky high and a bite of scallop crudo lingering on the spoon in front of her lips.

Beaming, I nod and wiggle the ten-inch dildo. It's the biggest I've ever owned, and I'm obsessed with it. It's a deep slate gray without a speck of glitter or pink, and it looks lethal—which makes it perfect.

Cora is studying a piece of pork belly on the tip of her fork, her second bite, and I suspect she's mentally rehearsing a break-up speech for her beloved bulgogi tacos. "Tell her the best part," she urges, briefly making eye contact with me before returning her full attention to her dinner.

"He thinks I should use it in a stream," I tell Essie, the words spilling out with equal parts trepidation and excitement.

Slowly, Essie's eyebrows slump and gather millimeter by millimeter until she can't frown any harder. "Does he know your regulars would hate it?"

Of course. She's mentally parsing the data, which she knows like the back of her hand.

"I mentioned it, but Lander thinks they'll come around. And before you point out that he knows nothing about camming, remember: He's one of my regulars." I wiggle the dildo once more. "This could be a great thing," I insist, but my voice has lost some of its conviction.

"I agree," Cora chimes in, but she doesn't add any more meat to my argument. She's far too concerned with finishing the actual meat in front of her. Note for the future: Feed Cora first, then have career strategy conversations.

Essie's expression is skeptical. She pretends to be interested in her plate, but there's a persistent look of concern on her face, held up by her knotted brow. It's typical Essie. Even though she's younger than Cora and me, she's overprotective as hell—a quality she developed from raising her three brothers after their mother passed. On the night of the emergency alert, she spent her last minutes comforting them about her impending death.

"Hey," I mention, nudging her, "I'd never let some guy roll in and convince me to do something I don't want, especially one who has never made himself come in front of hundreds of people on the internet."

"But he did show his dick and balls on Reddit," Cora mentions. "Let's not forget that. Although, if the responses to that picture are any indication, he should consider making himself come in front of hundreds of people on the internet. He'd make a killing."

"We're tabling the discussion of Lander masturbating online," I interject.

"I'm not saying he should masturbate," Cora counters, the expression on her face far too wry to be anything but dangerous. "He could fuck you."

"Cora!" Essie and I exclaim in unison.

"Oh, that's the line?" she demands, throwing up her arms in frustration. "I once wrote the word SLUT on my cleavage in chocolate and you both licked it off me, but we're finally going to be scandalized by the idea of the guy you're already hooking up with taking you on camera? Ridiculous." Cora, without shame, pops the last of the pork belly in her mouth and chews it emphatically while glaring at us.

"So…anyway." I face Essie again and shoot her a bewildered look. She nods, agreeing: Cora is absurd. "You know my performance has stagnated. I don't want to fall out of love with camming, but if I keep up with this tired, innocent routine, I might. I want to do something new—something that reflects who I am today, not the girl I thought I was supposed to be when I was nineteen."

Essie puts down her fork. "Babe, you know that's not how this works. Regulars want consistency. Remember what happened with the ball gag?"

"This is different."

"How?"

"I want this," I answer immediately. "Ten months ago, I was still figuring out who I was. The ball gag was a rebellion, but it wasn't real. Now, I'm dying to do this. I have no business pretending to be a sweet, delicate virgin. I've been through too much shit. It doesn't work for me anymore."

"It's incredible you've realized all this," Essie says, putting her hand on mine. "But this is our job. You think I don't fantasize about changing my routine? You don't think I'm sick of being a hot, blond party girl? I'm not really blond. I don't even drink. But the data is there. My regulars would flip."

At that precise moment, my phone alarm goes off. Time to get ready for the stream.

Essie stands and pulls me into a hug. "I love you," she tells me. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

I nod, hugging her back. "I know. You're a total mom, Essie, and we love you for it."

She pulls away. "Are we good? Because I really don't want to motorboat your boobs if we're fighting."

"We're never anything but good, Essie," I promise her. "Now, let's get our shit together. We have to make hundreds of men confused about whether they'd rather be us or be with us."

My doorbell rings when I'm swapping out lingerie for pajamas. I already know who it is.

Sure enough, I'm greeted with a sparkling set of blue eyes and a limitless grin when I open the door. I don't even have time to bring my lips to a full smile before Lander sweeps me into his arms and spins me around.

"You were incredible, baby," he declares, speaking into my neck before he layers a scattering of kisses on my forehead, my cheeks, and eventually my lips.

When Lander takes mercy on me and gives me a moment to breathe, I turn and find Cora and Essie in the doorway to my bedroom, wearing matching expressions of shock on their faces.

"Ladies, you were incredible as well," Lander offers, altogether too cordial for someone who just watched my two best friends come their brains out.

Cora lets out a weak laugh. "This man isn't real," she blurts out in admiration.

Lander winks and it's so fucking adorable. "Well, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the stream," he mentions. "I don't want to intrude. I can come back—"

"Stay," Cora instructs, nodding at the couch. "Talk to us."

Lander's eyebrows rise, but he doesn't object. Gamely, he sits on the couch, and Cora and Essie settle on either side of him.

"So," Cora says, eyeing him, "what's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"Your deal. Where are you from?"

"Here."

"Where did you go to college?"

"Princeton."

"What did you study?"

"Public Policy and International Affairs."

"Where's your favorite place to travel?"

"St. Michaels, Maryland. I go for a week every September with Everett, Dalton, and Dalton's parents. Oh, and I like Japan."

Cora's eyebrow shoots up at Lander's last response, but before she can continue with the rapid-fire interrogation, Lander raises his chin at her.

"Where are you from?"

She hesitates, pulling her head back in surprise before she responds, "Boston."

"And where did you go to college?"

"Harvard."

"What did you study?"

"Psychology."

"And where's your favorite place to travel?"

"Ilocos Sur, where my Lola lives."

"In the Philippines?"

She nods while slowly tilting her head to the side. "I've interrogated a lot of men and none of them has ever asked me about myself before."

"And almost all of them lie about their answers," Essie chimes in.

Lander raises his shoulders. "How do you know I'm not lying? I'm a schemer. Maybe I'm telling you what you want to hear."

"I can tell," Cora answers, her response confident. "Plus, Essie online-stalked the living shit out of you ages ago. We knew the answers before we asked."

Lander doesn't bat an eye. "What about you, Essie? Where are you from?"

"Los Angeles," she answers before glancing at Cora and then me with both eyebrows up, the girl-code for: This guy has more green on his flag than Brazil, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia combined.

For the next half hour, Lander talks to my two best friends nonstop, pausing only when he starts making cookies. Seriously. The man shepherds all three of us to his condo, opens a bottle of wine for Cora and me, brews a cup of tea for Essie, and makes cookies.

Shortly after one in the morning, Cora and Essie finally leave with a to-go container and these smitten looks on their faces. As soon as they're gone, Lander and I practically fall onto each other.

He climbs on top of me on his bed, crushing me with his weight, and I love it. At first, he seems wholly content to simply explore my body, but when I reveal I actually faked my orgasm during the stream so I could save it for him, he does something remarkable with his tongue. Twice.

An hour later, we're snuggled in his bed and Lander is absentmindedly running his hand along my side. "I still have work to do," he murmurs.

I want to groan. I want to tell him what a monumentally horrible idea leaving this bed would be, but I know better. This is what lawyers do. They live to work, not the other way around.

Plus, I don't have to mention it because Lander does a fine enough job for both of us, saying, "The last thing I want to do is leave this bed to dick around in a Word document for the next three hours."

I'm speechless. So speechless, in fact, I hold my breath for several seconds until Lander gently pinches my side. "What's wrong?"

"You don't like your job?" I ask, craning over my shoulder to see him.

It's Lander's turn to freeze now. "I didn't say that," he protests when he finally speaks.

"You did," I press, rotating to face him. "Lander, do you not actually like being a lawyer?"

He's frowning. "I'm the top performer in my tier by miles. If I get Stafford, they're going to make me a partner at light speed."

"But do you like it?" I ask a second time. "Don't tell me what you are, tell me how you feel."

His mouth parts and his eyes travel, lingering to the side amid a brow that continues to furrow more deeply. "Nobody has ever asked me before," he finally acknowledges. "Of course I like it. It's in my blood. This job is more than a career, it's a tradition. You know my father was a lawyer."

"You know mine was too. He practiced law for fifteen years before he segued into international relations, and he was—and continues to be—a supremely miserable person."

Lander rotates onto his back and faces the ceiling. "I'm a lawyer," he states. "I'm a lawyer. Did you know I've been saying it since I was ten? My dad thought it was brilliant the first time I said it as a joke. I had never seen his face light up like that." He reaches out and fingers the sham on a pillow, focusing on a loose thread. "If I didn't like it," he murmurs, "what was the point of all this?"

Before I can respond, he turns and puts a hand on my cheek.

"My firm is having an event next weekend to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. Come with me."

"Lander…" I begin, shaking my head.

"You haven't seen me in a tux yet, but I promise: You're going to lose your shit."

"I'll have to meet your coworkers. You know the first thing they'll ask is ‘Valeria, what do you do for a living?'"

His shoulders rise. "And you can tell them you're a cam model."

"But—"

"Valeria, we've been over this five thousand times. I don't give a shit what anyone thinks."

"But you should," I protest. "You just told me how well you're doing and how tirelessly you've worked. I can't derail that, Lander. I really can't."

"I want you to come with me—exactly as you are. I need you there. I'm sick of my job getting in the way of us, so if I have to set up a crossover, so be it."

I exhale lowly. "You've got it that bad?"

"Whatever you're assuming, I've got it much worse, I assure you." He brings my hand to his lips. "Please?"

"Next Saturday?" I confirm. "The ninth?"

He nods. "Are you free?"

I am. My father's Independence Day party is the week after. "The ninth is fine."

Lander's expression immediately brightens.

"But," I interject before he can get too giddy, "we can't tell anyone what I do."

Well, I sure know how to crush a spirit. Lander's face has fallen into a sharp frown, and he's practically pouting.

"I don't want to deal with it yet. I know you're absurdly—if not recklessly—comfortable with it, but I've been burned before. I'm hoping you can be patient with me. Please."

Lander raises an eyebrow. "Fine. I won't tell anyone what you do for a living if—and only if—you do me a favor."

"Isn't going to this horrendous party the favor?"

"I want you to perform with the gift I bought you."

I blink rapidly, fighting against the visceral panic that hits me. "It feels fast."

"Are you ready though?"

Briefly, I consider the risk. This could be a grave misstep like Essie said…but it could also be a turning point.

Fuck it. Screwing the guy next to me was a risk, and look how it turned out: Tonight alone, he baked me a batch of homemade cookies and sucked up to my clit like it was interviewing him for a job.

"I am," I decide aloud. "I'm ready. But—"

"But nothing," Lander interrupts. "You want this and you deserve everything you want."

"Fine. You'll be discreet about my career, and next Thursday, I'll fuck myself with a giant dildo on my stream."

The man loves a deal, I can tell, because his grin stretches from ear to ear. "Done, Fuentes. Now roll over. I've got fifteen minutes—and you know what we're capable of in fifteen minutes."