Page 11 of Our Sadie

Zach crushes the skin over his trapezius muscle between his palm and his fingers as if trying to give himself a Vulcan neck pinch. “She convinced me to go on her Fans4You page with her so she could win views for having sex while on the pole.”

Dom mutters something I think is, “Mother of fuck,” under his breath.

“Did you get the views?” I have to know.

“Oh, yeah. Over a million. Fucking Braelynn—that’s her name—promised me half the profits.”

“Let me guess,” I interject. “When it came down to it, she didn’t give you a dime.”

“You called it.” Zach sounds about as grim as I’ve heard him yet.

“There are worse things than banging for bucks,” Dom says, with all the gravity of someone who has subjected himself to those worse things. “Trust me.”

There’s a story there, I know. But I have a feeling that he’s not the open-as-a-book type that Zach is.

“Truth,” I agree. “Adult films treated me extra nice for a while.”

“Then why do this?” Zach inquires of me.

While I’m not gonna wax poetic about coming multiple times throughout the day in my early twenties—the age I suspect he is—I have no problem being candid. I count out my reasons one by one.

“More control. No assholes demanding me to be violent to women in a scene. No double doses of Viagra to keep myself hard for ten hours straight.”

“Ten hours?” Zach gasps as if I just socked him in the stomach. “Fuck me.”

Even Dom is wide-eyed and pooching out his bottom lip as if horrified.

“Started wondering what this might do to me as I grew older,” I go on. “What if I take so much that I become resistant to it in my elder years when I actually need it? Or what if it’s bad for younger guys to begin with?”

“They make you take that shit?” Dom asks.

“You kinda have to. I mean, you’re literally required to come on camera as often as double digits daily. Even with making sure I ate a healthy diet and stayed hydrated, there’s only so much my cock can take.”

My revelation washes over my companions for a lengthy minute before Zach turns to Dom. “You said you banged for bucks, too?”

“We all bang for bucks. That’s what we’re here to do,” Dom corrects him.

“Yeah, but I mean before. Or have you been with Elegance all along?”

“I used to be a carpenter. When that quit paying the bills, I became a prostitute. Elegance is a slightly classier and more regular version of that.”

That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.

Dom stands, polished-off plate in hand, his dark eyes assessing our surroundings as if this is the first time he’s witnessing it. This chalet is a gigantic structure. Zach and I follow suit, and even though we don’t specifically agree to do this, we all wind up wandering around the first floor as more or less a group.

Unlike the second floor, which from what I can tell is primarily sleeping quarters, the rooms down here are far more diverse. The kitchen is one that’s tricked out with this old-fashioned farmhouse sink and cast-iron cookware hanging over the island in the middle. There are exposed beams along the ceiling, pristine white cabinets, and marble countertops.

From there we stumble on a gym complete with treadmills and weight machines, a pool room with darts, a spa area with massage tables as well as a stripper pole which must be inspired by Zach. There’s a home theater, and an old-school arcade full of vintage eighties-style video game consoles.

My personal favorite, though, is an in-home library on one end that extends up to both stories. I leave the other men behind as I run a finger along several of the spines, finding the books separated and labeled by genre. The place even has one of those rolling ladders built into the shelving.

For a bibliophile like me, it’s a dream come true.

I wonder if Sadie is a reader, too.

And just like that, I have a plan for our date.

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