Machine by Normandie Alleman
19
Bridger
Dynassy was coming over. We hadn’t yet decided to go out or stay in for a Netflix-and-chill sort of night. More than likely the latter, because whenever we went out, the paparazzi hounded Dynassy, and I had a tendency to lose my temper with them if I felt like they weren’t respecting her personal space.
I checked the fridge, and it was bare so we were either going to have to order something to be delivered or we were going to have to go out for dinner.
When she arrived, she gave me a kiss. “Hey, I brought your mail in for you.”
I felt like a trap door had opened underneath me. “You did?” Oh fuck. When Barvo and I had first started our business, we’d run it out of my house. We did the video editing, uploads, servers, etc., at my place, only renting studio space for shoots a few days a week. It wasn’t until last year that we’d gone ahead and moved the entire business to its own location. For that reason, I still got mail delivered to my home address that might look a little, um, suspicious.
She set the stack of papers on the kitchen counter. “Yeah. By the way, what’s Luv Machines?”
Fuck. Please don’t tell me I was being outed by the US Postal Service. “Oh that’s a business that belongs to a buddy of mine.” The lie rolled off my tongue so easily, but the minute it was out there, I wished I could take it back. That might have been my best opportunity to tell the truth. And I blew it with another lie.
“Cute name. Why’s his mail coming here?”
“He used to live here. Helped me after I was recovering from surgery.” Another lie, but I thought it sounded good.
“Wow. You’re lucky to have friends like that. But I thought your mom stayed with you after your surgeries?”
Dynassy’s brow wrinkled, and I knew I needed to change the subject fast.
“She did, but one time she was visiting my sister’s family down in Florida, and I had some complications so Barvo moved in.” My bullshit story was starting to stink. Barvo was the least nurturing person I knew. The idea of him caring for me after surgery was beyond ludicrous.
“Oh.”
“So, I’ve just taken an inventory and I’m outta food. What do you feel like—Mexican or Chinese?”
She sidled up next to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Whatever you want, handsome.”
I bent to kiss her, and I got distracted by the proximity of her body. Unable to get enough of her, I lifted her up and took her right there on the kitchen counter.
Afterwards, I asked, “Do you want to order in, or go out?”
“Let’s go out tonight. Maybe see a movie later. How does that sound?”
“Great,” I answered. “Let me take a quick shower.”
“Sure thing.” She said, settling onto the couch and glancing down at her phone.
I cleaned myself up, and tried to forget about the incident with Luv Machines. Dynassy seemed glued to some Twitter war on her phone, reading mean tweets to me from the other room while I got dressed. She was cute, and her world was so different from mine. It was refreshing.
I thought I’d dodged a bullet, until right as we were walking out the door, she held up the letter in her hand.
“What’s that?” I pointed at it.
“I looked up Luv Machines while you were getting ready. It’s on the way, so I figured we could drop it off.”
Fuck. I wasn’t ready to let my secret come out. Not this way, but I understood now how foolish it was for me not to recognize my incoming mail as the threat it turned out to be. Why hadn’t I renewed the forward-mail order with the post office when it expired?
“Let me see.” I held out my hand. “It’s probably junk mail,” I said, hoping to dissuade her.
She shook her head as she handed it to me. “Nope. I don’t think so. It’s from an attorney.”
Double fuck. Now I was tempted to open it right there, but that would look even more suspicious.
Had she heard of Luv Machines before? I wondered if I’d left anything else laying around the house with that name on it? For a while Barvo was buying Luv Machines swag of all kinds—refrigerator magnets, t-shirts, and ball caps. But I thought I’d rid the place of all that.
And I could only imagine the things that came up when she looked up Luv Machines online. Our porn site, for starters. Barvo was always bragging about his fancy search engine optimization strategies. I searched Dynassy’s face for any indication that she knew what Luv Machines was, but there was none.
“What?” she asked. “Do I have something between my teeth?”
“No.”
“Do you not want to go drop that off now? Because we could do it tomorrow.”
“No, let’s just do it.” I was still suspicious, but if we could just get that fucking piece of mail out of my house, maybe we could move on, and she would have no reason to search Luv Machines again. I made a note to myself to have my mail held until I could get all the mail for the business forwarded. I’d rather go to the post office to pick it up than deal with this nightmare.
Even as I plotted to keep my secret, I wondered if I should just drop the charade and come clean with Dynassy. There was a part of me that told me she could deal with my profession. But then the rational side always popped up and said, “Who the fuck are you kidding? No woman wants to be with the king of a porn empire. No woman.”
On the drive there, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t stop myself. “So, you looked up Luv Machines?”
“Yeah, just the address while you were taking a shower. And I saw it was close to the movie theater.”
“Okay. You’re very thoughtful, you know that?” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but I figured I could just run inside and toss the letter on the counter and be outta there without incident. At least that’s what I was counting on.
My heart beat rapidly as I pulled into the parking lot of Luv Machines. It was past normal business hours, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think that Barvo wouldn’t be there working. The guy worked around the clock. He couldn’t get enough of what we were putting on film. His life pretty much consisted of porn, girls, and more porn, but the man had made me a millionaire so I couldn’t very well complain.
Yep, there was his car. If only there were an outside mailbox I could just slip the letter in, it would have been so easy. I could just drop the letter in and we could go eat tacos, but no. The mail carrier had to go inside our office and either hand the mail to us, or place it in the box next to the reception counter. And in this moment I couldn’t think of anything more inconvenient for our belabored mail carrier, or dangerous for me.
I parked next to Barvo’s car in the lot, and before I got out, I turned to Dynassy and said, “I’ll be right back.”
The quicker I got this damned letter out of my hand and got back in the car, the better. I flung open the door to the reception area. It looked like any other ordinary small business—a room with several chairs, magazines sitting on end tables, a water dispenser in the corner. And the magazines were not pornographic, I might add. There was a box on the wall for our mail so I simply slipped the letter into the box.
I didn’t want to disturb Barvo or interrupt whatever he had going on back there.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Dynassy had stayed in the car, Barvo had stayed in the back, and my spirits were starting to soar as I believed I was going to get away with this very close call.
But before I could chalk up the win, Barvo opened the door to the back from the inside. “Hey, man. What are you doing here?”
Flustered, I stammered, “I, uh, some mail came to the house so I decided to drop it by.” I pulled the letter out of the box and handed it to him. “I’ve got to go.” My throat was dry.
“Oh, this is that letter from the patent attorney.” He started to open it, and I tried to stop him.
“Hey, I’ve got Dynassy in the car and I don’t really want her coming in here.”
“You still haven’t told her about what you do? That girl is going to be pissed when she finds out about this.”
I knew he was right which was why I almost crapped my pants when the door from the outside opened and Dynassy walked in.
“Hey. Is this your friend whose business this is?” she asked.
Barvo and I basically froze. Then in the background, a woman’s soft moans traveled into the room from behind where Barvo was standing.
“Yeah, this is him.” I motioned to Barvo frantically, and he stepped into the reception area, letting the door behind him close with a thud. The sound-proofing had been done so that people sitting in the front wouldn’t hear what was going on in the back, but Barvo didn’t usually care about such things. It was installed so that when the UPS man showed up with some props, or one of us was interviewing a potential bookkeeper or something, the place could maintain a professional air.
I studied Dynassy’s face and nothing registered on it. Perhaps she hadn’t heard the woman’s cries of ecstasy coming from the back of the building.
Barvo leaned forward with an outstretched hand, and Dynassy took it. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s nice to hear. I hope we’re not disturbing you. I see you’re working kinda late.”
“That’s Barvo. Always working.”
I put my arm around Dynassy and steered her in the direction of the front door when she said, “This seems like a pretty cool business. Do you think I could get a tour?”
Barvo’s eyes widened. “You want a tour?”
“I practically pushed Dynassy back towards the door. “I don’t think this is a good time for that, sweetheart.”
“Well, I just thought, while we were here?”
I gave Barvo a look over the top of her head that said you fucking show her around this place and I will gladly murder your ass.
He gulped and said, “He’s right. Another time would be better.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impose. I just thought it would be really cool to see the motorcycles you work on.”
Barvo and I stared at each other, then her. “Motorcycles?” I asked.
“Yeah. My brother Leo watches those shows all the time where the guys are customizing motorcycles. I figured that’s what you did around here. You put like flames on motorcycles, soup them up, right? Isn’t that what Luv Machines is?”
“Sure. Now let’s go.” And for a moment, I thought I was going to survive this.
I opened up the front door to leave, and just as Dynassy was about to take a step through it, a completely naked woman opened the door behind Barvo and said, “Hey, I need some more lube if you want me to fuck that thing for thirty minutes.”
The look on Dynassy’s face was a mixture of shock and disgust.
Then the girl looked up at Dynassy and said, “Wow! Your Dynassy Barnes, aren’t you?”
“I am. And you are?”
“I’m Morticia.” The girl elbowed Barvo. “You didn’t tell me you knew Dynassy Barnes.”
“Just met her,” he hissed. “Now go back inside and I’ll get you some.”
An awkward silence hung in the air. No one seemed to know what to do next.
Finally, Barvo retreated behind the door with Morticia, leaving me all alone with Dynassy.
Her crossed arms and tapping foot told me I’d better start talking.
“Luv machines?” Her voice dripped with contempt. “It’s not a motorcycle business, is it?”
