Machine by Normandie Alleman
20
Dynassy
“No, it’s not a motorcycle business.” Bridger shuffled his feet, staring at them.
The moaning in the back had made me a little suspicious, but I’d decided I must be hearing things. The naked girl, on the other hand, was a dead giveaway that something strange was going on.
“Then what is it?”
Bridger sighed. “It’s a porn business—and I’m half owner.”
I felt my knees give way, and I slid into the nearest chair. “You’re what?”
“I’m one of the owners. Me and Barvo. We created it kinda by accident, and it just took off.”
“Wait, what took off?” Suddenly the air in the room grew thick, and I felt like I was underwater, struggling to breath.
“Okay, remember how I told you I couldn’t, ahem, perform, after I was injured?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I was engaged at the time, and I built a machine to do the job for me.”
“Don’t they already have machines to do that sort of thing—like vibrators?”
“Yeah, but mine was different. Better, I think. And apparently a lot of women think so too, but that’s another story.”
“Okay, so what does that have to do with porn?”
“I never had a chance to use it on my fiancée. She broke up with me before I had a chance to show it to her. After that, I was really depressed, so Barvo asked me if he could borrow it. I said yes. He went out with this girl, and had her use it while he recorded it. He uploaded the video to an amateur porn site, and when the video reached over a million views, he told me about it.”
He shrugged. “Barvo saw a business opportunity and he convinced me to give it a try. I was depressed because my fiancée had left me for my best friend, I still had a long recovery ahead of me with more surgeries…I wasn’t really in a good place. So I said fuck it. Go for it. Now we’re the top site for sex machine porn, and I make a good living at it.”
The whole situation seemed surreal. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
He made a face. “Are you serious? I knew you wouldn’t be cool with it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when we met, you were trying to clean up your act, improve your reputation with the public.”
He was right about that, but I didn’t want him to think I was a prude either. “Porn always seems so sleazy, like it would involve drugs and prostitution too.”
“The girls we hire have regular drug tests and STD tests. We’re focused on creating content, not pimping girls out. However, Barvo does try to sleep with as many of them as he can.”
“What about you?”
“I told you. I haven’t been able to get excited down there for years until you came into my life.”
As it dawned on me that Bridger had spent probably hundreds of hours watching video of girls fuck themselves with his machines, and none of them had aroused him. “Really?”
“Really. I mean, it’s exciting in your brain, but no, I never had anything going with any of the girls here.”
A hot twinge of jealousy singed my chest when I thought of the many girls who had probably tried to get Bridger’s attention.
“So do you guys just sit around here watching girls do themselves with the machine?” It seemed kind of seedy, but as long as the girls were willing, I guess it was a legitimate way to make money.
“Well, Barvo mostly does that. I’m more of the inventor, while Barvo is the creative director who handles the talent. For the most part, I work at the garage every day.”
“If you’re making money doing this then why would you work over there?”
“Honestly, there’s not that much for me to do over here. Barvo has got the daily operations under control, and I found it frustrating to just sit and watch all day long when I couldn’t even get it up. It was a constant reminder of my failings. Plus, I like to stay busy. I can’t just sit around, so I decided to do what I was good at, and that’s fixing things.”
The weight of what he said hit me. It must have been upsetting for him to watch naked women get off all day long and not be able to even physically respond to it. Talk about a constant reminder of what was missing in his life.
I felt sorry for Bridger, even though I was kind of shocked by this whole thing, and pissed he had kept it from me. “But why keep it such a secret?”
“Come on, Dynassy. Who wants to be known as a pornographer? People automatically assume you’re a slimeball carrying a bunch of venereal diseases, up to your eyeball in skanky horrors. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing I would do. In fact, without Barvo, I would never have done it in the first place. He hit me up when I was in a really dark place. Do I regret it? No. But I’m also not sure that if I had to do it all over again, I would do it any differently.”
“What about the fact that it objectifies women?”
“What about it? One of the things I’ve learned in doing this is that the women who show up here to be on camera really want to do it. They all have their own reasons, but no one’s really taking advantage of them. These are the kind of women who would take off their clothes and perform sex acts in front of people on their own webcams at home. As weird as it may seem, me offering them money to do it is creating jobs for people who would otherwise do the same thing and not get paid. Granted, the fact that I make money on it might be somewhat exploitive, but I pay them well so everybody gets what they want.”
I was skeptical, and I guess he could tell, because he said, “Look, I understand some women have negative feelings about pornography. I get that. And I think everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. If I had a daughter, this is not what I’d want her to be doing.”
Bridger sounded torn about his business, and I had no idea how I felt about it either. On one hand, I was outraged that he’d kept this big of a secret from me. We’d been together for over two months. He’d shown me his vulnerable side when he talked about what had happened to him overseas. He could tell me about his broken dick, but he couldn’t tell me he made porn?
On the other hand, his entrepreneurial talents and his inventiveness were impressive. But, it struck me as a slimy sort of endeavor, the kind that made you want to take a shower.
Not to mention that I absolutely hated the idea of him being around a bunch of loose, oversexed women, screwing themselves with his machines. Some of them would be thinking about him while they did it, and that got me pissed.
I picked up my phone and started typing.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting an Uber.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I need to process this.”
He closed his eyes. “I knew this was going to happen.”
“If you knew it, why didn’t you just tell me about it?” I snipped.
His face fell, and he looked broken. “Because I knew there was no way this was going to have a good outcome, and I was greedy. I wanted to be with you every minute I could. It was selfish of me, I know, but I loved every minute we spent together, and I never wanted it to end.”
He moved to kiss me, but I turned away.
“I’m sorry, Dynassy. All of this is my fault.”
My chest tightened, and I choked down a sob. “So why did you have to lie?” I asked, balling my fists.
“Because I’ve fallen in love with you.”
I looked away. “There’s a lot here for me to process.”
“I understand. If the media finds out the guy you’re dating is a porn king, they will crucify you.”
“I know,” I said, wondering why my life had to be so complicated.
