Tymber Dalton - The Denim Dom

Toward the end of the meeting, Bill stood and walked over to a whiteboard on the wall. “Brainstorm time. Let’s get some good ideas cooking.”

People tossed out ideas for stories and Bill listed them without question, regardless of how outlandish they sounded. He looked at Shayla. “This is just something to help us keep the creative juices flowing. Feel free to shout out anything. Whatever comes to mind, no matter how off the wall.”

She nervously smiled, a little embarrassed to be the center of attention again. “Kinky sex practices?” She wished she could call the words back as soon as she said them, horrified she’d even uttered the phrase. She’d been thinking about how to pay off one of the credit cards James had maxed out on porn charges.

He’d taken the cards out in her name without her knowledge or permission.

Everyone laughed at her suggestion, but Bill wrote it on the board, nodding as he did. “Actually, that’s pretty good. The county commission is doing battle with a strip club right now. Zoning ordinance lawsuit pending. Anyone else?”

Some more ideas were floated, including a few X-rated ones along the lines of Shayla’s idea. When the meeting broke up fifteen minutes later, Suzanne was busy tapping on a laptop.

Bill offered Shayla a smile. “Don’t be embarrassed. That was tame compared to some of the stuff we’ve tossed around in here before.” He nodded toward Suzanne. “She copies down the list every week and sends it out through e-mail for staff. We’ve come up with some of our best stories this way. Probably a little different than you’re used to doing it at the newspaper, huh?”

Shayla shrugged. “Different’s good.”

Bill nodded. “We think so. It’s what’s kept us competitive and in business for so long.”

It turned out Suzanne wasn’t just an administrative assistant, although that was her title. She was the glue that held the organization together. Assistant editor, nerve-soother, proofreader, den mother, referee, research—she did it all.

She spent the morning with Shayla familiarizing her with their server system and workflow process, getting their IT crew to install needed software on her new work laptop they assigned her, and taking her around to introduce her to staff in the other departments like advertising and production.

The business didn’t rely solely on the magazine for income. They also did production work, printing, and graphic arts preparation for hire, which helped support the entire enterprise. The magazine made money, but the largest profit margin came from the side work.

At lunch, Shayla walked with Suzanne and a couple of other editorial employees to The Tropical Tavern, a local restaurant a block away. They served a huge lunch buffet for a reasonable price, and Shayla soon found herself warming to her new coworkers as they chatted.

One woman, Kimberly, had close-cropped, bright orange hair and large brown eyes. “That was a wicked suggestion at the meeting. I’m glad you said it. I’ve been too chicken to say anything like that.”

Michael, the man sitting on her right, snorted. “You? Chicken? Since when? Weren’t you named Queen of the Pervs or something?” Michael was handsome, with blue eyes and black hair.

Kimberly slapped his shoulder. “That’s the last time I take you to Gasparilla with me, jerk.”

Suzanne leaned in and in a stage whisper said, “We’re still wondering when to plan their wedding.”

Shayla laughed.

By late that afternoon, Shayla had helped edit three articles and taken on an assignment to write a piece for the website about movies filmed or set in the local area. Bill insisted he wanted her eased into the job and not overwhelmed her first day there.

After two weeks, Shayla felt comfortable with her coworkers and relaxed in the atmosphere. A new running joke emerged at the thrice-weekly editorial meeting. Someone always piped up at the brainstorming session with “kinky sex practices” as their idea. On Shayla’s third Monday, Kimberly came to the meeting with a handful of papers, printouts from a website.

She handed them out. “We keep talking about this, so I thought you’d be interested in knowing more. Looks like this area, from just north of Tampa down to Naples and even over to Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale, has a pretty large kink population of various kinds. Did you know one of the largest and oldest fetish trade conventions is held in Tampa every year in late summer?”

Shayla read the paper. It was a printout from a site for a local BDSM group called the Suncoast Society. Very plain, without a single naked person anywhere on the page. It contained a few announcements about their monthly Munch, whatever that was, calendar updates for a play party—she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was—and links and contact information.

Bill sat back in his chair and read the paper. “Okay, now let’s talk about this for a few minutes. This is giving me a few ideas. Some of you remember we did a profile on Joe Redner, that strip club owner up in Tampa, when he ran for a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission a few years ago. That was one of our best-selling issues ever. The web article received a ton of hits, too.” He went quiet for a moment before looking around the room. “Ideas?”

Now that the boss was seriously considering this, some of the staff went silent.

“Oh, don’t go all chicken on me now.” He looked at Shayla. “What do you think? You’ve been here long enough to see how we run things. Feel free to chime in.”

She shrugged. Frankly, she’d seen too much sex of the kinky kind to last her a lifetime. Especially when it cost her a hundred dollars to have her computer wiped clean of the crap after James downloaded porn to it the first time. In addition to the credit cards she’d be paying off for too damn long from the second time, thanks to him. And all the other related niceties that went along with that.

Like cancelling her wedding and having to face her family and friends and tell them why. She had refused to let James off the hook for the pain he’d caused her the second time. She’d been honest that she was dumping him due in no small part to all the money he’d cost her…and exactly how he’d spent it.

“There’s a lot of roads to explore,” she eventually hedged. “You could do a running series.” She hesitated. “Porn addiction.” That was a subject she knew all too well. “Internet hookups.” She held up her copy of the printout. “Kinky lifestyle stuff.”

Bill scrunched up his face and turned his gaze to the ceiling. Everyone went silent, recognizing his “deep in thought” face.

After a moment, he spoke. “I like that.” He still stared at the ceiling. “I like that a lot,” he said with a nod. “An ongoing series.” He looked at everyone at the table. “Let’s seriously consider this for a few minutes. We’ve hit a plateau on web hits over the past few months now that the elections are over. Housing market’s still in the tank, bad news there. Economy sucks. Jobs are down. People aren’t really paying that much attention to the fancy high-end lifestyle stories right now. Our biggest web hits the past few months are for the stories on entertainment and anything remotely related to sexual issues. There’s also that Fifty Shades trilogy that’s so popular.”

He looked at Suzanne. “Can you pull up those web stats Barry sent you?”

She nodded and did it, then hooked her computer to the projector. Bill stood, dimmed the lights, and walked over to the wall where the figures were displayed. “Right here,” he pointed. “See the trend? Every time we run a story remotely having to do with sex we get a spike in traffic. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.” He looked at his staff. “Now, I’m not saying we need to turn into Playboy or Hustler , but let’s chew on this for a while longer. Anyone have anywhere they need to be right now?”