Jennifer Rae - Sex, Lies and Her Impossible Boss

‘The Australian public need this show,’ she ended, her voice higher than before. She cleared her throat and swivelled her eyes to Gordon, who was smiling at her. Although leering seemed a more apt description.

‘Is that so?’ He turned away and set his glossy looks onto Cash. ‘Well, Anderson, Miss Harris here would know. She is the resident sexpert—or so they say.’ He tittered at his joke. As did Matty and half the other people in the room. She knew what they thought of her. The oversexed girl who reported on fetishes, orgies and polyamorous marriages. She’d heard all the nicknames. Fellatio Faith. Horny Harris. But she knew what she was. A good reporter. A vital part of this organisation. A woman who wasn’t afraid to talk about sex and relationships and love. And she wasn’t ashamed of what she did. But she was sick of having to defend herself at every meeting she went to lately. The chair scraped on the polished wood as she stood.

‘You’re wrong about this, Cash. The Australian public want to know about sex and love and relationships and communication. They want to know how to save their marriage. They want to feel like they’re not freaks and that they can explore their sexuality without feeling they’re doing anything wrong. And they’re sick of watching grown men play games with their balls!’

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Every eye was on her. Felicity—the producer of the breakfast programme—snorted and covered her mouth. Faith’s chest heaved. Her breasts strained against her shirt as it lifted up and down. She let her eyes lift to Cash and he stood there watching her. His eyebrow still cocked, his expression unreadable. Then she felt the breeze as the next button on her shirt popped open and exposed her bra to the table. The one Betty had given her. The one with the bows on the nipples.

‘Bloody hell!’ she cried before tugging her shirt back together, taking one final look around and fleeing from the room.

TWO

When he walked up to her desk, Faith was packing her coffee mug into a brown box. He recognised the mug. It was covered in red kisses and was usually full of black tea. He wondered why she bothered to make it as she always had to tip it out when it went cold.

‘What are you doing, Faith?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m packing.’

He decided to bite. Faith had a tendency to make him do that. She never agreed with him. She fought him on everything. It should irritate him, but it didn’t. Out of all the new employees he’d met in the last month it was Faith who interested him the most. She was smart and she told it as it was. And she never sucked up to him.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m leaving. You obviously don’t want me here. You don’t get what I’m trying to do so I’m going to go somewhere where I’m understood. Where I’m appreciated.’ Her eyes were glassy. She was emotional. Faith was the type of woman who wore her emotions like a pair of very high heels. She teetered around on them. Fell over them. They got in the way. Which was one of the reasons he was canning her segment. She’d lost her edge. She’d become too invested.

‘I appreciate you, Faith.’

‘No, you don’t. You think what I do is pointless and stupid. Which is why you want to replace me with sport.’

His eyes flicked to her shirt. She’d found a pin or something to do it back up but he could still see the curve of her breasts. He remembered those bows and swallowed hard, bringing his eyes back up to hers. She suited her segment. Sexy Sydney. But she’d suit something else. Maybe the weather.

‘I don’t want you to leave, Faith. I’ll find you something else. You’re a good reporter.’

‘What? Are you going to find me a position as the weather girl? Make me dye my hair blond and giggle as I point to a high westerly blowing right up my skirt?’

Cash resisted the urge to laugh. Faith was funny. And quick and clever and he wondered why the hell she didn’t want to move on. Why she was so determined to stick to the sex show that just wasn’t working.

He’d been trying to get more advertisers to support the programme but they were hesitant. The content veered from quirky and amusing to deep and heavy from week to week. He wondered who was helping her produce the show—he needed to look into that. Maybe it was a production problem. The real problem, he suspected, was that, like him, audiences were just not that interested in nonsense like love and relationships and the various types of dildos. Everyone knew love didn’t really exist. Everyone except Faith, who thought it made a difference when couples perked up their sex life with handcuffs.

‘I’m sure we can find you something else. Something you’d rather be doing.’

‘What I want to do is this. My Sexy Sydney show. I’ve built up a following. People love my reports.’ She could talk as fast as a used-car salesmen, he’d give her that. She was engaging; she made you actually start to believe the drivel she was spouting. Her show was—at times—brilliant. But lately the content was getting too heavy. She’d actually cried on camera last week when interviewing some sex workers. Too emotional. Admittedly, she did seem to have a huge following if the comments on their Facebook page was anything to go by. Most people she came in contact with seemed to be under her spell. But he wasn’t most people.

‘It’s just sex, Faith.’

Her eyes burned into him. He hadn’t noticed before but they weren’t brown as he’d thought they were. They were very, very dark blue. An unusual colour that reminded him of the ocean out at the front of his apartment late at night. As the wind blew and the waves fell against the cliffs.

‘There’s no such thing as “just sex”, Cash. Sex always means more than just sex.’

Cash’s lip curled into a half-smile as he watched her determined face. Once upon a time he’d thought sex was more than just sex. When he was much younger. But now he knew better. Sex was just sex. His mind snapped back; he didn’t want to even think about what else sex could be.

‘No. Sex is sex. It’s a physical union between two people who find themselves horny and in the same place at the same time.’

Her lips opened to form an O. Pink, full lips. He sucked in his bottom lip and shifted. He liked to tease her. Her creamy white English skin always turned a delightful shade of pink when he teased her. But he hadn’t noticed how full her lips were before.

‘You really believe that, don’t you? You really think sex is just sex?’ Her eyes flashed.

‘Yes. I really believe that.’ He knew the truth. Love didn’t exist. Lust, mutual attraction—that was what he believed in. And lust had caused him absolutely no pain the last nine years so he was sticking with it. ‘It’s time you let it go, Faith. Find something else. Move on. You never know—you might find something you’re really good at. Current affairs maybe?’

‘I’m really good at sex!’ Her voice rang out at the precise moment everyone got off the phone and paused. Her eyes opened wide, and she turned a shade of beetroot, horrified, as a couple of the jokers who were supposed to be working laughed.

She turned away and bustled with her things. Heat rose in his face. She’d have to learn to toughen up if she wanted to work in this industry. He’d suffered rejection, ridicule and censure every day and if she was going to survive, she’d have to stop blushing and fumbling every time she got embarrassed.

He didn’t want her to give up. This station was riddled with idiots. That was why it was in trouble. That was why they’d called him back over here. Faith was one of the few he wanted to keep on. But she had to step up. He moved closer and decided it was time he made her step up. He didn’t want her to give up, so he did the only thing he could do: threw her right in the deep end and watched to see if she could swim.