Free The Hinky Bearskin Rug by Jennifer Stevenson Page B

shameless — it
embarrassed Jewel to discover that the shamelessness she prided herself on was
small town stuff. On the red velvet dais, the panting Tokyo Twins offered the
camera proof of their high level of satisfaction. The photographer leapt and
snapped and yammered. Sancho pulled out his, holy crap, his ten inch thing and
experienced his moment of triumph, which seemed like an anticlimax, all things
considered.
    Jewel
reluctantly turned back to see what her sex demon might be getting up to with a
porn star. She found Clay watching her.
    “Bored?” she
blurted.
    He shook his
head, smiling at her.
    “I can’t
believe you’re not looking at this.”
    “Seen it. My
Dad’s collection is legendary.”
    “Oh.” There
didn’t seem to be much to say to that. She leaned closer to him, and he put his
arm around her. That felt nice. She might be the fattest woman in the room, but
somebody wanted to cuddle her.
    “Okay, we’re
done!” somebody yelled.
    Sancho and the
Tokyo Twins got up and calmly wiped themselves down with pop-up moist
towlettes.
    “They seem to
like their work,” Jewel said lamely.
    The assistant
checked her watch. “Onika, I’m due upstairs.”
    “Go, go.”
Onika shooed her off.
    Flash Titty
moved languidly to the dais. A man in a bear suit already stood waiting for
her. The suit had a very realistic bear head and claws, but a human body part
poked through a hole in the bear’s fly. Another man was getting into a weird
outfit that looked like a porn version of a Disney version of a Brahma bull.
The bull guy had not, Jewel noted, been circumcised.
    “They love
their work. Hard to believe, I know,” Onika said, eyeing Jewel with irony. “Nice
girls should have more shame.”
    Jewel laughed
uneasily. She felt like her blush system had blown a circuit breaker.
    To her
profound relief, Onika led them out of the studio. “Come upstairs. You must
have some questions by now.”
    In the
elevator, Jewel said what had to be said. “You know, I always thought I was
this balls-to-the-wall horny city girl. I mean, I’ve been around. But I sure
feel small town here.”
    “It’s the
concentration,” Onika said. “There’s just so much of it in one place. I was a
bad girl myself, back when I was young and fuckable.” She elbowed Jewel and
dropped her growly voice another notch. “But half the fun of being a bad girl
is being the only one in the room, yah?”
    Jewel burst
out laughing. Clay smiled a discreet smile. Girl
talk doesn’t embarrass Clay, she remembered.
    Randy was
brick red. He stared rigidly at the elevator doors, his lips pressed together.
    In Onika’s
office, Jewel accepted a gin and tonic from their hostess. Clay took a beer.
Randy refused refreshment.
    Jewel sighed. “Okay,
I admit I had other expectations. I mean, frankly, that stuff is kind of tacky
and it didn’t turn me on,” she lied. “It was so, I don’t know, mechanical? But
it wasn’t horrible.”
    Onika jabbed
the air triumphantly with her cigarette holder. “That’s because that stuff is
for men. Our print stuff is still done for the male readership.” She put a
cigarette in the holder and drew flame onto it. “But upstairs.” She sat back
and blew a smoke ring amd grinned, sipped her Scotch, blew another ring, and
started coughing. “Hell.” She hit a button on her phone. “Honey, get me a press
goodies bag for Hot Pink Studios.”
    “Ma’am,
please, no.” Here it came. What did you
expect? You go in on a fishing trip, you have to dodge bribes from the fish. “We can’t accept—”
    But Onika
gestured and the assistant handed the bag to Jewel.
    “Ma’am,” Jewel
began again, holding up a palm.
    “Miss,” Onika
corrected. “I want to give you these so you can see what I’m trying to do with
this company. It’s not a brand new idea, but it’s new to Artistic. You know the
old joke? What’s the difference between porn and erotica? Porn is what turns
you on, erotica is what turns me on.