Chapter 4

Thursday’s drive to the city was quite pleasant. Mary and I chatted about this and that for a bit then conversation slowly tapered off. We ended up mostly singing along with the radio. I had always thought that I had a good baritone singing voice so wasn’t shy to begin singing when a song I liked came on. It turned out that Mary wasn’t self-conscious about singing either and we both were belting out the tunes.

It wasn’t hard to find the office of Sarah Ersham, Esq. whose office I had made an appointment with. It was located on the third floor of a small office building just outside of downtown. Parking was easy and we made our way into the office just a little early.

Mary looked professional in her skirt and shirt combo and I had tried to match that style. I was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a collared long-sleeve shirt in green. My only pair of dress shoes were on my feet as was my only belt around my waist. I didn’t own a jacket or tie so it was the best I could do.

The reception area of the law office was nicely appointed. Soft beige carpet on the floors, various couches and chairs for clients to wait in, and a large wooden desk staffed by a well-dressed receptionist.

He pleasantly opened, “welcome to the law offices of Sarah Ersham. How may I help you?”

Mary looked at me so I answered, “I’m Dave and this is Mary. We have an appointment at ten.”

“Ahh, my apologies. I’m John.” John briefly glanced at his computer screen then continued, “I see your appointment here. You can have a seat and her paralegal will be out to get you soon.”

We nodded and sat together on one of the available couches. I had never really been in a law office before so I wasn’t sure what to expect but this wasn’t it. I leaned over to Mary and whispered, “It’s like the dentist’s office but with couches instead of plastic chairs.”

Mary laughed and pointed at a generic piece of art in a boring frame on the far wall. “I think my doctor has that on the wall of her waiting room too!”

I continued looking around, noticing the fake plants in the corners of the room and pointed them out to Mary. We were giggling to each other when a tall woman walked into the room and up to us.

“Mary and Dave?”

We nodded and Mary said, “that’s us.”

“I’m Dominique, please follow me.”

I think of Mary as being fairly tall and I was taller than she was. Dominique was several inches taller than that. Part of that were the heels she was wearing which were at least four inches long. Fitted pants brought attention to her long legs and her top looked similarly tailored. She carried herself well and looked statuesque rather than ungainly.

We were led into a small conference room with a table that looked like it could comfortably seat six or eight people. Windows dominated one entire wall and looked towards the taller buildings of downtown. Unlike a doctor or dentist visit, Sarah was already in the room when we entered.

“Welcome, I’m Sarah Ersham. Pleased to meet you” she said. She shook both of our hands and retook her seat. When she gestured to the two seats across from her Mary and I sat down as well. Instead of leaving the room Dominique sat next to Sarah and they both had what I think of as legal-sized notepads in front of them.

She looked younger that Dominique, maybe late twenties. Mousy brown hair served as a nest for a pair of glasses. She was wearing what I think of as a “woman suit.” It had a grey jacket, matching pants, and a pale orange blouse.

Sarah easily took the lead and began our meeting, “your appointment is to get help starting a business and making sure everything is set up correctly. Is that still what you are here for?”

Mary and I both nodded and I said, “yes.”

“Good. We specialize in business, especially small business, law so you’ve come to the right place. How far along are you in the planning? Do you already know what kind of business you want to start?”

I felt a little embarrassed answering so tried to be a little circumspect, “it’s an internet service subscription business and we’ve already started.”

“Ok, we can use that. Just to make sure, you don’t have a business plan or anything like that?” At our negative head shake Sarah continued, “where is your initial funding coming from? Do you need a bank loan?”

Mary and I looked at each other and I wondered if maybe we were jumping the gun by being here. I felt like Sarah was looking for a much more fleshed out and standard style business. I thought that I should explain what we had before we spent much more time.

“We have a website that we post videos on. Subscribers sign on and can view the posted content. Right now, we’re set up to collect $10.00 a month from each person signed up.”

Neither Sarah or Dominique had yet placed pen to paper and Dominique looked a little deflated after I spoke. Sarah was a bit more professional but I could tell that she was working at it.

Sarah asked, “are you sure you’re at the stage that you need a lawyer?”

I could tell that she wasn’t taking us seriously and worried that she was wasting her time with this first “free” consultation so I pulled a copy of our current bank balance and statement out of the folder I had brought and passed them across.

We were a couple of weeks into our startup and, as of the night before, we were at 3,652 subscribers. The account that the credit card payments showed almost $35,000 in incoming credits. The money wasn’t actually there yet as it took a while for the payments to fully clear but it would be soon.

“This is the account that the subscriptions are paid into. We’ve been up and online for not quite two weeks.”

It was somewhat gratifying to watch the change in demeanor come over Sarah and Dominique. Beside me, Mary looked self-satisfied as well.

Sarah seemed to adjust her thinking and asked, “this is your income after two weeks and you’ve just started?”

“Yup” Mary announced.

“We can definitely help you. I have a few more questions about the business and how it’s set up. First off, is it just the two of you or are there more people involved in this project?”

Mary continued to be the one to answer, “there’s just the two of us.”

“Ok, I have to ask you this because the two of you look so young, are you at least eighteen? I only ask because you are unable to sign a binding contract before then.”

“We’re both eighteen” Mary offered. She reached into the purse I didn’t really notice she had with her and emerged with her ID. I pulled mine from my wallet as well and we both passed them across for Sarah to see.

She took more than a cursory glance at them before passing them back. “Is it an equal partnership?”

“No, I’m getting eighty percent and Dave will get twenty.”

Sarah looked over to me for confirmation and I nodded. She then opened the laptop she had on the table next to her and turned it so all four of us could see the screen. I knew it was coming and sure enough she asked, “can you bring up the site so we can see exactly what you’re selling?”

Mary looked at me and blushed a touch but wasted no time typing our URL into the address bar of the open browser. Intimate Moments quickly loaded with our base homepage. The changed hair and skin color disguised the subject of the stills liberally strewn around the home page for barely a second before first Dominique and then Sarah gasped and looked back across the table at us.

I could tell that the two professionals were trying to control themselves but both of them were blushing. It was easy to see on Sarah’s face but a touch harder with Dominique’s darker skin tone. At first, I thought that they didn’t approve and were judging us, Mary in particular. They quickly disabused me of that notion.

“I, ahh” Sarah glanced at Dominique, “we are one of your subscribers.”

I felt a grin spreading across my face at that confession. “Does that make this a conflict of interest?”

“No” Sarah said. “It’s fine.” She glanced at Dominique once more, “we just didn’t think we would ever meet the model and yet here you are.”

It was quite the icebreaker. What followed was a good hour of discussion on how we wanted the business set up. We covered how we would be paid, what kind of insurance we would need, and a myriad of other topics. We talked about creating and maintaining records in accordance with the 2257 regulations even though we had yet to transition into truly sexually explicit material.

Sarah also gave us a recommendation for a tax accountant that she frequently collaborated with. The result of our discussions was that I was going to own thirty percent of the new business instead of twenty. This was because instead of paying us immediately, the business was going to directly fund Mary’s education which would be both before taxes that would have to be paid by the business and wouldn’t increase our own taxable income.

Sarah had us sign a bunch of things and said that she would mail us more things to sign and return. Mary asked that her set of forms be sent to my house as she didn’t want her mom to get ahold of them. Sarah then recommended that we get a post office box and call her with that address to both use for the business and have her send the paperwork to.

When we got back to the car Mary was smiling and giggling, “I can’t believe they watch my videos! Fans! I’ve met fans!” She was almost crying she was laughing so much. When she had calmed down a bit she asked, “can we stop somewhere for lunch before driving back? I’m starving.”

“We sure can. I also have another stop for us to make before we head home.”

“Oh? Where else are we going.”

“It’s a secret” I stated.

I started driving towards our next destination while looking for somewhere to eat. Mary kept wheedling me to tell her where we were going but I held firm. We ended up eating sandwiches and soup from a place at one end of a strip mall. After lunch, instead of returning to the car, I led Mary to the other end of the mall. When I opened the door to our destination Mary exclaimed, “Oh my god!”

The window displayed mannequins dressed in costumes. There were maids, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and more. All the costumes were very skimpy and overly sexualized. In addition, there were sex toys, bottles of lubricant, and soft-core bondage equipment.

As far as I could tell, Marcie’s was the biggest sex shop in the state and we were going shopping. I had to drag Mary through the door, not because she was apprehensive or embarrassed but because she was fascinated by the display.

While the store was sparsely populated, I still controlled my volume when I spoke. “We’re going to get to the point where you’re going to be playing with a toy sooner or later, probably sooner, and I thought we should get some now so that you can get comfortable using them.”