Chapter 535

“What’s up, motha ... OK, who died?”

Eric entered the office on a high note but thankfully read the room and realised something was up.

“Sabrina got called out by Garrison,” you said.

“We’re pretty sure it’s about Joy’s lawsuit,” Gemma added.

“Fuck,” Eric sighed and shook his head, moving towards his seat. “I guess it’s too much to hope the whole thing is getting tossed for being vexatious?”

“Doubtful,” you said. “It’s not like her mother would file a lawsuit without hitting the bare minimum requirements, and there’s enough of a case there to at least let the questions get asked. Sabrina did something, which resulted in personal injury to Joy. The context and the mitigating factors are for the court to rule on.”

“How was your weekend?” Gemma asked. “Did you do your podcast thing?”

“Yeah, it went really well,” Eric said. “I’m starting to become, like, a regular commentator. I need to start up my own podcast for real though so I can start monetizing it and shit, and have more networking opportunities. You’re still not really interested, John? A dude with two hot girlfriends - not to be rude, Gemma - would be a hit.”

“Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing, sorry,” you said.

“Ah, I’ll find someone back at school to do it with,” Eric sighed. “Or maybe some hot chick where we can bicker back and forth. Getting hot chicks onto the podcasts always raises the number of views, so a hot host has to be good, right?”

“OK, hold on,” Gemma said. “How the hell are these podcasts all about men being ‘alpha’s and shit getting attractive women to come on? Are they paying them or something?”

“It’s chicks who do OnlyFans, or strippers, mostly,” Eric shrugged. “They come on for the exposure. Even when they get torn to shreds because they say dumb stuff and are super delusional, they get big bumps in subscribers to their amateur porn. It’s a weird win-win cycle. Ooh, do either of you happen to know any amateur pornstars that might want to host the podcast with me? That could work well too.”

Sabrina, Becks, Amanda, Maeve, Nelli. The list of women you knew who had or were actively participating in sex work, or sex work adjacent, fields had grown significantly over the summer. Would Lucy count, with her trying to do the sugar baby thing?

“Sorry, don’t know any,” Gemma said flatly.

“I know a tonne,” you said jokingly. “Unfortunately they’re all booked up until sometime two years from now. It’s super hard to hang out when they just film scene after scene.”

“Harrharr,” Eric said. “I assumed if either of you did, it would be Gemma. You’re the man, John, but I don’t think you could handle a pornstar.”

Gemma coughed, clearly trying to cover her laughter.

“Anything else happen this weekend for you?” you asked Eric, changing the subject.

“Oh, yeah,” he shrugged. “Broke up with Casey.”

“That didn’t take long,” Gemma said. “What happened?”

Eric sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Apparently she’s kind of slutty? Like, she hooks up with podcast guests on a pretty regular basis, which was why she was encouraging me to have sex with other girls if I had the opportunity. I guess she figured if I was doing it, it was OK for her to do it or something?”

“That sucks, man,” you said. “Why wouldn’t she just tell you that’s what she wanted?”