Chapter 114

Adam was asleep well before the successful reopening of the Cassie Charms and Rita Looker web sites. At least he assumed it was successful. No one woke him up to tell him otherwise. It was strange for him to go to sleep alone but he managed. He was surrounded by naked and near naked females when he awoke and he vaguely remembered their arrival in the middle of the night.

All the females had the same reaction when Allie dropped two copies of Peaches Magazine's Summer Edition on the coffee table at the main house. Sean and Walt only had to satisfy two of them; Adam was left with the rest – excluding Meredith, Tyanna, Katey and Leslie, who wandered off with Jason and Cameron at varying intervals.

By the time Karlie had managed to coax one final drop out of Adam's sore nuts, he was exhausted – despite having spent close to five hours in bed.

No one even moved when Adam got up for his morning shower before his first day of summer classes. He was the only one with a 9 a.m. start, so the rest of them would usually sleep a while longer. No one at either house appeared to have awoken by the time he caught the bus to campus.

The parking situation still hadn't been resolved. Sean had called Kirk Van Dover, the owner of the lot next to them, to tell him that $25,000 would be OK. Van Dover then announced he had decided the property was worth at least $35,000 – and Sean told him the group would pass. He had an idea why Steve Rayburn hadn't liked dealing with the oily fucker from Texas.

That left the group with one reserved parking space – the driveway at the second house for six cars that were there all the time and for four more that showed up frequently. The main house had two spots off the street but those were open to whoever got there first. There were several times the neighbors on the next block had wound up parking in front of the converted duplex.

It just wasn't working but no one had any suggestions. Sean and Rachelle had investigated the possibility of purchasing a lot nearby but none were for sale. Sean's next plan was to try to get the county to let the group purchase the lot on the other side of the main house but all he had managed to accomplish was to get bounced around from bureau to bureau – because although everyone was sure the county owned it, no one in county government could decide why the county owned it, let alone if the county could part with it.

Celina had made inquiries on Subarctic's behalf and met with the same problem. But she was on the case and Adam figured it would be resolved soon. He doubted, however, that it would be resolved in a fashion that Subarctic found pleasing.

Adam's political science class was taught by a Communist, he decided as he headed toward the library at 11. The woman was adamantly opposed to the free-market system – despite the fact that academics in the socialist regimes were not highly regarded or compensated. She also seemed to think that every major problem in the world was a direct result of some action (or inaction) on the part of the United States government.

"My God!" a young woman muttered as she hurried to catch up to Adam on the way to the library. He had seen her in his class but he didn't know her. "That is going to be brutal!"

"Yeah," Adam replied. He was a master of witty repartee.

"She probably has a hammer and sickle on her wall at home," the girl continued. Adam had heard of the Soviet Union, of course, and he knew what the hammer and sickle represented. But he hadn't heard in used in conversation before.

"Poli sci major?" he wondered.

"Hell, no," the girl said with a wince. "Journalism but I have to take a general political science elective. Why I picked this one, I'll never know. By the way, I'm Hannah St. Cloud. I know you're Derrick Driller but I didn't catch your name in class."

Adam stopped abruptly causing Hannah to walk past him.

"Sorry, I guess I sort of blurted that out," she said. "You might know me as Sadie Strutt. I thought you might recognize me."

"Sorry, no," Adam admitted. "I... , well, I don't really know people unless I've worked with them. I think someone called to see if I could do a scene with you once but it didn't work out."

"Femmes on Patrol," Hannah said. "It was a shame, too. The guy Carmen cast was a complete weasel. I tried to tell her that I thought you told her the truth. I mean, a shoot at 4 o'clock in the damned morning? That was ridiculous. The place she rented was awful. It smelled like stale cum; plus the owner let it slip about what was happening and about 40 people showed up to watch. It took us six hours to get the scene shot and then we had to fake the pop. The poor bastard couldn't do it. Anyway, I saw you and thought I'd say hi."

"Hi," Adam replied. He wasn't sure why the girl was still walking beside him.

"Done anything interesting lately?" she asked.

"I worked with Sahara again yesterday," Adam replied. "'Best Breasts in the West.' It went well. I am doing another set for 'Bountiful Assets' tomorrow."

"'Bountiful Assets?'" Hannah wondered.

"Used to be 'Chubby Chasers, '" Adam replied. "They changed the name to better reflect their content."

Hannah gave him an appraising look.

"They must pay you really well," she said after a moment.

"Standard," Adam said with shrug.

"You work with the big 'uns for standard?" Hannah asked.

Adam bit his tongue to keep from saying something hurtful. Hannah was not a petite girl. She was attractive in her own way, but she had a roll of fat around her stomach that none of the women in his life did.

"See, that's what I was talking about with the name change," Adam said, deciding it was the best way to handle the situation. "It's not about the morbidly obese. It might have been when the site first opened, but it's not any longer. The first woman I worked with was maybe 15 or 20 pounds above her ideal weight. She was tall, probably 5-10 or so, and maybe 180 pounds. But she was proportioned nicely. Tomorrow I'm working with a woman who is 5-3 and about 130 or 140. The still photos I've seen of Margo Catchings – the woman I'm working with – show that she's rounded but she's not a 'big 'un' by any stretch."

"Oh," Hannah said. "Wow, I sounded like a complete and total bitch there, didn't I? I'm not really. Well, maybe I am but I try to hide it better. I'm really sorry, uh, did you tell me your name?"

"Adam," he replied. It wasn't like she couldn't look on the attendance sheet and find it. "It's OK. When the assistant at Five Friends Casting heard 'Chubby Chasers, ' she thought the same thing. But I'd seen the site before. It's like the other end of the spectrum from 'Sporty Spinners.' I'm doing a scene for them next week, Wednesday I think."

"Who with?" Hannah asked. She had never had a conversation of any importance with a male in the industry before. But this guy hadn't even blinked when she said her name. He didn't ask her to head to his apartment or suggest they find a vacant stairwell. He just nodded and went on with what he was doing.

"Ashley Malibu and Cassie Charms," Adam replied. He hated that he appeared to be name-dropping, but she had asked.

"Sounds like it will be a good one," Hannah said. "So, are all the rumors true?"

Adam held out his hands in a questioning manner. There were so many rumors floating around that he didn't even know half of them let alone if they were true.

"You did a scene with Rita Looker and Cassie Charms together?" Hannah said. "I saw online today that their sites reopened with Rita Looker's first real hardcore scene, but I didn't get the chance to see for myself."

"Yeah," Adam admitted. "We went up to Vegas over Spring Break and shot that one. There is another boy-girl ready for her site plus there is a scene involving the other girls at 'Sweet Things.'"

"What's that?" Hannah wondered.

"Oh, the new web site domain," Adam answered. He was almost to the library and he wasn't sure he liked Hannah St. Cloud. He found her inquisitiveness to border on nosiness. "Rita, Cassie, Ashley, Sahara, Michelle Foxx and Jenny Cinnamon are all on one host now."

"No kidding?" Hannah said. This news caught her off-guard. Cassie Charms and Rita Looker were notorious for being protective of their 'brands'.

"Yeah, it's a pretty big deal," Adam said. "They re-launched last night at midnight. I guess it went OK. I didn't hear otherwise."

"So you like talk to them and stuff?" Hannah asked as if the concept was foreign to her.

"Pretty much every day," Adam said. "Well, I need to read some. I'll see you tomorrow."

He walked into the library and left Hannah St. Cloud standing in front with a perplexed look on her face. She hadn't even gotten the chance to ask him about the movie he was supposedly involved in.

Adam was surprised Hannah didn't follow him into the library. She seemed like the type to do that and he wondered if she would get the chance to practice journalism for anything other than a porn-related blog. She certainly could ask questions at a rapid pace.

The rest of the crew showed up shortly after noon – in much better spirits than Adam was in – and they drove back to the houses.

Hannah St. Cloud's inquisition still bothered Adam, but Rebecca was the only person in the industry that Adam could question about his new acquaintance – given the fact that she was the only adult performer in the car. Rebecca had never worked with Sadie Strutt and knew nothing about her.

They would have made it home in time to catch the others, but they wound up parking three blocks away after driving around looking for an open space.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Adam muttered as he trudged up the hill. He and Walt carried the girls' backpacks but that was going to change if this became an everyday occurrence.

"Let's just knock down the garage at the second house and pave the backyard," Adam suggested. Walt simply shook his head. The garage was attached to the house and it would create a host of issues if they simply tore it down. Plus, it gave Walt a place to store the tools that wouldn't fit in the workshop or that he didn't want around paint, grease or dirt.

The second flight of students had at least left lunch for them, so the rest of the crew chattered while Adam stewed in silence.

"Dude, even once we find a place it's going to be a month or more before we can get it fixed up," Walt said. "Do you plan to be pissed off for that long?"

"Maybe," Adam said. "It pisses me off that those cars parked out front aren't even residents around here. They're a couple of guys who hang out a few blocks over. Hell, they've been parked there since last Monday."

Walt shrugged. There was nothing to be done about it and getting angry wouldn't help.

"So you think we should let that asshat in Texas hold us hostage?" Shelly wondered.

"No," Adam admitted. "But I wouldn't mind kicking the shit out of him. I can't believe we can't get a straight answer from the county."

Rebecca shook her head quickly and rolled her eyes.

"Really?" she asked sarcastically. "You're talking about one 2400-square-foot lot in a county that has close to 10 million people. Celina is doing a deed search this week. She'll track down which agency actually owns it and she'll make an offer. It's not like the county you came from where everyone knows everyone. It will take a little time but it will get done. Just have a little patience."

The remonstrations didn't do much to improve Adam's mood but he took a deep breath.

"How is your web site going?" he asked.

"Really great!" Rebecca said. "We've seen a 300 percent increase in traffic and the subscriptions for all the sites are going through the roof. Mary said we had 2,000 new subscriptions from midnight to 8 a.m. Did you remember to call the guy at Peoples?"

Adam nodded. He had alerted Travis Dillworth about the potential influx of transactions but Travis said it would be fine. The other four participants had about 2,000 subscribers between them – and each had pocketed about $3,900 the previous month after taxes and fees. Most of the subscribers had at least gone for the Double Scoop of Orange Sherbet (since deciding on the name "Sweet Things," Mary had the site set up like an ice cream shop) and paid out $30 for a membership to two sites – usually Ashley and Sahara's. But the ones who chose the $20 Hot Fudge Sundae mostly joined Jenny or Michelle's site. Adam was perplexed because there seemed no real pattern to the purchases.

The Extra Large Vanilla Waffle Cone package ($40 a month for three memberships) had about a dozen subscribers and the Half Gallon of Fudge Ripple ($50 a month for all four sites) had only two. Two new options, the Banana Split with Whipped Cream and a Cherry ($65 for five sites) and the Sweet Tooth Special ($75 a month for all six) had yet to be unveiled when Adam went to bed the night before.

A special section for individual video downloads – uploaded with an unnamed protection program since the rights to the name Polar Power went with the product – was set up for anyone who could produce a credit card. A spirited discussion had taken place before the girls decided to charge the same price for individual scenes that they did for a membership to a single site – where the video would be available if it involved that performer. Adam thought the price should be lower but he really had no say in the matter. This was solely under the auspices of the individual web site proprietors. The ownership of the sites belonged entirely to the girls in question. Subarctic provided the host but they had no control over the pricing or the content – a fact that made Adam very happy.

"I'm doing my first member's chat tonight," Rebecca said. "I had a burst e-mail set up for all the old members of my site. Those who kept their membership current when I wasn't posting anything new got six months free at my new site. Leslie did the same thing and the other girls offered them one free month at theirs. I thought that was really sweet of them."

"I thought it was really savvy," Walt commented. "They get one free month. They're going to come back. They might drop off for a month or two but they'll be back to the others' sites. It only makes sense. They were paying what, $30 a month for your site. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it. I'm sure it was. That gets them two sites now. It would make sense for them to alternate which two sites they belong to each month. I would. I would bounce from site to site and acquire all the new material every third month. But I'm a cheap bastard anyway."

"There is going to be a ton of pissed-off people when they try to share the content," Shelly warned. "I got a half-dozen e-mails last month from members complaining that their videos didn't work. I asked them if they read the warning at the site and when they tried to upload it somewhere. A couple got really nasty. I offered to return their money if they would let me inspect the file to ensure they didn't attempt to upload it somewhere. They passed but told me they would never join my site again."