The entire crowd stops talking or it looks like even thinking. They turn to me.

I swear, it's like a single organism or something.

I gulp.

“After all,” I say as I walk toward the podium. “Only I get to spank them and that’s during sex.”

Where the hell did that come from?

What am I even doing here?

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea?

I can't do this. Can I?

Wait, what am I talking about.

You're right. Of course I can do this.

I take a few deep breaths. They're still staring at me, but you know what?

Fuck them.

There. Channeling my inner Sloan Hardman while I'm walking up to the podium.

After all, I've started my own company. Not just a bakery or a coffee shop either.

No, nothing like that. I started my own sex toy company.

I made my own way in the world, doing what I loved. I said fuck you to the establishment. To the man. To everyone who told me I needed to get a job or get married.

My entire life is a testament to the fact that I don't need to do what the world expects me to do. Instead, I only need to do what makes me happy.

See, that's what the world doesn't seem to understand.

They think because there are some things that everyone is doing that it's the only path. And that anyone who doesn't follow that path is doing something wrong or must be some sort of deviant.

Yes, I worked in an office. On Wall Street. In the world of high finance. I did it after graduating from Stanford. I did everything that people said I should.

And I hated every minute of it.

That's why when you first met me, it wasn't at the offices of Carter Jeffries on Wall Street as a private equity banker.

It was right after I got the Penny Worlein Toys order. Remember? When I started to use the bullet that was synced to my Kindle?

God, it seems so long ago.

And now here I am. My feet are moving of their own accord up to the raised podium that Drake and Sloane are standing behind.

I see their eyes on me.

For once, Sloane doesn't look like he wants to rip my clothes off. I wonder if I should be worried. But no, the look of lust isn't there.

It's replaced with concern. And worry.

He loves me.

I look over to Drake.

He loves me too.

They both love me. They both care for me.

And you know what? I love both of them. For different reasons.

Drake is strong. Silent. Stable. Always in control. He's an alpha male that will always protect me.

Sloan will always protect me as well. But he's confident to the point of cocky. He's a bad boy. Dirty. Filthy. But he lives for the moment and he will always put my pleasure above anything else.

By themselves, any woman would be lucky to be with them.

Together, I'm in heaven.

It's precious. So precious that I can't let anything take it away from me.

I have to defend it.

"Hello, everyone," I say into the microphone. "My name is Natalie Vanderhill. And I make sex toys for a living.”

Sound familiar?

The reporters are buzzing and the flash photography is going. I know Sloan was probably complaining about this, wasn't he?

For someone who is flashy himself, he really doesn't like cameras. Place a few cameras together and he's talking about a thousand suns or whatever.

Although, I don't know how he handled the bit when he was up here, because these photographers are having a field day.

"I graduated from Stanford University and went to work at Carter Jeffries three years ago," I begin and the crowd starts to quiet down. "But I didn't want to work for someone else. So I began to work in an area that I loved. Sex."

A small murmur, but I think I'm not saying anything new at this point.

"I loved what I did and became successful enough that I began getting large orders, form places like Penny Worlein Toys," I speak into the microphone. "But that kind of scaling on a business needs funds. A level of financing that I didn't have."

People seem to be hanging on my ever word.

And they better. Because what I have to say is going to shock them.

It's going to shock you too. But just stick around. You're going to like it.

"Anyways, I had the good fortune however of having the acquaintance of two men—Drake Carlton and Sloane Hardman, who are ensconced in the world of finance and start-up funding."

The mention of Sloane and Drake gets some cameras rolling.

"I went to both, and at first my goal was to secure the best possible deal for my company," I say into the microphone before looking over at them. "Did I play them off against each other?" I ask, more to them than to the crowd.

"Sure," I answer rhetorically. "But both men were dashing, good looking, and confident. In their own way, both made me feel sexy. No one can blame me for wanting to feel sexy and wanted."

There are some murmurs among the crowd. I'm starting to win them over.

But it doesn't matter.

Because by the time I'm done, this will be all over.

"Did I sleep with them?" I ask, and let the question hang in the air.

"Sure," I say out loud.

You remember those thousand suns I made fun of Sloane about to you a few minutes earlier?

Well, I take it back.

The flashes are blinding.

But I go on.

"Did I have sex with both at the same time? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. Will I do it again? You bet. Do I care what you think?" I finish with a question and the crowd looks at me with bated breath. "Not one bit."

There's a collective sigh. It's like the air has been let out of a balloon.

"Honestly, if you think this is bad, you need to hold a mirror up to your own lives and look at what you're doing," I say into the microphone. "Explain to me why it's wrong for me to love a man who at one time was married to my mother but is in no way related to me. Or to love a man who had a completely different mother and only knew me or another older man through marriage. Are we saying that's wrong now? Because that sounds pretty silly to me."

I swear you could hear a pin drop.

"Are we saying threesomes are bad?" I ask again, with incredulity. "Because that would mean that everything we prize as a culture is wrong. Or is it just that one man with two women is okay, but one woman with two men is bad?"

Now they're starting to look at each other.

"And since when do we as a people start tearing down love and start celebrating betrayal?" I ask aloud.

Now the people are looking at me with puzzlement. And here it comes.

"Let me tell you what it is that I make, because I don't make just your average sex toy," I say into the microphone and smile. Here it comes.

"My sex toys can do a number of things. They can track what you're reading on the Kindle or any other e-reader. They can sense what web page your visiting on your tablet. All this is designed so that they can stimulate you at the appropriate times and you don't have to," I explain.

"One of the things they can do if someone is so inclined, is to record sounds," I say and take a pause. "At first, I put in the functionality in case you want to ever hear yourself moan after you cum."

People are starting to squirm now. I'm talking about sex. Oh no. What kind of lady does that in public?

Fuck that.

As you can tell, this whole thing with Drake and Sloan has gotten me to the point where I am just done.

Seriously, I don't have any more fucks left to give.

Which is why I bring the hammer down hard.

"Let's just suppose that I was wearing such a toy—a bullet, actually—on a certain occasion when my mother came to visit me in my apartment," I say, and reach into my pocket and retrieve the tiny appliance.

"And let's just say that it was set to record any sort of sounds or speech that occurred near me," I say with a mischievous smile.

There's no more need to say anything. I push a button on my phone and hold the bullet close to the microphone. There's a few seconds of static and then you can hear some rustling.

I fast forward to the point where I need to be.

You can now hear my mother's voice.

"Honestly, Natalie, I'm warning you," she says out loud. You remember this part right?

"If you don't get out of this filthy sex toy business, you're not going to be considered my daughter any longer," she screeches.

"And so what?" I shout back from the recording. "It's not like you were ever a mother to me!"

There's a sound of a slap.

"You ungrateful little bitch!" you can hear the yelling. "You better watch your back, baby girl. Because I'm about to destroy both you, your stepdad, and your stepbrother."

This is where I had drawn my breath at the anger in her eyes.

"I'll make the world hate you! To the point where they close your business down for you! And by the time I'm done destroying the three of you, they'll be wanting to make me a saint for putting up with you," Mom says. I'm lucky she was talking directly at me.

"You wouldn't," I say, shocked. "Not to your own family."

"I hate all three of you," she says. "And with the reporters I have in my payroll, you're going to watch Sloane and Drake suffer."

The sound of a door slamming shut comes out. That's where Mom left.

I turn off the bullet.

"Are you sure you're upset at the wrong people?" I ask with a smile.

There's a moment. A very brief moment of quiet.

And then ... chaos.

Flashes from cameras. People yelling questions. Shouting.

A few reporters who were yelling questions from the front are silent. They've gone a bit green.

No doubt they were working for Mom.

I watch them try to slink out. But the crush of the reporters and pedestrians who want to come closer is too much.

I'm about to take questions when I feel a hand on my back.

Drake is standing there. Sloane is smiling.

"You've done enough, Natalie," he says with a smile. "Let's leave them be and go upstairs."

I look to Sloane. He nods in agreement. A smile on his face and eyes that scan my body. He wants to rip off my clothes and fuck me.

Good.

We're back to normal.

I want this normal forever.