I pop my head around the corner into Kyle’s office and see him sitting there with his head in his hands.

“Rough night?” I ask. He looks up at me and I can see that he’s in no mood for jokes. “What’s up? Aren’t we going over these financial reports? I’ve been waiting in my office for a half hour.”

Kyle moves his hands over his face, then back up into his hair. “Sit down, man.”

“What’s going on?” I take a seat on a leather couch that’s identical to the one in my office, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I’ve never seen Kyle like this before. He can be thoughtless and self absorbed a lot of the time, but he’s usually pretty upbeat. Right now, with dark circles under his eyes and his face paler than I’ve ever seen it, he looks like complete hell.

“I found out why neither one of us has heard from Peterson in over a week.”

“Why? Did he take an extended vacation without telling us?”

“Yeah, you can say that.”

Kyle just sits there staring at me. After almost a minute I start to lose my patience. “What’s going on, Kyle?”

“Evan Peterson stole all of our money.”

“What? What are you talking about? Who’s money?”

“Our money,” he says as he points his finger back and forth between us. “The company’s money.” He circles his finger in the air.” All of it. It’s gone.”

“You mean in the corporate accounts?”

“Yes. All of them.”

“Payroll?”

“Yes.”

“The investments?”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying that all the money in every single one of our accounts is gone?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. The money has to be somewhere. Where the hell is it, Kyle?”

He puts his hands up in the air and shakes his head. “It’s gone, man. And so is Evan. He’s not answering his phone or his texts.”

“I can’t believe he would do this, Kyle. Do you think maybe he just hasn’t gotten them yet?”

“What I think is, he turned his phone off or threw it away or whatever criminals do when they don’t want to be found.”

“No, that’s not possible. He wouldn’t do that to us. There has to be a mistake.” I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. Evan is one of my best friends. There was a time back in college when the three of us were inseparable. My brain can’t compute any of what Kyle is telling me.

“There’s no mistake, Graham.”

“It’s gotta be a prank, then. You know Evan. He’s got a really fucked up sense of humor. Remember that one time—“

“It’s not a prank. The money’s gone, Graham. All of it.”

I sat there staring at Kyle’s pale face, then down at the financial report in my hand that’s dated a week ago. “It says here that, including the recent investments and the non-liquid assets, our company is worth almost one billion dollars. Billion, Kyle. Where the hell is this money?”

“If that includes the non-liquid assets, then technically, we’re not exactly out a billion.”

“Okay, how much is technically missing, then?” I ask.

“I don’t know, man. I’ve been combing through the accounts all night, and you know money isn’t necessarily my strong suit—“

“This happened last night? Why didn’t you call me when you found out?”

“I tried! Have you even looked at your phone today?”

I felt my pockets and realized I didn’t have it on me. “Damnit, I must have left it in my car. All right, so what’s the story? Did you call the cops?”

“Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Everything is at zero, Graham. Everything except for the main corporate account. That one is overdrawn by over twenty-thousand dollars.”

“Twenty-thousand dollars? What the hell? How are we overdrawn by that much? How is that even possible?”

“Well, that’s how I found out about all this. I happened to see an email alert from the bank late last night. The main account that we use for direct deposits and paying bills was overdrawn and it said the amount wasn’t covered by overdraft protection. I guess when we set it up my email was put on the account as a contact address, but since Peterson’s assistant was the one who always dealt with the accounts, and since apparently we’ve never been overdrawn before, I’d never gotten an email from them. Until last night. So I see this email and I call the bank first thing this morning and have them double and triple check every single one of our accounts. Everything was withdrawn over the last two days. Transferred to US accounts that are no longer open.”

“What, so the money was transferred in—“

“—then immediately transferred out to another account, yeah. The overdrawn amount on our account is for a bunch of monthly bills that just went through on autopay. Three months of utility bills, car company, temp company, cell phones. This isn’t even for last month’s payroll.”

“Fuck! So we don’t even have the money to pay anyone?”

“Not a dime. We are flat broke, my friend.”

“Holy shit, what are we gonna do, Kyle? How the hell did this happen? This is felony embezzlement! We need to call the cops!”

“Okay, but lets talk about it first.”

“What’s there to talk about? Jesus fucking Christ, if I get my hands on that fucking asshole … so his goddamned assistant was in on it too?”

“Yeah.”

“The one that—“

“—invested all our money, yeah. He not only took everything from the company, but he took every last dime of mine too.”

“Holy shit, Kyle. You gave him everything?”

“Well, I was expecting a massive payout after this financial meeting. I wanted to get in on that freaking crypto currency investment he was going on and on about, so, yeah, I gave him pretty much everything. I was gonna pay my condo off next month. You got in on that crypto thing too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, it looked legit to me,” I say. My head is spinning. I’m calculating how long I can live off of the money I have left in my bank account, but that isn’t anywhere enough to pay our employees. I’m horrified by the thought of having to let everyone go without paying them a cent.

“I’m sure it was legit, if we’d ever actually seen any of the money we made. How much did he get from you?” Kyle asks.

“A lot. I invested pretty much everything that wasn’t already in an old IRA and the account I have for bills and whatever.”

“How much?”

“How much what?” I ask, hoping Kyle isn’t asking what I think he’s asking.

“How much have you got?”

“Of my own money? I don’t know, maybe fifty grand.” I’m not even sure I have that much. Ever since I’ve had more than a million in savings I hardly ever look at my balance anymore.

“We’re gonna need it.”

There it is. “For what?” I ask.

“Bluetooth vibrators, for one thing?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We need to get our money back, Graham. I can’t be broke, and neither can you. If I don’t get a whole lot of money real soon I’m gonna be out on my ass. I’ll be living out of my fucking Lamborghini. And you know what kind of leg room those things have.”

“Well, it sure looks like we can be broke if we don’t have the money to pay our employees, Kyle. Why don’t you sell the damned Lamborghini?”

“Do you know what kind of loss I’d take on that thing? I’m not selling it until it looks like there’s no other option.”

“Well, start looking around, Kyle. I don’t have that kind of money. I have bills to pay too. Oh, Jesus, what about the rent on this building?”

“We’re actually payed up six months out. We got a break for paying for a full year, so we’re good there.”

“Oh, that’s great. We have an entire fucking building but no business. And after we tell them we can’t pay them, no employees, either.” I feel like I’m sinking in quicksand and the only person around me is talking about using my money to buy vibrators.

“We gotta get our money back, Graham.”

“Well, yeah, I agree, but how the hell are we gonna do that? Do you happen to know where Peterson went?”

“I’m not talking about getting it back from Peterson.”

“Well, what then? You have some magic formula for turning fifty grand into a billion dollars that I don’t know about?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, what then?” I loosen my tie and rip it off my neck, then unbutton the top two buttons. “Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack. I need a drink, you want one?”

“I’m way ahead of you,” Kyle says, picking up a tumbler with two fingers of scotch inside. “You know that idea I had?”

“Which one? You’ve have so many fabulous ideas it’s hard to keep track.”

“The one about the audition.”

“You wanna talk about that now? Are you joking?” I look at him while I’m pouring my drink and scotch goes all over the desk. I don’t bother to clean it up.

“No. I’m not. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

“You need to get your mind out of your pants and back on how were gonna find Peterson.”

“Forget him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to forget him? What do you suggest we do? I’m seriously baffled by the direction this conversation is taking now, Kyle.” I sit back down on the couch with the glass of scotch in one hand and a half-empty bottle in the other. I down what’s in the glass, then pour myself some more, this time drinking it a bit slower.

“What I mean is, forget about getting our money back from him. Forget about Evan Peterson for now. If he had this planned out, the chances are we aren’t going to find him. We need to come up with some money ourselves and we need to do it fast.”

“I’ll say. The balloon payment on my house is due next month. That’s over a million right there. If I don’t pay it I lose the whole thing.”

“Okay, so you can see that we need to move fast here, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. But I still don’t understand where this money is going to—“

“Just listen to me, Graham. I have an idea.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” I say, leaning back in the couch. I look down and realize I’m still gripping the bottle of scotch in one hand and ease it down onto the table next to me. I wonder if I’m having a panic attack. I’ve never had one before, but I can’t imagine describing the way I feel right now as anything other that sheer panic.

I close my eyes and hear Kyle’s voice like it’s coming from the other end of a tunnel. “This audition idea. The one with the girls who come here and compete—“

“Yeah, yeah, the subs who want to strip for us in the gym and suck our cocks—“

“Right. I think we should still do it. Only, instead of making it some sort of private audition that we hold between the two of us and the girls, we make it a full-on, online competition. A live streaming, x-rated, sex competition. One that makes us money, fast.”

I open my eyes and furrow my brows as I move my head to look at Kyle. “And how does this x-rated competition make us money?”

“The way anything online makes money. Monetization and subscriptions. We run the competition like a reality show, like that Sex Factor show. Only instead of videotaped episodes of people competing to be porn stars, we do a live stream of girls competing to win money … and to fuck us. That Sex Factor show had an audience who voted for the winners, but what we could do is monetize the voting system.”

“So, like where you text to vote and you get charged for the text?”

“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea, but this is more along the lines of the way cam girls operate. They get tipped for doing things like taking off their clothes or performing certain acts. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen those girls with the tip vibrators.”

“You’re going to have to fill me in, Kyle.” I say, letting my head drop back on the couch. I feel like I barely have the strength to hold my head up, let alone have this insane conversation.

“The cam girls have these bluetooth vibrators inside them, and for each token the viewer gives the girl, the vibrations either intensify or go for a longer time. The dudes are basically watching their money get the girls off. We can set it up so they can either pay for tokens or do individual charges on their credit cards or even Paypal. We can have a special VIP package with perks, and maybe offer a discount to dudes who buy tokens in volume.”

“But the girls don’t get any of the money.”

“No. We keep it all. We can even take bitcoin which means we might not have to worry about taxes.”

“I don’t understand that crypto currency stuff at all.” I say. “I don’t even know if I ever want to hear those words again after today.” I rub my face with my hand and try to understand how this is going to help us, although I just don’t see it working. “So, who are these viewers that are going to pay us all this money?”

“Dudes. Probably mostly young dudes, but my guess is this could appeal to just about anyone who pays for porn.”

“Porn? I don’t … you lost me. How is this porn? Are the girls going to be fucking someone?”

“That’s definitely an option. Like I said, we have a bunch of competitions. Some can be nudie shit, stripping and dancing. Some of it can be sub-related, like being of service or getting paddled. And some of them could be full on fucking. On camera.” I can see him getting more and more excited the longer we talk about this whole competition thing, but I’m still confused as hell.

“And you think there are girls out there who are going to be willing to do that?”

“If we make the prize big enough? Yeah, I know there are.”

“But we don’t have the money for the prize, Kyle! We barely have money to live for a month now!”

“The prize money is going to come from the money we make off the tips and subscriptions. That’s the way most of these things work. That and corporate sponsors.”

“That’s some pretty risky shit you’re suggesting there. What if we don’t make the prize money? Or what if we do, but that’s all we make? Then where will we be?”

“You gotta takes risks to make money, Graham. You know that.”

“But not this level of risk! This is loony bin level of risk taking here, Kyle. Seriously, it’s insane!”

“Do you have a better idea? If you do I’d love to hear it.”

Total silence. I would give anything for a really amazing idea to pop into my head now. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to organize an x-rated reality show, but I also don’t want to be flat fucking broke. I just want everything to go back to the way it was before I walked into this office a half hour ago.

“That’s what I thought. We both need money and we need it fast, and this is probably the best money-making idea I’ve ever had.”

“I don’t know about that. There just seems to be way too much grey area here. How are we going to set all of this up? How long will it take? Where will the girls stay? Will they be here or at a hotel? Who will pay for the hotel? Where are they going to eat? Are we going to feed them? How and where are we going to advertise? And …” I say as I sit all the way up and look at Kyle. “What if no one gives a shit about any of this?” I stop and gasp for air. I can feel my face getting hot and my heart racing. This is all too much. I feel like I’m way beyond a panic attack. In the last five minutes I’ve transition from mere panic into a full fledged nervous breakdown.

“Whoa there, killer. You’re gonna give yourself an aneurism. I’ve already thought about a lot of this. The rest we’ll figure out.”

“We’re gonna need at least a month to plan this whole thing. Market research, advertising, location—“

“No time for that, buddy. We’re doing this next weekend.”

“Today is Friday. You mean a week from today?”

“Yep. And we are doing it here, in the gym. And I don’t want to hear any liability crap. The setup in there is perfect. We’ve got the big screen TVs on the walls where we can stream what’s going on for atmosphere, we’ve got the lighting and sound system they used during the classes.” Kyle gets up and starts pacing around the room while I sink further into the couch. “We can blast music as loud as we want since this complex is out in the middle of nowhere and no one is gonna be around but us.” I see a gleam in Kyle’s eyes that’s beyond anything I’ve ever experienced with him before.

It’s becoming apparent to me that he’s more excited about this idea than anything he’s ever come up with in his life. Even the idea for the (now bankrupt) consulting firm we’re partners in. I’m afraid to even think it to myself, but, as he’s going over every detail of his plan, it’s almost as if he’s found his calling. I feel a little bad that he’s so focused on the idea when all I can think is how much I want to just lay back on the couch and prop the bottle of scotch up so the entire thing drains right down my throat.

“I’ll come up with the music intros and playlists,” Kyle says to the air in front of him with wild eyes. “I figure we blast some hip hop and trap—DMX, Run the Jewels, Wiley, Knife Party—you know, all that stuff that gives young dudes a boner even when there’s no porn around. We make the whole room as loud and chaotic and as freaking epic as possible. We can create a stage area and use the camera that we have for our video conferences and zoom in real tight on the girls so we won’t have to change the space much.” Kyle is almost ranting at this point. The longer he talks, the more I know that there’s no way I can say no. Even if I was still completely against the idea, I don’t think there’s a thing I could do to stop him now. And, he’s right. It’s the only idea we have. “There’s even a cafeteria attached to the freaking gym. And bathrooms with showers. It’s perfect!”

“But next weekend? That’s insane, Kyle. Why don’t we wait a couple of weeks? There’s just no way we can get this whole thing together in such a short amount of time.”

“We have to.” Kyle stops pacing and turns to me. “I already started putting out the calls for auditions. I’ve had hundreds of responses. Hundreds, Graham. This thing is gonna be huge! Bigger than huge!”

“Responses from who? Where did you post it?” As I’m asking these questions I start to calculate the time frame. If he found out about the money last night, how could he already have hundreds of responses? “Wait, when did you do this, Kyle?”

“I posted a little thing about the audition after we talked about it the other day.”

“What? I thought you said you were going to check with me before doing that. What happened to changing it until we both liked it? What about it totally working for us,” I say in a half mocking, half threatening tone. I’m too exhausted to argue with him, but I still feel like I’m drowning in a pit of mud and I’m fighting with my last bit of strength to survive.

Kyle just watches me settle back down on the couch after my mini tantrum before he continues. “I just wanted to put feelers out and see what kind of responses we’d get. That’s all.”

“But you already set a date!”

“Well, I had to make it look legitimate. In order to get serious responses I had to make it look as organized as possible.”

“So you already offered the money.”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“I already told you, five-hundred-thousand.”

I just stare up at the ceiling. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. I don’t understand how he could be so irresponsible. “Yeah, well I’m not sure how much I trust what came out of your mouth two days ago anymore. So, fuck, we have to come up with five-hundred-thousand dollars? From pay-per-token porn?”

“A million, actually.”

“A million dollars?”

“Well, there’s two of us. So two winners, right? Unless we wind up sharing one of them. Not like it would be the first time—“

“Kyle! This is insane! There’s no way we can even dream of coming up with that kind of money, no matter how many subscribers we get! You better start looking for someone to buy that damned car of yours.”

“You’re underestimating the potential here, Graham. And you’re seriously underestimating how much dudes want to watch women strip. Have you ever seen the profits that Chaturbate reports?”

“But you’re talking about not only an established business, but one of the most well known camming sites out there. And not only that, the fiscal reports are for an entire quarter. We’re talking a few days to a week for this thing, max!”

“Yeah, but were also talking about something that’s never been done before. This is fucking new, Graham, and it’s brilliant. Even if I do say so myself. What we’re talking about is a reality show that mixes The Sex Factor with Survivor, The Batchelor, American Idol and The Amazing Race! It has the competition incentive, as well as the naked girls doing all kinds of weird shit, but also another huge payoff at the end. This is going to be porn that the viewers can participate in, not just watch. With the voting and the vibrators, they’ll feel like they’re a part of the whole thing even though they’re sitting in the comfort of their own homes, jerking off. Who wouldn’t want that?”

“Have you done any research on this at all? I mean, is this even legal?” Suddenly calling the cops on Evan doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Kyle was right to wait. If we actually go through with this, it would look pretty bad if they showed up in the middle of some … I don’t even know what he has in mind now. Live streaming sex acts? I can’t believe I’m even considering doing this. “This just sounds too crazy, Kyle. There’s no way we can pull something like this off. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing here. It’s too risky and …”

I don’t think he’s heard a single thing I’ve said. He just starts talking right over me. “We could give it a super catchy name. Like Domination with an exclamation point. Or The Dom Games.”

“How about Who’s Your Daddy?” I say in a mocking tone, but Kyle looks at me like I just spoke the magic words that rolled back a rock and uncovered a hidden fortune. “Dude, that’s perfect.”

“Really? I was kind of joking—“

“No. We’ll call it The Daddy Games. Oh man, that’s so awesome! It’s the perfect blend of kink and reality TV show. Holy shit, I really think this is going to be epic, dude!”

“Quit saying epic. We’re not in college anymore.” I stare at the floor and push my hands through my hair, then just sit there for a while, holding my head. I can’t believe this is my life now. “Okay, I’m really afraid to ask you this, but what is this huge payoff at the end?”

I can tell I’m not going to like it when I have to wait more than ten seconds for Kyle to say anything. “We fuck the winners. Live.”

“We?!” I look up at Kyle, who is smiling now. His eyes are still wild, and that, coupled with the smile, makes him look like a total maniac. I stare at him and realize I’m sitting here talking to a goddamned maniac. “What do you mean we?!”

“Just hear me out.”

“No, Kyle.”

“Graham, just listen.”

“No!” I stand up and stalk toward the door, shaking my head.

“We’ll be wearing masks! The girls will too! They’ll do all of the competition with those freaky, porcelain-doll face masks. It’ll make the whole thing even more like some fucked up, futuristic game show!”

“Kyle,” I turn around with my hand on the doorknob and look back at him. “This is insane.”

“Yeah, but it’s also awesome. You know it is. And you know it’ll work.”

I stand there for a few seconds before responding. “Maybe.”

“I need you, Graham. I can’t do this without you.”

“It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out to me.” I open the office door but pause before walking out.

“Yeah, but I need you for the marketing end and to think of all the things I might miss. You see things that I don’t, man. That’s why we work so well together. I work better when you’re with me, Graham.”

Fuck. I knew he was going to pull something out of his ass that would make it impossible for me to say no.

“There’s just one more thing.”

“What?” I say through gritted teeth. I just want to go back to my office and get plastered.

“I invited her.”

“Who?” But I don’t even need to ask. I know he’s talking about Aubrey again.

“Your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my fucking girlfriend, Kyle!” I yell as I slam the door in his face.