I wake up on the couch in my office and Kyle is already at his computer. I stay still for as long as I can without alerting him to the fact that I’m awake, but somehow he knows.

“You’ve got to look at this, Graham,” he says. I get up and shuffle across the room so that I’m standing behind his chair, then rub my eyes and look at the monitor that shows the subscriptions. “We’ve had hundreds of new subscribers overnight,” he says, scrolling through the list. “And we’ve sold thousands of token bundles.”

“Really? That’s incredible,” I say without much conviction while stifling a yawn. I am excited to hear it, but I’m so wiped out. I need coffee and I need time to adjust to being awake.

“That’s not the only thing I want to show you. Check this out.” He moves over to the screen with the scores for each girl. “Some of these girl’s scores have doubled or tripled overnight. I couldn’t figure it out at first and thought maybe some of the new viewers were mistakenly tipping during the video replay of the stream from yesterday. But that’s not what’s going on. Some of the girls are doing private shows in the showers and the confessional room for tips. They’re trying to increase their rank by sneaking tips!”

“You’re kidding.” I’m finally starting to wake up and I see what Kyle is talking about. He plays a video from last night’s stream where two girls are making out with each other in the confessional room, then strip and use a double-ended dildo on each other until their asses are slapping. “I was wondering if anyone was going to get any use out of that confessional room.” I laugh while I watch two more girls join in. I’m not sure how they’re going to get involved, but they’re all pretty creative. They each have their number written on a piece of paper and hold it up while they insert dildos into various holes of their own or the girl sitting next to them. And every single one is making a porny duck face while they stare up at the camera. “What do you wanna do?”

“Well, nothing. I mean, if the girls want to give a show, and the viewers want to tip them for it, then I say let them knock themselves out. I’m sure as hell not going to stop them.”

“How is the voting effecting the rank of these girls?” I ask while I watch one of the girls move a dildo from her pussy to her mouth then suck it down her throat.

“They’re definitely moving up. Check out this video. One of the guys is in the room and number fifty-two is sucking his cock!”

“What? Who the hell is that?”

“I don’t know. His face is out of the shot. But Grant and Malcolm have been taking the night shifts, so it’s gotta be one of them.”

“Are you gonna say something?”

“Nah, they aren’t hurting anyone. Let them have some fun. I don’t want to take away their bjs when we haven’t even paid them yet.”

“Well, if we don’t stop them, these stunts might give one or all of these girls a winning score, which would defeat the whole purpose of your audition.”

“Yeah, but we still have the power to vote for who we want to win. We can fudge the numbers or figure something else out. I’m not worried. But I want to see how this plays out. It’s fascinating.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go get some coffee.” I walk toward the door, then pause for a moment. “How many of those ski masks do we have?”

“I picked up about ten. I wasn’t sure how many guys we’d have working with us. Why?”

“Nothing. I just had an idea.”

“What, you wanna sneak in there and watch your girlfriend strip?”

I walk out the door and close it without giving Kyle an answer. He’s right, though, and it pisses me off because he’s been doing that a lot lately.

* * *

After Kyle and I walk out of the gym I can’t even think straight. This is the second time I’ve watched Aubrey masturbate and I’m not sure how much more of this I can take without getting my hands on her. I couldn’t breathe with that damned ski mask, but I can’t catch my breath after I pull it off either.

I watch Aubrey twirl around that pole like some kind of fairy princess, with her eyes closed again and that beautiful smile of hers lighting her whole face up. As she removes each piece of clothing I get more and more hot, until sweat is practically dripping down my face.

But when she spreads her legs and touches her clit I have to grip one of the pieces of exercise equipment with both of my hands. I wind up squeezing it so goddamned tight it leaves deep indentations in my hands.

“Holy shit,” Kyle says as he shuts the office door. “That was intense.” I sit down at my desk and stare at my computer monitor, but can feel his eyes on me. “She is going to be hard to beat.”

I try to catch my breath and cool off, but as I think about what Kyle just said, I get the feeling that I’m not the only one that wants to win Aubrey. “You mean as far as the viewers are concerned, or as far as you are?”

“Both, I guess. That chick Zoe is looking like a prospect. Long hair, nice sized boobs, really pretty. I can’t wait to see how she does in the other events. I hope she’s not just here for the money. She’d look nice tied up on my bed. You’re so lucky, with Aubrey you already know that she’s a sub and she’s freaking hot as hell and holy shit can she dance. She is just…”

“She’s mine, Kyle.”

“I know, I know. I just…” Kyle isn’t looking at me. He’s fumbling around on his keyboard and avoiding my stare.

“Just what?” I ask. I try not to sound like a dick, but I’m pretty sure I do.

“Never mind. You gotta see these tweets. Some chicks that didn’t make the cut have been trashing us, but all it’s doing is bringing us more traffic … Hey,” Kyle says as he hits a few keys on his keyboard. “What the fuck? What the hell’s going on? The stats aren’t refreshing and I’m not getting the feed.” Kyle hits the same keys over and over, then goes completely white while he stares at the monitor. “Dude, the feed is down!”

“What?!”

“404 error on every page. The entire site is down.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, putting the site up using a YouTube tutorial was about the extent of my web design knowledge. I don’t even know what to check. I know a little basic HTML but I sure as hell don’t know how to fix a broken website! And no site means no money coming in. The people who bought tokens can’t spend them or view the video clips.”

“Shit! Do any of the guys out there know about this kind of thing?”

“I have no idea, lemme go ask.”

“No, you stay here and keep working on getting it back up. I’ll go ask.” I run down the hall to the gym and open the door just enough to get the attention of one of the guys. “The whole freaking site is down,” I tell Josh as he pulls his mask off and walks toward me. “Do you have any idea how to get around on the backend of a website?”

“No. I don’t even use Facebook,” Josh says.

“Well, ask the other guys. We need to fix this now.”

“You want me to shut this event down?”

“Yeah, there’s no point in leaving the girls like that when we’re not even live. But send anyone who has even a shred of experience with computers into the office as soon as possible.”

“Will do.”

When I get back into the office Kyle is still hitting keys and staring at the monitor. “Any luck?”

“No!” he practically yells. I can see the panic in his eyes.

“Do you think it was the web host? Maybe they shut us down because they didn’t like we’re doing?”

“Dude, it’s on our own server. No one can shut us down. Someone had to have gotten in somehow. That’s the only thing I can figure.”

“What if it was Peterson?”

“Jesus. I didn’t even think of that?”

“Did you change the password when you created the site?” Total silence. “Kyle?”

He just stares at the monitor and doesn’t look up until we hear a knock at the door. “Yeah!” he yells.

“Hey, guys. I got someone here who says they think they can help.”

“Well, send him in,” I say.

“Uh … it’s one of the chicks in the contest,” Josh says with a smile. Kyle and I look at each other and I shrug. “Well, I’m not putting that stupid mask on for this,” I say.

“Yeah, I don’t care if one of them sees who we are. I’m beyond worrying about my freaking identity right now.” Kyle says. “You can send her in.”

Josh opens the door and I freeze right where I’m standing when I see Aubrey in the doorway. I’m being my desk, which is in the center of the room facing the door, and all I can do is stand there and stare at her as she walks in. I see that she threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before she came over here, and she looks amazing.

I suddenly remember that during the audition she mentioned her background in computers and feel like a total asshole for assuming it would have had to have been one of the guys to help.

“I know you,” she says, staring intently into my eyes. “You were in my dad’s office that one time.”

I start to speak, but I’m still so shocked that she’s actually in the room that no words come out.

“Yeah, we’re both friends of your dad’s. I’m Kyle,” he says, walking towards her with his hand out. “I was there in the office that day too.”

Aubrey looks over at him and smiles. “You were the one talking over the speaker during the audition.” She takes his hand and shakes it, then looks back at me. “And you’re Graham,” she says, her eyes and sexy voice making me melt into a worthless heap right where I’m standing.