Page 63 of Left on Read
“But you caught him?”
“We did. Or Zane did. He didn’t use laxatives, but he mixed ghost pepper sauce into some mustard and slathered our sandwiches with it. And our buddy, Gray, made us some cereal bars that had a shit ton of chili peppers in them. We put both in our lunches with sticky notes on them saying Do not eat, and lo and behold, he ate. Buddy found out the hard way that ghost peppers hurt going in and coming out.”
I winced. “I feel like I should feel bad for him, but I don’t.”
“I don’t either.” River snickered and shifted around on his bed so he was on his stomach with his feet in the air behind him. “Did he have any more fun office gossip?”
“Nothing huge. One of the guys from sales got caught making a sex tape with one of the women from accounting.”
“What?” River’s eyes bugged out. “Nothing huge, then you drop an office sex tape on me?”
I tried to give him a coy grin. Hopefully that hadn’t looked like I was constipated.
He smirked. “You did that on purpose. You let me put my guard down and came at me with a one-two punch.”
“Maybe.”
“The only thing that would make that story better was if it was for one of their OnlyFans or something.” River kicked his feet behind him.
“Not sure if either of them has one, but now I’m curious.”
“Sounds like Ryan needs to do some digging.” He made a thoughtful face.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about the legal stuff you have to do when you sell sex tapes.”
He must have seen my confusion, because he smiled sheepishly.
“I’m not a weirdo. Quinn makes spicy content, and I was curious if it’s anything like people say it is. Like how it’s an easy way to make money and you just need to look good naked to make it, so I asked.”
“What did he say?”
I’d never thought about it because that wasn’t something I’d ever consider doing. Had River done it? Did he want to?
“A lot,” he said with a laugh. “Quinn’s smart, and he knows a lot about a lot. Talking to him is like a full-on experience sometimes because you start the conversation asking about boning on camera, and by the end, you’re talking about SESTA/FOSTA and morality clauses in the banking industry.
“He makes learning things fun. I hated school because memorizing stuff was boring. I wanted to understand why, not just parrot back what was written in my textbooks. You do that too. That’s one of the reasons I like talking with you so much. You never talk down to me or treat me like I’m five. Your students are lucky. Not enough teachers are like that.”
I smiled at his compliment.
Teaching was a rewarding job, but it was mostly thankless. Usually, the only time I dealt with parents was when they had problems with me or my teaching methods. I hadn’t gone into the profession for accolades or praise, but it was still nice to hear.
“But yeah, back to spicy content. He said there’s a ton of identity and age verifications you need to do to sell on legit sites and legal forms like model releases if you have other people in your content. It’s not just taking dick pics or POVs while you’re doing the horizontal tango.” He paused thoughtfully. “Or the vertical tango, since you don’t need to be horizontal to boink.”
“Boink?”
“I’ve been spending too much time with Nick. He says that because he knows it makes me laugh. But yeah. Spicy content isn’t just taking in-the-moment videos. There’s a whole business and legal side to it that no one sees.”
“Is that something you’re interested in doing?” I schooled my face into what was hopefully a neutral position.
“Not in this lifetime.” He sat up and leaned against his wall, the camera shaking violently until he was settled. “I like stripping, but sex is a private thing for me. I don’t like the idea of other people seeing my partner’s pleasure.” He made a face that told me he was about to say something disparaging about himself.
“I get that.” Was that the right thing to say? I didn’t want to invalidate his feelings, but I also didn’t want him to think there was something wrong with his views.
“I feel like such an asshole saying that, but it took me a long time to realize that sex is so much better when I’m with someone I care about, and the selfish part of me doesn’t want to share that specialness with anyone else.” He studied me. “Is that something you’ve wanted to do?”
“No!”