The thing is, this invitation?
It’s the politest way possible to give me the finger.
In other words, as the youngest and least successful in a family of overachievers, I am formally invited to kiss their collective ass.
I sit back in my chair and look out the windows of my top-floor loft. It’s evening and the lights of the city are starting to sparkle in the rain, like a film noir movie come to life.
Little do they know…
They all think that even though I run my own business—I have a thriving architecture firm, JC Design, that focuses on green building design—I haven’t amounted to much because they did it first. All the milestones? First step, first lost tooth, first million, first billion?
My siblings—two brothers and a sister—already did it, so whatever I do now doesn’t quite measure up.
Ha. It actually does measure up, they just don’t know it.
They run respectable businesses.
I run a dick blog.
If you’d have asked me six months ago if I would ever post my junk online, I would’ve laughed and checked you for a head injury. If you’d have told me that the internet would respond the way it has to daily pictures of my peen, I never would’ve believed you. Seriously, who’d have thought that people would want to look at my dick that much?
Well, a lot of people do. Millions, in fact.
I’m internet-famous for my website, All About the D.
And I can’t tell anyone about it except my best friend Drew, who in essence dared me to do it, and the two major corporate sponsors courting me, although they don’t know my real name.
And the attorney.
Her.
I chuckle to myself, thinking of my call to Waller, Goldman & Associates. While they have a blue-chip, impeccable reputation, they also have absolutely no connection with me or my family. When I picked up my cell and dialed WGA, I was expecting an awkward conversation with an old dude. Instead, I got an awkward conversation with a younger woman.
How do I tell her that I need legal services to protect my intellectual property, namely prized pictures of my dick, without telling her that I need legal services for my, uh, dick?
“So you need a transaction reviewed? I can do that. What area of law are we talking?” Her voice was confident and sure. And sexy as fuck.
“A new product.” About ten inches of product.
“I have experience reviewing various types of business contracts, including licensing agreements, as well as securing copyright protection and forming corporate entities. I’m confident that we can service your needs.”
I knew I’d been spending too much time with Drew, because the moment she mentioned she could “service all my needs,” I only barely kept back a laugh.
Shoving Drew the fuck out of my head, I quickly looked up her attorney profile on the firm’s website while I wedged my cell phone between my shoulder and my ear.
Evelyn Mills, graduated summa cum laude Georgetown Law School.
Intellectual property and business transactions.
Represents medium to large businesses and high-net-worth individuals.
This sounded right. No picture on the website, though. Just a “No Photo” gray box where it was supposed to go. Their web designer should be sacked.
At least this firm had a website. My family’s traditional firm, Sullivan Montgomery, didn’t believe in them.
I had a choice. I could ask to be transferred to Waller and do this all over again, or I could keep talking to her.
Easy decision. Sexy voice won. I mean, Waller was fine and all, but I’d take a calculated risk with Ms. Mills, even if it was possible that she had a face only good for radio.
And I needed an attorney. Now.
When I’d hit “publish” on that first post, I wasn’t sure anyone would actually see it.
Going viral is bizarre. Turns out I stumbled into becoming a popular—and potentially lucrative—anonymous social media presence. But if I move forward with some of these deals—dildo in the shape of my penis, anyone?—I have my name, my reputation, and my family’s reputation to protect. All good reasons why I need the confidentiality and protection of a lawyer, arousing voice or not.
Because the Cartwright name must not be part of this. Ever.
“Is your company online?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, let me look you up. What’s your web address?”
I paused.
She really should not be viewing my site at her office.
I didn’t want to tell her my last name. Because, for fuck’s sake, I don’t know her.
But.
“I have to tell you. I run a pornographic blog, and if you’re uncomfortable with the subject matter, we don’t have to continue.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “That’s not a problem. Email me the link. I’ll review your blog, and send you comments and a potential engagement letter within a few days.”
I hung up, sent her a link to the blog, warning her that it was NSFW—an understatement if ever there was one—and went back to work on a proposal for a city center rebuild in Sellwood. And as I worked, I smirked to myself, imagining what she’d think of my dick’s architectural adventures.
Then I realized what the fuck I’d done: I’d told someone about my blog, its success, and its content.
That meant she’d seen all the ways I got off. I never even shared those details with my ex.
Somehow this attorney now knows this part of me better than anyone else. Most people don’t share their habits with their best friends. I’d just done it with a complete stranger over the phone, which, let me say, is not the same as anonymously jacking off online. Not when Evelyn Mills, Esquire, soon will be able to attach my name to the rest of my anatomy.
The kid in me who wanted to lose the tie and jacket and roll around in the yard was laughing his ass off, but the guy who’d been raised to “be an upstanding Cartwright” was mildly nauseous.
Because fuck, my family would lose their shit if they knew.
That was Friday. It’s Saturday evening, and I have the rest of the weekend to drive myself crazy thinking about it.
The buzzer for my condo sounds, ringing through the airy space, momentarily jarring me from my spurt of anxiety.
When I renovated my loft in the rejuvenated northwest part of Portland, I’d wanted to take advantage of the views, as well as maximize the windows to counteract the dreariness of the normally rainy city. So while the room is spare, clean, and modern, the natural light gives it warmth instead of making it feel like a museum. My expansive view of the city skyline has its eccentricities, however. From any part of the room, I can stare at Big Pink, our second tallest tower—with the irreverent local nickname—rising over the rest.
Which makes me want to digitally add my own “big pink” to the Portland skyline. I scribble down the idea before I forget.
Speaking of eccentricities.