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CHAPTER SIX: INFOMMUNITY - PART TWO
God knew, she was used to getting up early to do her hair and makeup and whatnot—her look did not just do itself—but she’d gotten up extra early to slather on hair straightening cream and flat-iron her curls, to dig out the crisp suit and stiff shoes her mother had bought her when she’d first told her about getting a job at Infommunity. She’d even done her makeup twice because, the first time, she’d gone a little too heavy with the eyeliner and vampy was not the impression she wanted to leave viewers with.
After all, her appearance-driven mother had always told her, “Pip, you’ve got to present the right picture. Message is important, but presentation is key. Because in this world, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got to say, if no one’s listening.”
And, overall, she thought she’d done a good job. Of creating a more buttoned-down, more accessible, more Infommunity-esque image.
But, Lord, she could have used the extra hours of sleep.
She cleared her throat again, touching the bobby pins that secured her hair in place. “When studied, people report that intimacy, love, and sex make them more than fourteen percent happier in life,” she said, gaining a strange comfort from stating stats, “beating out drinking, hobbies, sports, and religion by more than half.” Each word gave her a little more of her confidence back, as the analytical nerd in her took over. “Yet we’re still skeptical when it comes to treating that so very important aspect of our lives with the same curiosity, tenacity, and desire for improvement that we do daily with our work and other interests.” She shrugged. “I mean, just as with cooking or home repair, we aren’t born experts at romance. We have to learn it somewhere.” She smiled cheekily. “And, really, can you think of a skill you’d rather practice to perfection?”
She heard her coworkers snicker behind her as she watched Wendy smile and her eyes light up with rating figures and viral promo clips. “So you think following your advice, which has in the past included things like,” she looked down at her notes dramatically as she said, “BDSM, role playing, pornography, and infidelity—”
“I’ve never advised anyone to cheat on their partners,” Pip clarified.
“You’ve talked extensively on casual sex, threeways, open relationships, polyamory, and other less conventional multi-partnered relationships, right?” Wendy asked.
“Which, if done consensually and responsibly, isn’t infidelity,” Pip argued, lifting her hand pointedly again, causing her coat to tug. God, what she’d give for her usual wear right now, instead of her mother’s suit that, despite its blandness, felt like more of a costume than anything she owned in her vast and colorful closet. Tugging on the coat again, she focused on the question at hand, “So long as everyone is fully informed and in full agreement, it’s just fun. If it makes the people involved happy and doesn’t hurt anyone, who are we to judge?”
The anchor woman gave a practiced encouraging look, that was neither disapproving nor necessarily agreeable. Pip idly wondered how long it took the woman to get it just right. “So would you say that your pursuit of personal pleasure is your contribution to Infommunity’s pursuit for self-improvement?”
Pip tilted her head shrewdly, feeling the pins in her hair begin to poke her scalp. “I don’t see the pursuit of pleasure and of improvement as mutually exclusive. Just like everyone else here at Infommunity, I answer people’s questions.” She surreptitiously adjusted one of the hairpins, trying to resist the urge to nervously scratch her scalp that suddenly felt raw and dry. She uncrossed her legs, only to re-cross them again when the fabric of her pencil skirt seemed to gape unattractively at her knees. “I just want to give people the information they need to do the things they want to do, to achieve the things they want to achieve, and fix the things they want to fix in their lives.”
“Even in the face of such reports as,” Wendy asked, handing over a folded newspaper article, “twenty-one-year-old college student, Tracy Meyers, who died last month when she and her boyfriend tried to re-enact a bondage scene they’d read in Steele’s Edge? Do you really think that spreading the knowledge about such things—such risks—especially in the unaccountable and often unmonitored internet landscape, where anyone can gain access to it, is a good idea?”
“I think it’s already out there.” Pip tucked the folded piece of paper in her hand. “And, while I feel for that girl, her partner, and their families and friends, less education—instead of more and better education—can’t be the answer. There will always be people who want to know these things; I’d rather they know how to do it right. So, until the questions stop coming, I’ll keep answering.”
Wendy smiled deeply as she sat back, looking far too satisfied. “Which I’m sure comes as a great comfort to Tracy Meyer’s family.”
Pip opened her mouth to counter, but her eye caught on the article’s picture. A fresh-faced, freckled girl; Tracy looked like someone’s kid sister. A little like Sam, if Pip was honest.
“Her parents took a look at her computer,” Wendy continued, not missing a beat as Pip felt the camera’s gaze zoom in on her still staring at the newsprint. “They told me today that Tracy was a Deviant Nerd subscriber.”
Pip’s breath caught. She looked up into Wendy’s eyes before staring down at the photo again, all her words—her arguments and explanations—dying.
Wendy just grinned and plowed on, “Well, I’m Wendy Graceland for KAYZ News and I’d like to thank Pip Jones and everyone here at Infommunity; I wish you the best of luck with the new expansion.”
The minute the camera turned off, Pip stood up and hurried out of the conference room, toward the elevator. Her hands began to furiously undo the buttons of her suit coat and the collar of her blouse. She heaved an uneasy breath; even though the material wasn’t terribly constricting, it was like the first time she’d been able to breathe easy this morning. With a shake of her head, she began pulling pins from her hair. It’d look like shit until she was home and able to wash it and re-twist it, but she didn’t care.
She was done today. And she just needed to get out of here.
“Pip,” she heard Phil call out behind her.
Oh, God, just what she needed. She jabbed the elevator call button violently, tucking the newspaper into her pocket.
“Pip,” he said again, coming closer. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? She didn’t want to see him right now. Didn’t want to be seen by him right now.
Thankfully, the doors opened and she stepped into the small, tight space. She felt that slip of paper in her pocket like a weight on her every step. Pip leaned against the back wall, closing her eyes and shutting out the world as the elevator closed. She inhaled a tense, stressed breath, when the doors popped open again.
“Pip,” Phil said as he stepped into the elevator, “are you okay?”
“Great,” she said through gritted teeth as she ran her hands through her now mussed, unpinned hair, not looking at him, not moving. She caught a peek of herself in the mirrored ceiling. Red-eyed and rumpled, she looked like a wreck. Great. Just great. She rolled her eyes and glared at her shoes that were pinching her toes.
“That anchorwoman ambushed you,” Phil said hotly as he paced the small, mobile room. “She just,” he grunted as he paused to tap his loafered feet in quiet temper, “attacked you out of nowhere.”
“It happens.” She watched his chocolate-brown, soft suede loafers pace the elevator tiles again. “More often than you’d think.”
He whipped around to face her, his gaze hot and furious. “Who?”
Pip shot him an incredulous look. Was he kidding? “Who?” She gave a harsh laugh. “You.”
She shook her head, tugging her uncooperative hair back, when the smartest man she knew just gaped at her blankly. “How many times have you said—or even just thought—the exact same thing Wendy out there was saying?” she asked, hating the frustration tensing her muscles.
There was this impossible pressure building inside her, threatening to push everything inside her—raw and angry and just so goddamned tired of tamping down and staying quiet—out even as she struggled to contain it. “That BDSM is just unnecessary or even dangerous trendiness? That being sex-positive is just a fancy, PC way of saying I’m sex-obsessed? That being bi or poly or kinky is just my way of justifying and legitimizing all my reckless, ill-advised sex choices? That being proud of something that makes me abnormal is ridiculous and delusional? A joke? The worst kind of punchline? Tell me that you’re surprised that anchor took one look at me and saw nothing more than a splashy sound bite and a ratings boost.”
She shook her head again, disgusted. “Tell me that you don’t do the same every time you think that what I do here isn’t as important as what you do.”
They both stood there quietly as the doors rang and slid open. She looked into Phil’s eyes, his gray depths confused and conflictedly guilty behind his wire- rimmed glasses.
“Why do you care what anyone says about me,” Pip pointedly asked him, “when—deep down—you think they’re right?” Maybe he was.
And wasn’t that a thought?
Pip shook her head and stepped out of the elevator, grateful when she heard the doors close behind her and nothing else.
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