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CHAPTER NINE: CAFE BIEN - PART ONE
The freshest ingredients. The friendliest service. Because everyone deserves a break.
Pip and Sam walked into Café Bien together. They’d both been silent the entire ride over. Sam was undoubtedly nervous. And all Pip could think about was that she was taking Phil’s niece to a munch behind his back. It wasn’t the greatest idea in the world—she knew that—and she would almost certainly pay for it later. But, she was sure, it was still the right thing to do.
Pip had been like Sam at that age. Too curious. Armed with just enough information to get herself into serious trouble. Sam was going to learn about BDSM and kink. She’d more than proven that she could. Pip just wanted to be sure that Sam learned how to do it right.
They’d shown up about twenty minutes early, so the party room was still pretty empty. Max and a few volunteers were pushing tables into place and stacking board games and decks of cards at each table. Kat Valdez-Richards, another Donovan’s moderator, was talking to the café’s owner, Rachel Haut.
“Pip,” she heard a voice greet from behind her.
She turned and saw Danielle Atali and her tall, lanky, redheaded boyfriend, Chris Carey, walk in. She walked toward the pretty, young woman and gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you; it’s been a while.”
“Well,” the young woman said with a toss of her long, curly hair, “there were finals and then my parents decided to take the family on a cruise before class started up again.”
“Glad you could make it this time,” Pip said. “I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet.” She gestured for Sam to come closer. “Danielle, this is Sam Schaffer, the girl I was telling you about.” Placing her hand on Sam’s shoulder, she smiled. “Sam, this is Danielle Atali. She heads CinKY, the local college kinky youth group.”
“Welcome.” Danielle reached out to shake Sam’s hand. “Glad you came. C’mon,” she said in her disarmingly brazen way, taking Sam’s arm, “let’s grab a good game before they’re all taken.”
Pip watched Danielle lead Sam and the lanky boy to the game table and smiled, knowing Sam was in good hands.
“That her?” Max asked, coming up to Pip. “The girl you were telling us about?”
Pip nodded. “Yeah, she called me up this morning and asked if she could come.”
Max raised a cautious eyebrow. “Does her uncle know she’s here?”
Pip tilted her head. “I figured this might be a case where begging forgiveness might be better than asking permission.” Phil would never have let her come and that would have been Sam’s loss. This way, even if she got grounded and Phil held a grudge against Pip, Sam would have this experience under her belt. She’d have the connections she’d make. She’d know she wasn’t alone.
Yeah, that was worth a little groveling later.
“Well, good luck with that.” Max sighed, shaking her head. “Because something tells me her uncle won’t agree.”
———
Sam laughed and sat at the table with Danielle, her boyfriend Chris, Hallie Hannings—a beautiful woman who was dating the café’s owner—Cora Jameson—a sweet-looking, but competitively intense woman—and Peter and Kat Richards—a married couple who were too good at this game—as they played Apples to Apples.
Sam was having a great time. They hadn’t said a word about kink, not really. Nothing beyond maybe a racy round or two—What’s touchy-feely? Whips. Chains. Friction. My friends.—or an offhand comment here or there. Hadn’t really done all that much more than share a round of cheese fries, sip coffee, and play cards. The munch wasn’t anything like Sam thought it would be—not that she’d really known exactly what to expect—but it was nice.
People joined in on rounds and left others to mingle or eat. Over the three hours she’d been there, Sam had met more people than she’d ever be able to remember; everyone greeting her like she was already a friend.
A part of her was almost a little disappointed that there’d been no offers to play or meet-up later. With Fischer and even with other people on Steele’s Secret, Sam had often had to be the breaks, sidestepping requests for scenes or contracts or postponing phone calls or face-to-face meetings. She was used to being chased.
But here, while she wasn’t exactly the one chasing, she certainly felt like the one going after what she wanted.
The night dwindled down and the games were nearly done when the moderators decided to start cleaning up. Sam helped Danielle and Chris gather the cards back into the box before they all began to push the tables and chairs back into place. “Donovan’s munches are usually once a month, but CinKY meets up every week to discuss BDSM and kink and just life and love in general; you should come,” Danielle told her as they grabbed the ends of a table. “You’ll like it. I’ll send you the info.” She lifted the heavy furniture over the café’s tile.
“Thanks,” Sam said as they set the room to rights.
Once everything was put back and packed up, Sam and Pip walked back to her car. “So,” Pip asked as she fished out her keys, “did you have fun?”
“Oh yeah.” Sam slid into the passenger seat. “It was great. I got invited to join CinKY.”
“I heard.” Pip nodded and smiled. “If you need a ride, let me know,” she told her. “I don’t typically attend those.” They were for college students. “But I can always play chauffeur.”
Sam bit her lip. She’d wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure how. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.” Pip shrugged. “I’ll just bring along my laptop and get some work done while you’re there. You’ve just got to do one thing for me,” she qualified.
“Anything.”
“You’ve got to start talking to your mom and uncle,” Pip said, pulling to a stop at a light. She looked at her. “You can’t hide this from them. They’re going to find out eventually. And, the longer you wait, the more of a chance that they’ll hear some other way than you being honest with them. And that isn’t fair. Or right.”
Sam stifled back a sigh. Well, that was a conversation Sam did not want to have. She pouted. “I thought you’d said that this life was private?”
“What you do, when you do it, how you do it,” Pip said with a shake of her head, pulling forward when the light turned green, “that’s no one’s business but yours and the people you do it with. Details are private and you shouldn’t have to share that with anyone you don’t want to.” Then she sighed. “But not telling the people who care about you who you are and who you choose to be with, to let them worry and wonder like that,” Pip frowned and shook her head as she said, “that makes it sound like you’ve got something to hide.” She shot Sam a pointed look. “Like even you think what you’re doing is wrong. Because, if it wasn’t, what would you have to hide?”
Sam bit her lip and sat back in her seat, thinking about that the rest of the way home.
———
Pip sat at the Infommunity conference table, staring at the huge screen covering the width of the wall. Wendy Graceland was interviewing a tall, thin man in a nice, simple suit with clean, crisp lines. The well-groomed man looked as determined and dedicated as a political poster. He couldn’t have looked more All-American if the flag was waving behind him and “We Want You” was blazed in bold front in front of him.
“Mr. Wayne,” Wendy said, thrusting a microphone in front of him, as the wind blew about them, “you’re here in front of Infommunity’s headquarters with the Foundation for Defending Families, with petitions and handouts promoting awareness, correct?” She tilted her head in dramatic wonder. “Awareness of what exactly?”
“Well, Wendy,” Lionel Wayne said, not a single silvering hair on his head blowing out of place, “after we saw your report last week, we knew that we needed to demand better regulations for what’s available for children—and for people as a whole—on the internet. So we’ve started what we’re calling the Tracy Meyers campaign, where we’re urging people to not only contact their legislator about stricter guidelines for what’s considered adult content online, but also to boycott any and all companies and sites, like Infommunity, who blithely pump inappropriate and pornographic content without concern for whose hands that information ends up in.”
Wendy gave another practiced, thoughtful tilt of her head. “So you’re saying that this isn’t just about Pip Jones’s Deviant Nerd podcast, but that it’s Infommunity, as a whole, that should be held accountable?”
“Yes,” Wayne answered. “Before Infommunity hired Miss Jones, hers was just one more barely discernible voice in a sea of cyber entertainment. But since Infommunity gave her a ready-made, global platform, her listener base and readership has skyrocketed. They, as much as Miss Jones, planted those thoughts in Tracy Meyers’s head. They handed her the tools that led to her unfortunate end. So we’re asking people to not only boycott Miss Jones, or even just Infommunity, but also any and all advertisers who are featured on their site. We have a list of those companies as well as links to our petition on our website. We encourage anyone who’s concerned about where our world, our youth, and our future is headed thanks to the unregulated flow of information to please read our message and join our cause.”
Will turned off the television and pinched the bridge of his nose just under his glasses. “They’ve been playing this interview all day.”
“And those people have been camped out there since five this morning.” Nita sneered as she flipped her long braid off her shoulder. “And they don’t look like they’re leaving any time soon.”
Yeah, Pip had had a hell of a time getting into the office this morning. The minute she’d walked up to the property, she’d been mobbed by sign-toting, slogan-shouting protesters. And, while they’d certainly targeted most of their vehemence toward her, Pip knew her coworkers were getting an unfair amount of it as well.
She sighed, feeling her heart lurch and her stomach churn. “Are you canceling The Deviant Nerd?” She would certainly understand, if they did. The mob was doing everything they could—hitting every possible angle—to make it impossible for the company to work.
“No.” Nita shook her head. “We hired you because we believe in what you do. Think what you have to say is worth saying.”
“And deserves a chance to be heard,” Will agreed as he smacked his hands flat on his desk. “We’re an information site; we won’t be bullied by censors who believe that there’s acceptable and unacceptable kinds of knowledge.”
She nodded, breathing out a sigh of relief. That was why she’d been so eager to join their site in the first place. “But?” she asked, knowing that that wasn’t the end of it.
“Our investors and advertisers are asking that, at the very least,” Nita said, “we do something to make sure that the information meant for adults is reserved for adults and doesn’t end up in kids’ and teens’ hands.”
“How do you propose we do that?” As far as Pip knew, the only thing that flagged her stuff as adult was a mature content page asking a reader if they were over eighteen. Not exactly Fort Knox. It was barely TSA.
“We don’t know,” Will answered, running his hands over his spiked hair. “We want you to think about it, come up with some ideas, and create a proposal we can take to our investors and advertisers.”
Pip’s eyes bugged. “You want me to come up with the solution?”
“We brought you on,” Nita reminded her, “because we know that you’re smart and clever and you think outside the traditional, everyday box most of us live in.” She smiled encouragingly at her. “You can do this.”
“And our door is always open,” Will assured her, “but The Deviant Nerd is yours; deciding where it goes and how it gets there has to come first and foremost from you.”
Pip nodded, definitely nervous but also really grateful. They were right. This was hers. It soared or sunk with her. They were all in this mess because of her; it should be her who got them all out.
And they were right. She could do this. She’d gotten herself this far. She wasn’t about to give up everything she’d worked for because some uptight reporter and her values-voter spokesman were trying to run Pip off.
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