Ask if she sees any friends

I ask Tracy if she sees anyone she wants to sit with. She looks around, and says, “Oh, there’s Sue, my roommate and a couple of her friends. Would you like to sit with them?”

“That’s fine with me, if it’s okay with you,” I respond. “Can you brief me on the ground rules about what they know about your job?”

“Oh, they know everything,” she says, dismissively. “Well, everything up to the last few hours, that is,” she adds with a wink.

We walk over to the table, and Tracy introduces me to her roommate, Sue, along with their friends Heather and Shannon.

“So you’re Tracy’s boss?” asks Heather, looking me over carefully. “I didn’t expect anyone quite so young. I don’t think I’ve ever had a boss close to my age. I wonder what it would be like serving under you.”

She makes her observation very suggestively, with innuendo that would work very well in the corny scripts we use with our productions. The other girls laugh, except for Tracy, who rolls her eyes and says, “You’ll have to forgive Heather. She doesn’t know how to talk to a male without flirting with him.”

I chat with Tracy’s friends for a few minutes. They are, of course, intrigued by what I do for a living — particularly at my age.

“I don’t think any of the guys here on campus would be able to get any work done if they were in your position. They’d be too busy sleeping with all of the actresses,” says Shannon.

“Well, it does take a bit of self control,” I admit.

“Oh, while I’m thinking of it,” Sue says, “Tracy, you may want to make sure your earplugs are on hand. Bryan’s roommate is ‘entertaining’ his girlfriend this weekend, so Bryan will be staying with us.”

“Oh great,” says Tracy. “Can’t you guys get a room in a hotel or something? Last time he spent the whole weekend with us, I didn’t get a wink of sleep!”

“Well... neither did I,” says Sue, to the laughter of the other girls. “But don’t blame Bryan; he did offer to let you join in once or twice, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, that was so kind of him,” says Tracy, rolling her eyes.

Sue looks at me and says, “You know, you’ve got pretty good taste in clothing. My boyfriend has a shirt just like that.”

Before I can respond, Tracy says, “Um, yeah... About that... I offered to let Jeremy borrow some of Bryan’s clothes. We came here straight from work, and I thought he’d be more comfortable in something less work-ish.”

“And what does an executive in a porn studio wear to work?” asks Heather, who really hasn’t taken her eyes off me for a minute. “Spandex? Leather? Nothing?”

As much as I like the attention Heather is giving me, I realize this must be uncomfortable for Tracy, so I wave off her question and say, “It’s really not that different than working in any other office. You’d probably be bored.”

“I doubt that,” says Heather. “I’d really like to see it sometime.”

“I’ll have Tracy arrange a tour for you,” I reply.

I look at Tracy, as she continues to talk with her friends, and I suddenly have an idea. I get her attention and suggest it.