Big ideas

You tell Athena a little more about your ideas. They’re ambitious, but CCL has to do something to stand out.

Athena listens patiently.

“I have notes,” she says.

“Go,” you reply.

“Your ideas are brilliant,” she says bluntly. “They’re realistic and I see how it could work. You put a lot of faith in people being interested.”

“Athena, today I fingerbanged that girl that came to protest at our booth. Because she was curious about CCL. What horny college girls do behind closed doors gets people interested. We can count on that,” you assure her.

Athena nods. “But we can also count on expenses just getting worse. I’m not trying to shut you down, Meri. But we’re broke. The only thing you’ve proposed that wouldn’t cost us anything would be the… aesthetic changes. That by itself won’t get us anywhere without a way to signal boost it. An online store might help a little, but that’s not going to bankroll all this. What we did this weekend was a risky experiment, and we turned a profit, but that profit’s already gone. Do you have a plan for where the seed money will come from?”

“I do,” you say.

Athena is thrown. She didn’t expect you to say that.

“Well, then.” She lifts the covers and slides out of bed. You watch her walk to the desk. The back of her nightie is sheer, and you can see that she’s wearing a black thong under it. Your heart goes from zero to a thousand in a second and you lose your train of thought. Does she always sleep like this? Or did Athena put this on because she knew you were coming.

At the desk, she bends to pick something up and you look away and fan your face.

She returns with a notepad and pen, slipping back into bed beside you.

“Continue,” she says with a hint of dryness.

You shrug. “We partner with Free Gurls.”

“That was a sudden twist into Scarface territory.”

“You don’t look surprised,” you say.

Athena sighs and begins to outline the plan that you have laid out on the notepad.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admits. Free Gurls is a local biker gang. When certain municipalities and counties in Florida started outlawing homosexuality and sex shops, the Free Gurls stopped selling weed and started selling vibrators.

Florida has finally closed the loophole that allowed most women to get around the dumb laws by just ordering stuff online. Now, no online retailer will ship to certain zip codes because if they’re caught, they’ll be fined. That means the market in Gurlberg is about to expand, and the University is a big piece of that market. CCL could offer the Free Gurls a way in.

“The roof. The plans. All of it,” you say, tapping the notepad with a finger. “The money’s there.”

“You’re talking about making CCL a criminal enterprise,” Athena reminds you.