Guesses and Worries

“What’s up, motha… OK, who died?”

Eric entered the office on a high note but thankfully read the room and realised something was up.

“Sabrina got called out by Garrison,” you said.

“We’re pretty sure it’s about Joy’s lawsuit,” Gemma added.

“Fuck,” Eric sighed and shook his head, moving towards his seat. “I guess it’s too much to hope the whole thing is getting tossed for being vexatious?”

“Doubtful,” you said. “It’s not like her mother would file a lawsuit without hitting the bare minimum requirements, and there’s enough of a case there to at least let the questions get asked. Sabrina did something, which resulted in personal injury to Joy. The context and the mitigating factors are for the court to rule on.”

“How was your weekend?” Gemma asked. “Did you do your podcast thing?”

“Yeah, it went really well,” Eric said. “I’m starting to become, like, a regular commentator. I need to start up my own podcast for real though so I can start monetizing it and shit, and have more networking opportunities. You’re still not really interested, John? A dude with two hot girlfriends - not to be rude, Gemma - would be a hit.”

“Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing, sorry,” you said.

“Ah, I’ll find someone back at school to do it with,” Eric sighed. “Or maybe some hot chick where we can bicker back and forth. Getting hot chicks onto the podcasts always raises the number of views, so a hot host has to be good, right?”

“OK, hold on,” Gemma said. “How the hell are these podcasts all about men being ‘alpha’s and shit getting attractive women to come on? Are they paying them or something?”

“It’s chicks who do OnlyFans, or strippers, mostly,” Eric shrugged. “They come on for the exposure. Even when they get torn to shreds because they say dumb stuff and are super delusional, they get big bumps in subscribers to their amateur porn. It’s a weird win-win cycle. Ooh, do either of you happen to know any amateur pornstars that might want to host the podcast with me? That could work well too.”

Sabrina, Becks, Amanda, Maeve, Nelli. The list of women you knew who had or were actively participating in sex work, or sex work adjacent, fields had grown significantly over the summer. Would Lucy count, with her trying to do the sugar baby thing?

“Sorry, don’t know any,” Gemma said flatly.

“I know a tonne,” you said jokingly. “Unfortunately they’re all booked up until sometime two years from now. It’s super hard to hang out when they just film scene after scene.”

“Harrharr,” Eric said. “I assumed if either of you did, it would be Gemma. You’re the man, John, but I don’t think you could handle a pornstar.”

Gemma coughed, clearly trying to cover her laughter.

“Anything else happen this weekend for you?” you asked Eric, changing the subject.

“Oh, yeah,” he shrugged. “Broke up with Casey.”

“That didn’t take long,” Gemma said. “What happened?”

Eric sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Apparently she’s kind of slutty? Like, she hooks up with podcast guests on a pretty regular basis, which was why she was encouraging me to have sex with other girls if I had the opportunity. I guess she figured if I was doing it, it was OK for her to do it or something?”

“That sucks, man,” you said. “Why wouldn’t she just tell you that’s what she wanted?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Who the fuck would see that coming, either? And the wild thing is that we never even had sex or anything, so it’s like I got fucking friend-zoned.”

“To be fair, you didn’t sleep with her because you hooked up with that OnlyFans model if I’m remembering correctly,” you said.

Eric shrugged. “Not that it was worth it, I’d rather have actually been with Casey I think. But that’s done now. It probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere long term anyways; long distance never works.”

The pregnant pause in the room made him look between you and Gemma a couple of times before he clued in. “Not that, uh, that would be true for you guys.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eric,” Gemma deadpanned.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” Eric said.

“She knows,” you said. “She’s just giving you a hard time.”

“Maybe I am,” Gemma sighed. “I’m a little stressed out for Sabrina right now.”

“Alright,” you said, putting your hands flat on the table in a dramatic gesture. “New plan - we **** Killjoy and her mother.”

Eric snorted and rolled his eyes, but Gemma gave you a half-second of a ‘that could work’ glance before chuckling. Leave it to the crazy Australian girl to be willing to cut a bitch for her girlfriend.

The three of you got back to work until you couldn’t stand the waiting anymore and you headed to the break room to fill your water bottle, using it as an excuse to do a walk around. They weren’t in the other main conference room, or at your end of the building. You did a quick walk down towards the Partners section at the far end and saw that Garrison’s door was closed with the light on, but you couldn’t really get close enough to see what was going on inside. Sabrina must have been meeting with the outside lawyer the firm had retained, and Garrison, in there.

You returned to the intern conference room and sighed as you sat back down. “They’re still going,” you said.

“Could take all morning,” Gemma said. “If they’re forming their strategy or something. Garrison sounded like he wanted to put Bellagamba in the ground for even thinking of filing.”

“As long as it doesn’t put Sabrina in the crosshairs even more, then I’m all for that,” you said.

Your cell rang at that moment, and you frowned as you glanced at it and saw it was Becks calling. You flashed the screen to Gemma, who also frowned seeing the name, and you answered it.

“Hey, Becks,” you said. “What’s up?”

“I’m sure someone will be down shortly to escort you up, Mrs Bellagamba,” Becks said, her voice sounding distant. Your eyebrows raised toward the ceiling.

“Well, call them again,” Bellagamba said. “This is ridiculous - I’m a senior partner of the firm. I have every right to go up there.”

“I’m just following the protocol I was given, ma’am,” Becks said.

‘She’s here!’ you mouthed to Gemma.

‘Joy?’ she mouthed back, and you shook your head and gestured with a ‘higher’ sort of sign. ‘Her mom?’

You nodded, and Gemma’s eyebrows matched yours.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked.

You covered the mic on your phone and told him that the devil had entered the building.

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