WEDNESDAY
David Reynolds sat in his office and punched away continuously at the calculator while looking at an endless string of numbers on the spreadsheets in front of him.
"Fuck!" he stammered, pounding his fist on the desk.
The numbers weren't making him feel better about his situation. Last week, Alicia had found out about the Hole in the Wall's weekly "Gangbang Night." It was a last ditch effort for her father to raise money to save his ailing business and fix the financial burden it had placed on their lives. The weekly sex parties were starting to improve business and pull David out of debt. He wasn't getting rich off of having his patrons pay to have sex with women, but it was helping.
At the moment, David was frustrated because, no matter how much he was earning, he was still going to be short on his rent. After the truck payment and paying the other bills, there wasn't enough left to cover what they had to pay to keep a roof over their heads. David had been late paying the rent for four months. "Gangbang Night" helped him pay what he owed his landlord, but he was still coming up short on the current rent.
"What am I going to?" he asked himself. Since his financial troubles started, David was starting to make talking to himself a regular habit. He didn't want to worry Alicia about the financial problems and he couldn't talk to his friends about them without them thinking he wanted money.
David had clued Alicia in on what was happening last Friday, but after their fight Monday morning, he was back to feeling alone again. With no one to turn to, David needed to come up with another way to make money for the bar so that he could afford to keep their home.
Then he heard a knock on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked gruffly.
"Manny, man. Open up."
David got up and answered the door. Manny surveyed the room and was shocked at the level of disorganization. He had an idea that his old friend had fallen on hard times, but it was clear to Manny that David had no idea how to help himself. Luckily for David, Manny had an idea.
David turned his back to his friend and started working again, hoping Manny would make his conversation brief and leave. "What's up," David asked with feigned interest.
"You remember Chino and Paco's?" Manny asked.
"Paco's? That Mexican bar a few miles down? Yeah. Why?"
"Chino had this idea to make a bar calendar. He got some sexy ladies to come in, took their pictures, and he made a calendar. They're practically printing money, man!"
David was feeling bad enough about his own failure. He didn't want to hear about how well someone else was doing.
"Gee, that's great, Manny. I'm happy for him. Is there a point to all this?"
"Of course there is, old friend," Manny smiled. "This place should do a calendar too. It might be a good idea to help put some asses in these seats. Those stools are looking pretty lonely out there."
"So what you're suggesting is that we make a calendar and sell them here at the bar..."
"Not just that, but we shoot it at the bar. If guys know that there's going to be sexy ladies walking around half naked, they'll come in for sure."
Manny was making a lot of sense. Realizing that Manny could be on to something, David turned around and gave him his undivided attention.
"We'll make money from the guys who want to watch the photo shoot and we make money when we sell the calendars," David said. "Manny, that's a great idea, but who would we have pose for this thing?"
"Definitely not Cheryl. She's going to volunteer man, but we all know that her best years are behind her," Manny chuckled. David laughed and nodded his head in agreement. "We just need a few. Maybe three or four girls and they wear different outfits."
"What are the girls wearing in Paco's calendar?" David asked.
"Bikinis. Pretty tame stuff, but no one around here's done anything like this, so people are eating it up. I think we can get away with having our girls show more than Chino's and people will want this calendar instead of his," Manny said.
"OK, so we need to find some girls then. I don't know of anyone that we could get to do this. Do you?" David asked.
"My niece, Sasha, has a few friends who might want to do it. I'll talk to them. I think there's one girl that we definitely need to put in this thing," Manny said.
"Who?"
"Alicia."
David sighed. He never wanted his own daughter to become a sexual object that men fantasize about. He had tried very hard while raising her to make sure that this sort of thing didn't happen – but now it has. After he asked her to do the gangbang last week, everything has changed – including Alicia. Their relationship was strained, because David still felt guilty about what happened and desperately wanted things to return to how they were before. She could obviously handle something like what Manny suggested, but David didn't know if he could live with himself if he did this.
"I don't know, Manny. I don't think I want to have her become a part of this," David said.
"She's not a little girl anymore, " Manny replied. "You have to get used to that."
David was becoming frustrated. Manny didn't understand what he was dealing with. He wasn't the one who offered his little girl up to fuck a room full of guys.
"I know she's not little anymore, Manny. That's not the point. I...feel bad about last week. I don't know if I can be a part of willingly objectifying her again."
"You've got a point, Dave. I can only imagine what that's like, but I gotta be honest, she's a lot hotter than the girls that Paco's has. People would love her, man."
That's what he was afraid of. It's one thing for thirteen guys, including Manny, to want her, but to slap revealing photos of her all around town in a calendar was something else entirely.
"I don't know, I don't think I can..."
Manny cut him off, "Let's cut the bullshit, Dave. I know that things are bad around here. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. The plumbing is leaking, the bar stools are torn up, and there's never enough liquor. You've got a money problem here. This isn't something I think you can pass up. I'm your friend and I love ya and I love this bar. I don't want to see you, and your bar, fall into ruin."
Dave took a deep breath and replied, "I used Alicia last week as a solution to the bar's financial problems. What kind of father would I be if I did that again? Thirteen guys, including YOU, were inside my daughter last week, Manny! Who knows what would happen if she was on this calendar?"
"Look...I didn't know it was going to be her, OK? I paid my fifty dollars just like everyone else. I figured it would be someone else walking through that curtain. If you're sore that I was a part of your daughter's gangbang, I'm sorry. I wasn't going to pass that up and I'm sure no one else in that room was going to either."
"I need some time to think about this," David said.
"OK, whatever, man. I'm out of here. Give me a call if you change your mind." Manny replied.
With that, Manny walked out the door. David was now left with more thoughts in his head. It seemed like all he's done lately is think and now he has more to think about.
Was Manny right? Did he need to do this to pull his bar out of the hole it's in? Did he need to accept the fact that Alicia is a grown woman and that men will have sex with her and there's nothing he can do about it? It seemed like a lot to digest. He wasn't quite ready to let go of his expectations for Alicia.
David decided to think about the issue later. He didn't want to think about it anymore. He returned to his work when he heard another knock at his door.
"Manny? I told you I'd think about it, OK!?" he shouted.
He stood up and opened the door – it was Cheryl.
"Cheryl. Is something wrong? Do you need anything?" he asked.
She stepped inside David's small, cramped office. David closed the door. If she wanted to talk to him in private, he knew this had nothing to do with the bar. She wanted something.
"Dave...I wanted to talk to you about something," she said.
He sat back down and looked at her as she played with her hair, while chomping on a big stick of chewing gum.
"Manny was out there talking about a calendar? I was wondering if you had enough girls for it?" she asked.
There it was. He could tell that she wanted to be in the calendar. He wasn't sure if he was even going to make the calendar, let alone pick Cheryl to pose for it.
"I'm not sure if we're doing it, Cheryl." David replied.
"The way Manny talked about it, I thought the bar was doing it." She said.
"I talked to Manny about it and we didn't exactly see eye-to-eye about it."
"What do you mean? Why wouldn't we do it? It would make the bar a lot of money. Paco's is doing it."
David knew the calendar would make the bar some much needed money, but he didn't want his daughter to be a part of it. On the other hand, if David went through with it and didn't cast his daughter, the calendar would likely be a flop. It would be full of older women and bar flies that no one wants to see half naked. It was a tough choice for David to make.
"We...we didn't agree on who should be in it."
