Max Goes to the Great Outdoors

"Hey Jezza! Jezza Jerome? You out there and wanna fuck me on camera?"

The meeting with George and Finn (My 'vanilla' mass-market publishers.) did not go well.

Well, okay, it started decently but, by the end, turned into a real shitshow.

I'll fully admit to being on edge leading right up to the meeting- I had a new book coming out that week that was already getting some good reviews and, after some discussion back and forth between Tabitha and Jessica, I was ready to sign a deal with Screamdreamer for the Baskerville rights.

Reality setting in, I think we all knew it wasn't a deal that would make the studio billions of dollars, but I'd get a solid chunk of money for what had already been written and some points when they went to press. There was even a chance that I'd get a bump for the e-books once the studio design team started working on newer covers and word got out they existed. Would I be set for life? No. Would I do ok? As long as I kept writing them to a certain standard and they wanted to make movies of them, I'd get by.

Could I quit my regular writing and make a living off of writing smut?

No.

Now my editor Finn I can deal with. He's about my age and a decent guy. He's tossed out a few ideas that I was able to run with and turn into books. One of my better sellers came out of his suggestions. I like Finn. I've had beers with Finn. I've played with Finn's kids at their family barbeque. Finn and I are cool.

George and I are not cool. George is old school money and he lets you know it. It's not even HIS money! It's family money from ventures going... hold up, that's going to come up later so I'm not going to double dip this early. George is in charge of the House' History Division, mostly because he's been around for most of it. If you aren't wearing a suit when talking with George, even if you're discussing the best-seller idea that actually IS a best-seller story, you might as well be asking him if he needs more breadsticks. Stuffy, arrogant, bigoted- you name it. But it's HIS money that runs the House and if you don't like it? There's the window. He doesn't want you taking up space in his door.

You see where this is going, right?

Oh, and if you think I have something against people with money? You'd be partially right. I'm not immune to wanting to be rich. I just want to live comfortably in a style of my own choosing and have enough to help people out without squeezing every penny into copper wire. It's not what you HAVE that pisses me off, it's what you DO with it that puts my teeth on edge.

(Just the sort of high concept stuff you were looking forward to reading in a story about tits and ass, right? We're getting there, I just need to set the stage first.)

So there we are, in a small meeting room in the publishing house office, gathered around a table. I'm in a suit. Tabitha's in a suit. George and Finn are in their suits. We look very fancy. We're talking- okay, mostly Tabitha and Finn are talking about the release of my latest book, already at the stores in hardcover, paperbacks to follow in six months. George is chewing on a cigar he's not allowed to light (He deliberately tips over the No Smoking sign on the table every time we meet.) being professionally disinterested. And my mind is going back and forth from Finn and Tabitha to the Clinic a few nights before.

The follow-up was...intense. Like 'Holy Fuck' intense.

Finn then asked me a few questions about my work on Number Fifteen and I gave an update (Already three chapters done and the full outline finished.) as to when I thought I'd reasonably be finished the first draft. Then I confessed to mixing up my work on it and what would eventually become the next Baskerville Bunch book. Tabitha and I had discussed how to bring up the Baskerville work and this is where we'd settled on it.

"'Baskerville Bunch'?" rumbled George, finally giving the conversation some direct attention. "Sounds like some sort of children's mystery series. why haven't you brought this to our Young Adult division yet?"

"Because it's not FOR children," I told him directly, folding my hands in front of me for fear they would turn into fists. George and I have not really gotten along. The only reason I got published here in the first place is my early novels deal with the Civil War period, which he is particularly fond of, and once I started making them money, there was no reason to get rid of me. "They are, in a word- porn."

That's when I turned back to Finn and gave him a very sanitized version of how I came to write and self-publish the Baskerville novellas, meeting Jessica at the writers' panel at Exxxotica and again at a regular signing. How she put two and two together, brought the material to HER boss (We used Tawny's real name instead of her more well-known stage name) and how they presented me with a proposal for that work to be used at the studio and it did not include anything I'd written for and published through the House. We showed him the contract (I hadn't signed it yet just to provide him the peace of mind that I was still THINKING about it when, in reality, it was pretty much a done deal.) and did our best to answer any questions he had.

Meanwhile, George turned interesting shades of red and purple and bit through his unlit cigar.

"And what are you going to do now?" Finn asked, closing the contract and pushing it back to Tabitha. I'd watched him steal glances at George and we both knew an explosion was coming. Or his heart would give out. Fifty-fifty either way. Suddenly I couldn't remember how to do CPR.

"Well, we wanted to get your input before making a move," Tabitha replied, tucking the contract back in her briefcase. "But I think we should take it. It's getting his name out there and more money rolling in. There might even be a bump in your sal..."

"PORNOGRAPHER!" George finally railed, stabbing a sausage finger accusingly at me. "If...if you think for one minute that..."

"Now George," started Finn soothingly.

"Oh please," Tabitha jumped in, pointing at a framed advertisement on the wall showing this month's collection of Romance novels offered by the house. "What he wrote is only slightly dirtier than those, and your name isn't even attached to them. You're just pissed that porn is a billion dollar a year industry and you aren't getting a dime of it through my client."

George glared at Tabitha in a way that made me want to put something heavy between them, lest he attack.

"You," he growled at last, ready to spit nails. "You were easier to deal with when you still had a dick...

"Phil."

"THAT'S IT!" I roared, coming right up out of my chair and slapping both hands on the table. "You listen to me, you sanctimonious needle-prick! I've had just about enough of your bullshit for this lifetime and the next three. Get off your high horse before the gang bang fuck pics I found online from the website you BOUGHT your latest wife from find their way onto the company newsletter. Or your 'service record' from the military academy your daddy dearest shuffled you off to after you got too friendly with the gardener's daughter. Seriously, how can you get a '4F' rating from an ACADEMY in PEACETIME? I'm not even going to point out that ITS NOT EVEN YOUR MONEY in the company! Oh wait, I just did. My bad."

If you've ever made someone completely strip their gears going from raving red pissed off to stark white terror for their perfectly well curated existence, you know what a satisfying, almost religious experience it can be. I threw an envelope at him and another to Finn.

"Next time you feel the need to open your obnoxiously 'superior' gob, I want you to ask yourself- 'Do I really mean this? Or am I just pissed that I can't play grab-ass with my secretary any more because my nephew doesn't want to deal with the lawsuits?'." I reached down and tapped the envelope.

"That's not even everything I dug up on you and your family in ONE afternoon. That's just the public record highlights to let you know I'm not fucking around. I'm keeping the juicy stuff for when you REALLY piss me off." I grabbed my satchel and started for the door. "And just in case you start thinking you're a frog and want to jump, just know that I have a copy, I just gave Finn a copy, Tabitha... say it with me! TAB-ITH-A! Good boy." Yeah, I'll admit the cheek pat was going a bit over the top. I got caught up in the moment. "SHE has a copy. And I've stored two more in different locations just in case I have 'an accident'."

"H-how?" He started sputtering, trying to get his ire or color back.

"I'm not just one of your 'pissant writers' (Oh yeah, Roxette shared that little gem with me at the Christmas party. You remember the one, right?), I'm a Trained Researcher. I went to college to do just this sort of thing. I just prefer to write my nice little fiction books and share information about the world that way. But this? This is my bread and butter. And before you ask 'Why?'- you just deadnamed my friend. You don't get courtesy after that."

It took Tabitha another twenty minutes to catch up with me at her car. Times like this I really wished I smoked just to calm my shit down. At this point I was even resisting the urge to check SI for someone close by for a quick and dirty therapy fuck but that felt counter-intuitive- accusing George of being an abusive pig, then finding a warm body to treat roughly? Yeah, not really gonna work for me today.

"You overdramatic orangutang!" Tabitha yelled at me as soon as she saw me standing beside her vehicle. "What in the cinnamon toast fuck were you thinking?"

"Orangutang? Still? I would have sworn that was a Gorilla Worthy performance," I tried to be nonchalant. If she was this mad, then the world was still turning in the right direction. "I was thinking that the asshole deadnamed and insulted my friend and I felt the need to let him know that's not okay."

"I can stand up for myself. It's what I'M trained to do! I'm a lawyer, remember?"

"Every time I get your bill."

"Get in the car. I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you." She looked at me with a rueful smile. "Brain dead gorilla."

--------------------------------------

So yeah, the timing could have been better.

I made several appearances at local bookstores over the next three days, getting a lay of the land. The books were there, but not in any position of prominence. I signed a half-dozen or so in each store anyway.

Tabitha and Finn had worked out a quiet deal that they would print and publish my current novel (aka 'Number Fifteen') with little to no fanfare or advertising. After that, the house would evaluate our working relationship and decide if we would continue to work together, or if we would part ways.

Of course, without the publisher's backing on fourteen, we couldn't expect great sales on either so there was going to be a hit to the wallet. A hit made up for by the Screamdreamer-Baskerville deal, making it worthwhile, but not the windfall we'd hoped for.

Which is why I took off for a few days. (Yes, horn dogs, we're getting to the choicer bits!) I felt the need to get out of the city, shake off the cobwebs and self-doubt and hit a few hiking trails. Day trips really. I'm not a camper. Drive an hour in a cardinal direction, find trailhead, go walkabout for a few hours, come home.

Tuesday, mid-morning and I'm wandering up some trail, in and out of sunlight, just thinking... well, just thinking about what a dumbass I am to be doing this for fun because my legs are killing me and I'm really too out-of-shape and need to exercise more but hiking is exercise even though today it's torture. And so forth.

I'm hearing birdsong, the wind in the trees, the scurry of small animals running through the underbrush, the bugle of a deer in rut calling for a mate, the screams of the odd hiker plunging to their doom- you know, the usual hiking noises. That is, until I get near the top when I hear a different sort of mating call just above me from around a last twist in the trail.

"Hi everyone! It's your favorite Nature Girl Ashley! Today I'm coming to you live and (hopefully) in the flesh from the top of this beautiful mountain for another episode of Exposed to Nature! You know how this works boys and girls, the more you put in, the more I take off! It's a beautiful day with a beautiful view, so let's top it off with a real gusher huh? Oops! Looks like I might have an unexpected guest today folks. Let me go talk to him and see if he's ok being on camera because I'd really like to get railed to this view. Be right back!"

I figured this 'Ashley' must have come up the trail with someone because I had only encountered one car in the parking lot when I got here myself, so I was torn between making my presence known, slipping into the woods with all my mighty woodcrafting skills and stealth (i.e. clumsy and loud as an ox) to catch the show from a hidden vantage point, or just turning around and getting out of their way. Then she called my Baskerville pseudonym.

Oh shit. The SI App! I hadn't bothered to have my phone out because I'm in the freaking woods on top of a mountain! Who knew there'd be a hookup way up here?

She poked her head around the twist in the trail and waved invitingly. She was cute enough in her tight short sleeved top, light vest and khaki shorts. Her hips were a little wide, but athletically so and her curly hair and plump boobs bounced as she trotted down to meet me.

"Hey there! You're Jezza?" She waved her phone at me, showing the Potential Hookup notification in bright, happy red.

"Yeah, that's me." I yanked my phone out of my pocket and showed her my version of the same notification. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting to get a meet-request out here."

Shut up. Of course YOU knew. You're reading about it after the fact. Not really a great feat of prognostication there Nostradamus.

"I get that. Normally I'm out here by myself, doing my show solo. Don't really get the chance to, ya'know, 'fuck'." She practically vibrated with excitement.

"What sort of 'show"?" Though, I suspected I already knew, I needed to hear it from her.

"I'm a Camgirl! But instead of a poorly decorated dorm room or tiny bedroom, I come out here, find a nice place to set up, strip down and get off for my followers. Normally it's all fingers and dildos, but if you don't mind being on camera?" She gave a little twirl, showing off the goods I'd be enjoying. Of course I hit 'Accept'.

She led me back up around the trail where she had set up on a nice overlook- yoga mat to sit on, a laptop and remote camera on a pole, and a strange looking dildo that, on closer inspection looked a bit like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

And suddenly 'Fuck Me Seymore' is playing in your head too. You're welcome.

You can alternate that with Venus aka 'Goddess on a Mountain Top' if you like. I did.

"So, you know how this works, right? We're gonna sit down and start chatting and foreplay- touching, kissing, that sort of thing. Feel free to get as handsy as you want. The more we play it up to the audience that we really wanna fuck each others' brains out, the more money they'll dump into my account."

"No problem on the 'want to fuck your brains out' front." I set my bag down and sat on the mat where she wanted me. "Not far from that already."

"Good!" She blushed a bit at the compliment, setting herself down near enough to be on camera, but far enough to create a bit of tension. "Now, I'm going to be reacting to the audience- saying Hi to regulars and big givers and so on, so don't get discouraged. And, if you're comfortable doing so, go ahead and talk to them yourself. The mics on the camera and laptop should pick us both up just fine."

"Got it. I may get chatty, so let's see how it goes." I looked at her screen while she made some adjustments to account for my presence. "What are your tiers like?"

She gave me a general rundown of how much she needed in the till to make out, start stripping (top, bra, shorts, panties each had goals) and finally masturbation or, in our case, sex. During a solo show she'd start playing with herself before the panties came off but that was my job now. And a task I was more than willing to take in hand. I could strip however I liked, but keeping to the same order stretched out the titillation longer. The audience had come to expect things happening in a certain way.

"Got it- 'consistency in perversion'. Lead the way!" She popped up to kiss my cheek, then settled back into a kneeling position at arm's length. Deep breath (Boy, was that an unexpectedly nice sight to seen on a mountaintop!) aaannnd go!

"Hey there Elementals! I'm back and with me today enjoying this nice view is my new trail buddy and fuck friend- Jezza! Couples rules today gang, so dig deep ok? I really want him to rearrange my guts before we're done!"

"Hello everyone!" I waved to the camera and the audience beyond. "It's a beautiful day here in the mountains of middle Pennsylvania and the view here is much better than I hoped for." I gave Ashley my best appreciative leer. The computer gave a little cash register ring and she popped up into a very sudden and welcome kiss.

"Thanks Joey," she bubbled at the hidden donor after an all-too-brief smooch. She started caressing my leg just below the cuff of my hiking shorts. I returned the favor by caressing her arm. "Why don't we get to know our new trail mate, shall we? Anything you want to tell us about yourself Jezza?"

"Well, let's see- single white male from Philly..."

"Boo! I'm from the 'Burgh." She pouted, prettily, shifting her hand a bit higher on my leg. "I guess this will just have to be our little secret then."

'No secrets here," I blatantly slid my hands down to caress both of her firm round boobs. "As advertised, they are All Natural folks." That got a few more coins dropping into her account. "Where was I? Ummm... mid-40's. I'm a writer by trade."

"Oh! Anything spicy?" By now, one hand was high on the thigh opposite my very obvious bulge and the other traced across my neck and shoulders.

"You said it yourself- 'Jezza Jerome' folks at home. Look me up!" I had an eye on the scale and slipped a hand behind her neck to pull her into another, hotter kiss when it hit the mark. This time with more tongues. And the back of her hand pressing against my stiffening cock. And mine slid under the waistband of her shorts, pulling at her hip. She moaned into my mouth.

"Shit! Umm... hi Jesse, Reggie and Fi!" She read the chat scroll quickly, shifting around to put her other hand directly on my hard-on. "Yeah Fi, I wish you were here today too honey! He's..." She squeezed my dick through my shorts. "He's not wearing any underwear."

"Never do," I quipped, unbuttoning the top button of her shorts, but only to tug her tight shirt free. Though, to be fair, wandering mountain trails without jockeys didn't always feel great. She returned the favor, focusing her attention on the button of my shorts.

"Anything else I need to know?" She slid her hands around my hips, working my shirt up. Then a bell went off and she pulled it completely off. "Thank you, Brian!"

"I've got a clean bill of health and I'm clipped." She tossed my shirt aside and dove for my nipples, licking and biting them much as I would enjoy doing to her. "So, I'm able to creampie you with no fear if you want."

"Fuck yes!" She crowed, turning to the camera. "Hear that guys? Instead of watching me jack him off into my panties, if we hit goal he's gonna full my little pussy and then clean me up with them instead! How's that for a stretch goal!" Money started flowing in a bit faster while she turned to me to explain. "Normally I try to get off once in my panties and again without them on. If I'm with someone, just to be on the safe side, we fuck until he's about to cum, then I jerk him off into my underwear. I always leave my cum soaked shit for someone to come out here and find later."