Fiona Hendrickson glanced at her next appointment. Marcus Chapman. Well, this should be the highlight of the day, she thought. He was her last appointment of the morning before her lunch break and the students had been a pretty depressing bunch so far. In an unexceptional school, Marcus stood out. His grades were uniformly excellent and his extra-curricular activities were varied and impressive. The eighteen year old student was destined to go far.
Definitely further than me, thought Fiona, slightly glumly. She remembered back to how she'd mocked her own high school guidance counselor's suggested career paths as limited and lacking aspiration. She'd been convinced the world was her oyster. Then she'd got pregnant by her high school sweetheart in her first year of college. Fiona had been planning to break up with him, had in fact intended that to be the last time they slept together, but everything changed when her period stopped. Tony did the right thing and married her but that turned out to actually be the wrong thing for both of them. So here she was: 29, divorced, a single mother and... a high school guidance counselor herself. So much for childhood dreams.
Snap out of it, Fiona, she told herself. This isn't about you, it is about a young man's future.
Marcus knocked and enter the room. He was tall but not huge, perhaps a shade under six foot and relatively slender. As usual, he was dressed far more maturely than his classmates. The crisp white collar of his shirt contrasted pleasingly with the smooth brown skin of his face. Over one shoulder was a leather satchel. A manbag, I guess they call them these days, thought Fiona. Polished brogues completed the look. All in all, he looked more like a young professional than a high school student. For some reason he seemed slightly nervous though.
"Come in," laughed Fiona, "I'm not going to bite! Have a seat."
Marcus laughed and some of the tension left him. He sat down opposite her and she leaned forward across her desk.
"So," she said brightly, "I bet you have a plan for your career."
"Yep." Although his body language was now relaxed, his eyes darted nervously off to one side.
"What are you thinking then? Law? Medicine?"
Marcus coughed. "Actually, I want to work for Blacked."
"Hmm, I don't think I know them. Are they a social action organisation? I can recommend some really excellent public policy programmes for you."
"Oh, no, it's nothing like that. The full name is, um, Blacked.com."
"Oh, right. Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed anything just because of the name. So it is an IT company? I don't know them, I'm afraid, but that would make an excellent career. Of course, the goldrush days of the industry are behind them but you can still make a very good living and there is so much flexibility. Were you thinking of taking a computer science degree or following a more entrepreneurial path?"
"It's actually more of an entertainment company."
"Huh." Fiona frowned slightly. "Okay, well, there's nothing wrong with that, although I should caution you that it can be a very insecure business. Fun for a young man but what about when you get to my age?"
"You're not old, he laughed.
Fiona smiled. "All I meant is would you still be happy working your socks off trying to catch a break after a decade? When you had family responsibilities? But I can't really advise you unless I know more about them, can I? Let me just just bring it up here," she said, turning to her computer.
"No, that's fine, really, Mrs Hendrickson," Marcus said quickly. "I thought you deserved an honest answer but really I'm all set."
"Don't be silly, I'm here to help. I'm sure you've researched them thoroughly but a fresh perspective never hurt, right?" Fiona typed the company into the search bar of her browser and pressed enter. "That's odd; it's blocked. Damn firewall is seriously over-sensitive! Pardon my language," she added with a conspiratorial wink. "Let me just bring it up on my phone."
"No, no, don't worry about it," put in Marcus urgently as she pulled out her iPhone.
"Marcus, relax, it's what I'm here for."
Fiona tapped away at the screen of her phone for a bit until the site loaded up.
"Oh my," she said.
A lean but muscular black man, totally naked, was penetrating an equally naked brunette from behind, his hands gripping her waist tightly,
Fiona scrolled down.
Another brunette gazed out of the screen, pale blue eyes, pale pink lips. Dangling in front of her face was a hugely erect black penis, the head bobbing by her chin.
Fiona scrolled down.
Yet another brunette, her long hair pouring over her shoulders. She was looking over her shoulder at the camera as she rode a black man cowgirl style. His thick penis was stretching her labia wide and his strong hands pulled her buttocks apart, exposing her tight little anus.
Fiona scrolled down.
A blonde this time, incredibly petite and voluptuous and waxed within an inch of her life. Another well hung black man, at least a foot taller than her, stood by her side, leading her towards some carnal situation.
Fiona scrolled down.
Another brunette - Jewish? Or maybe Middle Eastern? - lay on her stomach gripping an immense black penis. She held it with both hands but the base and the head were completely uncovered. She wore a classy lace top but was bottomless, her cute little butt pointing upwards.
Cute little butt? Where the hell did that come from?
Fiona scrolled down.
Another blonde, kinda trash looking but fully clothed. Well, if bra, panties and garter belt counted as fully clothed. Her back was arched, thrusting out her tits, the look in her eyes the unmistakable gleam of a woman about to get fucked. On either side of her stood a big black man with a big black dick hanging between his thighs. Not yet hard, they were still bigger than any penis Fiona had seen in real life.
Fiona stopped scrolling. She felt heat flooding her body. Shock, embarrassment, anger and, underneath it all, an unmistakable hint of arousal. But mostly anger.
"What the hell is the meaning of this?" she shouted. Then she glanced guiltily at the door of her office; a guidance counsellor should never raise her voice.
"Sorry, Mrs Hendrickson, I told you not to look." Marcus had actually raised his hands up in front of him as a shield. "I didn't want you to see that but I wanted to be honest with you."
Fiona's eyes flicked down to her phone of their own accord. She was thirty next month and had had sex with precisely one man. Even when she'd split up with Tony, she'd never found the time to date what with childcare and work. Whereas this blonde girl couldn't be more than twenty and was having sex with two men. Two very large men. At once. On camera. How many men had the little slut slept with? A dozen? At least. And 'slept' probably wasn't the right word.
"So you want to be a porn star," she said flatly, raising her eyes from the screen.
"That sounds so Nineties!" Marcus protested. "I want to be an adult entertainer."
"Listen, what is going on here, mister?" It made her sound about sixty but sometimes sounding sixty was helpful in a school setting. "Is this a joke? Or just a silly fantasy? It's such a waste of your natural talents!"
"Actually, I think it is a pretty good use of my natural talents," Marcus said quietly.
Fiona wasn't really been paying attention to his response, her mental cogs were too busy whirring. "So you seriously think this is a meaningful career?"
"It's not a career, it's capital!" Marcus laughed and some of the tension left the room. "What are my choices? I go to college and pick up a buttload of debt. Or I go into an industry and start as an intern and work myself to death for nothing. Or I launch a start-up and pick up a buttload of debt and work myself to death for nothing. Or... I work a couple of hours a week as an adult entertainer. I enjoy myself whilst I'm young. I save my money. Maybe I get my CPA at the same time. By the time I'm 25, I've got my own production company. I can diversify. Invest in real estate, maybe."
Marcus paused and rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "I guess that's where I should have started, right? I know I just ploughed straight in but I was so nervous and you started bombarding me with all those questions. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, I'm just wanted to be honest, Mrs Hendrickson. I really respect you, oh god, that's so cheesy, now I sound like a total dick." As soon as he'd said this, he clapped his hand over his mouth, trying to shove the word back inside.
And that's when Fiona knew that he was for real.
With 99% of the kids in this school it could only have been a dumb prank, an attempt to punk their ancient guidance counselor who couldn't possible know what it was like to be young. She knew a couple of kids who could even have spun a line of bullshit as compelling as Marcus's rationale. But Marcus was Marcus. Here was a guy who felt embarrassed about saying the word 'dick' summoning up the nerve to announce he wanted to make his living by having sex with women. White women, she quickly reminded herself.
"Don't worry, Marcus, I've heard the word 'dick' before. Even seen a few," she said archly holding up her phone.
"This isn't going how I planned it," he said, his head in his hands now.
"Oh? And how did you plan on telling your guidance counsellor that you wanted to be a pornstar?" Now that she knew he was on the level, she was having a little bit of fun at his expense.
Marcus sat in silence and she realised she was being cruel. It must have been hard for him to come in here. And his career plan sounded a hell of a lot more considered than most of the kids that came through her door. More considered than her's, to be honest. Really, who was she to be judgemental? Well, if he could be mature and professional, so could she.
"Okay, I guess if I'm to give you some proper guidance I need to understand, er, your future employer in a bit more detail." She looked back at her phone, not quite believing what she was looking at or why.
"Seriously?"
"It took guts to come in here and be open with me. And, to be honest, my response fell short of what you should have expected from me. I over-reacted."
"Cool! I mean, that's great. Here, Mrs Hendrickson," said Marcus pulling his iPad out of his bag, "This will be easier. Don't want to ruin your eyes."
The problem with sometimes needing to act sixty was that then the kids treated you like you were sixty. Maybe Marcus was about to fetch her a blanket to keep the chill out too.
"You don't need to worry about me going blind. In fact," she said, a faint smile playing at her lips as she pointed at his tablet, "Maybe you are the one who might want to watch out for that."
Marcus didn't say anything but his silence spoke volumes. He'd clearly got her reference. But, undeterred, he loaded up the site and place his iPad flat on the desk between them.
Fiona frowned. "So I think we've established we can both see fine. But one of us will have to look at this upside down." She thought for a second. "Let's go and sit on the couch instead."
The couch was on the other side of her office. It was there to support more intimate counselling; a box of tissues stood on the small table next to it and she'd needed to whip them out when comforting many female students. She very much doubted the school authorities had had this particular scenario in mind when they'd approved its purchase.
As she walked past the door to her office, Fiona reached out and flicked the lock closed. She did it almost without thinking.
