I was a thirty one year old malcontent, feeling that I was not achieving any of my goals in life, and not sure how to go about changing that.
My divorce had become final a month ago. Megan and I had been madly in love, but when she said she wasn't happy anymore and wanted out after six years of marriage I merely shrugged my shoulders. I didn't have the interest in or energy for rekindling the spark. Fortunately we had no kids and the split was as amicable as that type of thing can be.
I had been passed over for promotion at work two times in the last three years. While I was an above average producer, for some reason I didn't "click" with the powers that be. That was an enormous blow to my ego since I had been in the top 10% of my class at one of the five best graduate business schools in the country.
I had quit playing competitive basketball a year and a half ago; I had been playing in one league or another since I was eight years old, including starting for a Division III school in college. Sometimes I played in two adult leagues at the same time. However, I had lost my passion for the game, just like for almost everything else.
I badly needed to hunger for something β to compete and win β to challenge myself β to go outside my zone of comfort. Nothing was presenting itself.
After my divorce I had downsized and consolidated my assets. I sold everything that didn't fit into an efficiency apartment, my motorcycle, and my small boat. A four year old Ford Fusion was my only means of transportation. I had enough money saved to change careers, but so far not the guts or a plan for the future β flipping burgers at Wendy's is a big fall from being a marketing executive for a Fortune 500 company.
I guess I really didn't deserve some help from serendipity, but thankfully I got it. Carl, my most friendly co-worker, was a real oddball in the IT department. We initially interfaced because I had more than my share of technology problems over my five years at my Fortune 500 employer, but we both were a "little off" so we ate lunch together at least once a week, went to ball games together, and even worked out together once in a while β when I had the energy.
"Hey Brain," Carl chuckled as he walked into my office just before noon on a Tuesday, using his pet perversion of my name "Brian." "I know that you're in a Megan-work-sports funk and you need to snap out of it soon or I'll have to bitch slap you." That was a joke since I'm six foot six inches tall and 230 pounds, and Carl is five eight, 150. "I got just the thing," he snickered.
"Lay it on me IT genius," I nonchalantly replied, not believing that anything that he would propose would be worthwhile.
"It's an adventure called 'The Hunt.' It's on an island that's privately owned, and not part of any country. And it's competitive and sexual. You haven't been laid in two months and you haven't even played me in chess for another three months, so it's right up your alley," he snickered. "Let me sign on to the website on your computer," he said as he closed my door, pushed my chair to the side, and ran his nimble fingers over the keyboard.
I have to say that the website immediately got my attention. The adventure was based upon men hunting women for sexual pleasure. All participants signed contracts waving all rights except for injury-inducing assault and murder (thanks for that), and the small but efficient security force on the private island only enforced those laws. Theft and sexual assault (without injury and by only one person) were acceptable. All women participants did have a panic button, which if pressed would bring the authorities to their rescue, but were counseled not to use it except in the case of real danger otherwise they'd be expelled.
Then I evaluated the competitive nature of it. Men who succeeded in hunting down women could do what they wanted with them (again, subject only to the panic button being pressed). Women could score in two ways β by avoiding capture, or by capturing a guy and removing all his possessions or β probably not likely β sexually assaulting him as they saw fit. Women could band together in teams, men could not. There was an entry fee of $25,000 for men and $5,000 for women ("sexual discrimination" I laughed to myself) for the three week experience, and a prize of $100,000 for the winner based upon a complex scoring system.
My eyes glazed over as I worked my way through the website. Carl laughed at me as he exited my room. "Better not let the V. P. catch you on that website at work, Brain; I'll leave you to your thoughts, knowing that I've done a solid for my buddy."
I snapped out of my stupor, copied the web address, opened up a work related program on my computer, and got back to my boring job.
I couldn't wait to get to my efficiency apartment that night to get on the website for The Hunt on my laptop. I ordered Chinese delivery and snarffed it down while perusing the site. By payment of a $100 "Good Faith Fee" one could get access to photos (no names or cities) of the other participants who had signed up for the next three week session, to start in about a month from the date that I was perusing the site.
I paid the $100 fee with a credit card and logged on.
There were already seven people signed up, four guys, three women. The company running The Hunt made sure that they always had an equal number of each even if they had to hire prostitutes or college girls who couldn't pay their tuition to bring up the number of women. The seven were from four different countries, four from the U S, one from Brazil, one from Australia, and one from Germany.
The last photo of the participants caused me to do a triple take. "Holy Shit!" I mumbled aloud, "That sure looks like Jen!"
Jen LeBeouf is a woman six years younger than I am who worked with me four years ago for about nine months. I had a hard-on for her, and I think that if we both hadn't been married that we would have been fucking up a storm regardless of location or circumstance. As it was, we never got together, although we were both flirtatious toward each other and she was the subject of many of my dreams.
Jen was β and based on her photo still is β a short (probably only 5 foot three inches tall, 15 inches shorter than me) big-assed woman with killer thighs, a slim upper body with tiny tits, big doe brown eyes and silky brunette hair, and a face that defined "cute." She was also the personification of the phrase "Classy, Sassy, and Smart Assy."
I looked up her old personal email address in my iPhone; there was no way to communicate with the enrollees on the site, and I was sure that the email address that I had was obsolete; but it was all that I had so I gave it a try.
"Say Sassy," I started out the email, using my nickname for her. "I was on the website for The Hunt and it sure looked like you have already signed up for participation. Is that you? If so, why are you on the site, and what would you say to me signing up?"