6: The Podcasters
Well, this was turning out to be a giant waste of my time. Guess I should've expected as much. MikeCon was a fresh, up-and-coming convention for podcasters, and I was a fresh, up-and-coming podcaster. Those two don't mix. The first year, at least, the people who turn up aren't going for the general atmosphere or to explore new talent, they're going exclusively for the one or two big draws that the Con has managed to wrangle. There they were, signing autographs and selling merch about, oh, 200 metres away, at the other end of the convention hall. If I was lucky, and the crowd doubled in size, the queues might stretch far enough back to reach the stall I'd set up. And then... well, hope that they're interested I guess.
Maybe I'd set my expectations too high. In practice, people weren't that enthused by a back-catalogue of a whopping three episodes. And you wouldn't believe, until you saw it, how saturated the market is already with men's health podcasts. Neither I nor James, my sound engineer, had any real expertise to bring to the table, so a lot of the episodes so far were just the two of us regurgitating professional opinions and studies we'd found online.
What we need,
I thought,
is to find our own niche.
James had opted to stay home, with the excuse that he needed to edit the latest episode, so it was just me manning the stall. Seven or eight hours of watching the world go by. The lack of stimulation was killing me. At one point I realised I'd fallen asleep, and woke to the sound of a giggling convention-goer taking my picture. She blushed, caught in the act.
"Saw-ree," she sang, "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"Whatreyoudoing?" I mumbled blearily, shaking my head to clear it.
"Saw-ree," she said again in that vaguely irritating, placating tone, "it's just kinda... convention mood, you know? Can I upload it, please?"
What the hell. If somebody on social media found it funny, that would be as much interaction as I'd got all day. Any publicity is good publicity, or whatever.
"Sure," I shrugged, "but I'd appreciate if you tagged the podcast in it."
"Done!" she chirped, checking my banner. "Thank you sooo much, hope you find some more fans!"
I watched as she flounced away. I had half a mind to persuade her to stay and talk, but it's not like she was in my target demographic anyway. Judging by the large kitchen knife spattered with blood on her t-shirt, I guessed that she was more of a True Crime person.
I wasn't proud of it, but I spent the next few minutes scouring social media on my phone to find that picture. I learned from this experience that, due to things like Movember and other initiatives for men's mental health, a podcast called "Let's Talk Men" was completely un-searchable. Great. Maybe we should just change our name now, while we still had absolutely no brand recognition whatsoever.
There I was, spark out on the desk, and pretty sure I was actually drooling. A decent number of interactions already, but few of them seemed interested in my actual podcast. With the speed at which it was being buried under other pictures showing the vastly more popular personalities, I'd have to be happy with that.
happykylie: Big convention mood. #mikecon #letstalkmen #same
Oh well. Good to know I was cool and relatable due to my... falling asleep in the middle of the day.
Time passed, and I was yawning again in spite of myself, when a voice broke the monotony.
"Let's Talk Men?"
I looked up, and was greeted by a stunningly beautiful woman with caramel brown hair and a long, flowing red dress.
I straightened up immediately. "Er, yeah, that's me!" I babbled. "That's my podcast. What can I do for you?"
"Well, what kind of things
do
you talk about regarding men?" she asked.
Huh. This woman was a prospective listener? I wasn't complaining, but she didn't seem like the type we would normally attract. Oh, who was I kidding, we didn't even have an audience yet, much less a type.
"Oh, well," I replied bashfully, "we've only done three episodes so far, but the general plan is to talk about all kinds of stuff, really."
"I see," she mused, "perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Dr. Stephanie Thorpe, and I offer therapy and counselling services for all kinds of issues, but my speciality area is male psychosexuality."
Male psychosexuality? Hmmmm. It was a bit risqué, but it was unique, at least. Maybe this convention was salvageable after all.
"That sounds like an interesting topic," I said. "We haven't really done an episode on that so far, we're really just, you know, finding our groove."
"Oh it is,
very
interesting!" Dr. Thorpe grinned, her eyes twinkling. "But I need somewhere to get all of my ideas out there. Other than an academic paper, I mean. What's the point in publishing research the public knows nothing about?"
"Absolutely!" I agreed hastily. Was this going where I thought it was?
"So I'm thinking," she said, giving my booth a once-over with her eyes, "if you're just starting out, you need some kind of draw, to establish your initial brand, something that sets you apart from everyone else."
"Yep, no, that's very true," I admitted. "And having an actual doctor of psychology on the show would give us some serious cred. If you, uh, wanted to, that is."
"You keep saying 'we' and 'us'." she said, raising an eyebrow. "Is there someone else?"
"Oh, me and my sound guy, James," I said. "He... couldn't make it to the Con today."
"Ahh, I see," she nodded. "Yes, I think I would definitely like to come on your podcast, bounce some of my ideas off you. Where do you record?"
Say what you will about our podcast, with its 15 cumulative views so far, but we weren't just two guys broadcasting out of a bedroom. "There's a recording studio in the CBD," I replied. "We record there on Fridays, so we can have the weekend to edit and publish on Monday."
"Friday works very well!" she beamed.
"Fantastic!" I said, offering my hand for her to shake. "I'm Chris, by the way."
She shook my hand firmly. "A pleasure to meet you, Chris."
We exchanged contact details, and made a time to meet up beforehand. As she left, I texted James.
Dude, I think we're actually going to have an audience now!
**********
I was giddy with excitement when Friday rolled around. The fourth episode had gone live in the meantime, to an expectedly flat reception (19 cumulative views, woo). This would hopefully be a completely different beast. It had occurred to me that this Dr. Stephanie Thorpe might be too good to be true, but I had looked her up, and she was exactly who she said she was. 26 years old, a Ph.D thesis on male psychosexuality, a practice she operated out of, widely liked by her patients and respected by a good number of her academic peers. It all just made me even more eager to hear what she was all about.
I had arranged to come in slightly earlier than James, who had a tight schedule to keep in any case, so that I could show Dr. Thorpe around the studio. When I got to the entrance of the building, I was surprised to find that she wasn't alone.
"Hello, Chris!" she greeted me. "This is Lucy. She's a sort of protegé of mine. I hope you don't mind, but I thought she'd enjoy the opportunity to listen in. Lucy, this is Chris."
"How do you do!" said Lucy, shaking my hand enthusiastically, trying not to let the small handbag slung over her shoulder get in the way. She was slightly shorter than Dr. Thorpe, and her brown hair was darker, in a bob cut that just about reached her neck.
"An extra audience member?" I raised an eyebrow in what I hoped was a friendly manner.
"Sorry, I kinda talked her into it," Lucy gushed, a star-struck pupil if ever I saw one. "I never miss one of Dr. Stephanie's lectures! I'll be quiet and keep to myself, I promise."
"Sure," I laughed, "we'll take all the audience we can get!"
I led them inside. Dr. Thorpe seemed suitably wowed, which I was grateful for. A good first impression now would hopefully keep her coming back in the future.
"I hope you're not spending too much on renting a room here," she commented, "since you're still finding your feet."
"Ah, yeah," I replied, "my dad's kinda... loaded. When I told him I was serious about starting a podcast, he bought me a year's worth of renting a recording studio, one session a week. After that, he said, I'd have to fund it myself, so hopefully I turn a profit by then!"
"And
do
you think you'll turn a profit by then?" Dr. Thorpe asked.
"Well, I'm a lot more hopeful now!" I joked. She laughed.
We reached the room I'd begun to think of as our own. At the very least, nobody else used it on a Friday. It was a cozy affair, out of the way, no windows for people to peer in, and almost always retained our preferred set-up: two couches arranged perpendicular to one another, a couple of microphones hanging down from the ceiling, and an audio mixing board off to the side, where James worked his magic.
"Make yourselves comfortable, ladies," I said as I sat down. Dr. Thorpe sat next to me, while Lucy took the second couch, on my other side.
"Are we going to meet your, ah, sound guy James?" Dr. Thorpe asked me.
"Yeah, sorry," I apologised, "Friday's the best day for both of us to record, but even so, he generally runs a bit late." I checked my phone to confirm. "He says he'll be like 10 to 15 minutes."
Dr. Thorpe and Lucy grinned at each other. I saw Lucy reach into her bag and pull out what looked like a small recording device.
"Then it sounds like we have plenty of time to discuss the material before we get started, if you're up for it," Dr. Thorpe said.
"Certainly, Doctor-"
"Oh, please, call me Stephanie," she smiled.
"Stephanie," I corrected myself, "I would love to hear all about it."
"Good," she cooed.
Then she placed one soft, delicate hand on my thigh. I suddenly became very, very aware of my body. Dr. Thorpe was an extremely attractive woman, a fact I had been successfully able to ignore... until now.
"As you know," she murmured, "I've devoted my academic career to studying male psychosexuality, which is a very
touchy
subject. I do hope you're okay with that."
"I... I'm fine so far," I managed to blurt out. I turned to look at Lucy, but she was just holding her recording thingy expectantly, and waggled her eyebrows at me to pay attention. I turned back to face Stephanie.
"My research is all about the associations the mind makes, the kinds of things men think, and perceive, and feel," she continued, "when I do things like
this
."
Her hand started stroking my thigh in a steady rhythm. Up and down, up and down. There was no way I could conceal the boner that was rapidly developing a scant few centimetres away.
"Would you call this particularly sexual contact?" she purred.
"I... guess not," I admitted. It was only my leg, after all.
"And yet, you may find you automatically associate a sexual aspect to it," she said, and she had me dead to rights there. "How does that happen? Is it the location of the touch, or the sensation? A bit of both, I find."
Trying to keep my wits about me, I stammered "W-what does this have to do with your research, uh, Stephanie?"
She gave me a wry smile, even as her hand grew more teasing, more seductive in its strokes. "Do you not find it fascinating how the slightest sign of intimacy can cause your mind to run wild imagining a more sexual version of events?"
Her clinical words were distinctly at odds with her actions, which somehow only made this whole weird situation even hotter. I fumbled for something intelligent to say. "Uh, yeah, that is weird-"
"Tell you what," she said, "to understand more fully what I mean, why don't you close your eyes? Remove the visual aspect and concentrate fully on the feeling." Up and down, up and down.
"Alright, I'll give it a try," I croaked. I closed my eyes and took a deep, calming breath.
