Bachelor Behavior - Pt. 01

Rick laughed out loud and Sam punched him in the shoulder. Gloria was hiding her mouth behind a hand. I turned and glared at them, then at Bill, who quickly shook his head, saying quickly, "I call her Stephanie."

"It's mostly the other reporters I work with," she said, coming to our cameraman's rescue, still looking embarrassed.

I took a chance and looked her over quickly, starting low and working higher, knowing I was probably making her uncomfortable. Dark red pumps, nude hose, and a short-ish gray skirt with matching jacket over a modest white button up. She was slim, with great legs, including well developed calves, so she probably ran daily. Her jacket hid most of her upper half so that I couldn't see much, but her face was cute, with a button nose and soft brown eyes under what looked like naturally blonde bangs. She was wearing matching diamond studs in her ears and had four rings spaced equally running up the left.

I made a quick circle motion with my finger and she rolled her eyes, but complied, slowly spinning around. As she turned in profile, it became quite clear: her chest was disproportionately large on her small frame. When she finished, she was bright red again.

I folded my arms, which I know looks intimidating, and stared down at her. "Perky doesn't refer to your bubbly personality, does it?" She shook her head and looked off to the side. I waited until she looked back up at me. "Your co-workers are assholes and you deserve better. Anybody ever calls you that again, let me know and that will be the last time, okay?"

She chuckled and the tension in my shoulders dissipated. "Okay," she said, still obviously feeling self-conscious. "Can we get back to talking about you? This is your show, remember?"

I smiled and clapped my hands loudly, causing her to jump, then smile. "Exactly right. Lead the way, Steph."

Our entourage moved down the hallway and into the largest conference room on the floor, where three of the folks from Aristotle were waiting. I had briefly met them previously, but remember, I suck with names. John was the lead scientist and seemed as excited as I did about digging into the numbers. The two ladies, both brunettes, appeared more nervous.

The results that John presented were astonishing, to me at least. Almost fourteen million women had started the survey, and just under ten million took the time to finish it. This enormous response meant that it had actually taken two extra rounds of culling than were planned to get down to a reasonable number. In the end, they had compiled a dossier of one hundred and four biographies for me to read and then narrow to around thirty; we had allocated a week.

After laying out the next steps of the process for the camera, Stephanie signed off and the little red light winked out. In an instant, Gloria was next to the blonde, speaking rapidly and gesticulating; her face showed that she was both happy and excited. The younger woman was nodding along, and every so often would turn to Gloria, but for the most part she was looking at me.

Fuck.

I hate making people uncomfortable and I was sure I had done that to Stephanie. Time to face the music.

I walked around the table to the pair, then gently interrupted with a tap on Gloria's shoulder. She was surprised, but hid it well, and leaned back so that I could see them both. I decided to start with more straightforward issues first. "I'm not thrilled about the surprises, Gloria. Steph here did a great job wrapping things up, but you should have let me know."

Gloria made it a point to look right back into my eyes. "I wanted your genuine reaction to go out. It might not seem like much to you, but having viewers -- especially female viewers -- see you take her addition to the show in stride will win people over from the start."

"But what if I hadn't?"

Gloria shook her head. "You respect women too much to flip out about it. And anyway," she continued, grinning ferally, "I've seen your 3A scores, so I probably know how you'll react better than you do." She did an excellent impression of a maniacal villainess laugh, then stood and walked away, rubbing her hands together theatrically.

"I'm not really sure what just happened," I said to Stephanie. "I was going to give her a piece of my mind, but... I don't know."

She smiled and patted my elbow. "Wait until you have twenty or thirty women vying for your attention, then you won't know which way is up."

I acknowledged the point with a wave, then got serious again. "Stephanie, I am so sorry for making you uncomfortable. That wasn't what I wanted, and to do it on a live broadcast... I'm sorry I messed up."

She smiled kindly and shook off my comment. "Don't worry, Kai. You were genuine and a bit protective. I was uncomfortable because it highlighted the fact that I've been letting a bunch of misogynistic pricks call me a degrading name for years and haven't done anything about it. It was always about fitting in, trying to be one of the guys, so I could make it in a profession where women are a gross minority.

"I'm glad you reminded me that it doesn't have to be that way."

"Okay, I guess," I told her, not feeling entirely convinced. I took a deep breath to refocus. "So what now?"

"That part hasn't changed," she replied. "We'll stream for about an hour each day as you work through the process, and when you've made your decisions, you and I will sit down and talk about what you liked or didn't like about it and how you picked which ladies to meet. That kind of thing. Remember, it's all about building toward the big moment when we start streaming 24-7."

I nodded and let out a sigh. "Steph, can I ask you for your honest opinion?"

"Always," she replied with a cute smile and a tilt of her head.

"Is this a really stupid idea -- will people even care?"

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out for a moment, and it shut again. The second time was more productive. "I think we'll find out soon enough." She paused. "I will tell you that if I didn't think it would be a hit, I wouldn't have left my job at the network."

"Great," I laughed, "add more pressure, why don't you?"

She gave me a faux dirty look, then was quickly back to smiling.

~ ~ ~

To say I was unprepared for the biographies would be a massive understatement. Of the one hundred four, I was able to eliminate twenty-two in the first pass, and that was only because some of them were poorly written. After I got to thinking about it, I realized the women were probably not all American and that I shouldn't be too harsh in that respect, because English might not be their first language. I added eight back to my pile.

I thought it might be worthwhile to break down what I knew about the women, but because these weren't forms, the information on them wasn't directly comparable. I did catalogue professions and found that there was a doctor, a lawyer, two veterinarians, twenty-two in the service industry, and fourteen teachers. Not particularly useful, but interesting.

After two full days of reading and rereading the same information, hunched over the conference room table, I decided to just go with my instincts.

First question: is there actual substance in the biography or is it just a lot of fluff? From ninety to seventy-one. Not bad.

Second question: does she seem like fun? Tough to gauge from written words, but possible in most cases. If in doubt, I kept the essay, and got down to fifty-nine.

Third and final question: does the content feel honest or is she too good to be true? This took me the longest to answer, trying to parse words to find hidden meaning. Again, I trusted my gut.

And ended up with forty-five women still in consideration.

I really thought about calling Gloria to see if she would send me more information on the ladies, but then remembered that this was my party and I would do it my way.

~ ~ ~

I was pretty keyed up to see the setup they had selected for the show, given that neither Gloria nor the guys had given me many details before I stepped out of the hired car that was dropping me and my two suitcases off for the foreseeable future. Toby and Stephanie were waiting for me.

The building itself was pretty bland, boasting gray concrete and 1970s architecture, but it was situated in the Lincoln Park district, meaning we'd have plenty to do, including visiting some truly excellent restaurants, seeing the zoo, or just walking in the park of the same name.

Steph led me inside and to the elevator, which was a bit of a throwback, steel safety gate and all, then out at the fourth level.

"This whole floor has been rented for the next three months," she explained. "There are a total of twelve apartments, each of which has two bedrooms, so keep in mind that choosing more than twenty women to live here will cause logistics problems, since one of the apartments has been converted to a gym for you to use."

"Whose idea was that?" I asked with a smile, feeling quite touched at the thoughtfulness.

Stephanie laughed at my expression. "Gloria, of course. She thought seeing you all sweaty might appeal to the female viewers."

"Oh."

She laughed again and took my elbow, leading me into the first apartment on the left.

It was a pretty standard setup with a reasonably sized living room and adjoining kitchen -- basic, but functional, a little larger than your typical hotel suite. The furnishings, on the other hand, were much nicer. A very large television adorned one wall of the common area, faced by a chair upholstered in a soft blue fabric and an enormous sofa decked out in cream leather that looked like it might actually fit me. Testing in the name of science, I found that I could stretch out entirely. "When this is over, I'm taking this couch with me."

At the back of the space was a powder room, which held my attention for all of fifteen seconds, and two bedrooms, which were considerably more interesting. One had been turned into a studio, complete with two chairs, a boom mic, multiple light sources, a fancy looking camera, and a bunch of other equipment whose uses I could only have guessed at. The other bedroom -- my bedroom -- looked like it came out of an ultramodern design catalogue. The bed was brushed aluminum, very sleek and very masculine, with a black leather headboard and black silk sheets. "Really?"

Stephanie shrugged. "50 Shades maybe?"

I pointed to the matching dresser, which consisted of stacked glass shelves and nothing else. "The entire country is going to see how I fold my underwear."

"Why do you fold your underwear -- are you worried about it getting wrinkled?"

I rubbed at my eyes for a moment, not sure from Stephanie's expression if she was teasing me or not. "Actually, I have no idea. But seriously, isn't this taking the 'no privacy' thing a little far?"

The amused look on her face said I was being ridiculous, so I turned to Toby, who was the picture of professionalism behind his camera and no help at all. I sat on the oversized bed, feeling the slick material, then bounced up and down lightly to test it's firmness. "It is pretty nice," I admitted, which earned me an eye roll and a grin.

With a deep breath, I pushed myself up and into the bathroom. "No way." Stephanie's smirk was in full effect as I took in the shockingly large space. The granite counter wasn't really a surprise, nor were the modern fixtures, but the shower was easily big enough for four adults to share, even if one is as big as me. I spent five solid minutes trying out the four different shower heads, two wands, eight jets, and their multitude settings, which were all controlled by a digital interface. "If I didn't know better, I'd think Gloria had something in mind."

~ ~ ~

Stephanie gave me a couple hours to get settled before we started our interview. The conversation was easy and I had no trouble stringing her along, right up to the point where I told her I couldn't narrow the field to less than forty-five women.

"But weren't you only going to meet with twenty-five?"

"Thirty, and it's too hard," I replied. "The biographies are amazing. I can't believe these women are interested in meeting me, let alone considering something more." She gave me a disbelieving look, but I shook it off. "That wasn't exaggeration, Steph. I really cannot wait to meet them."

She smiled indulgently and we moved on.

As we wrapped for the day, Toby gave me a thumbs up and headed out; Stephanie lingered at the door. "Do you really not understand why those women want to meet you?"

I sighed deeply. "Objectively, yes. I'm big, strong, and have a lot of money. But Steph, I'm just me. I'm weird, contrary, and more than a little socially awkward."

She walked back and gave me an unexpected hug. "You're also smart and sweet and caring. Don't sell yourself short, Kai -- you're what every girl dreams about."

"Every girl?" I asked with a smirk, obviously, lewdly checking her out.

Rather than reply, she grinned and added extra wiggle as she walked back to the door. I laughed loudly and she waved without turning back, then was gone.

It seems Stephanie forgot about my apartment having cameras all over, and her saucy saunter was all over the internet the next day, courtesy of Gloria's team in production. I was thrilled, because in addition to being able to relive the moment, I got to see Steph's face as she walked toward the door, and her smirk was sexy as hell.

In total, the apartment was fitted with about twenty cameras -- even I didn't know where they all were, but I was pretty sure they left the little anteroom with the toilet camera-free. My favorite, because it was obviously the coolest, was the one mounted to a track system in the combination living room-kitchen; it could move freely back and forth as well as pivot and tilt, making it great for covering the entirety of the main living area.

Anyway, Stephanie was apparently not pleased with her new exposure; I wasn't there for the blowup between her and Gloria, but by the time we came back together as a group at the JJC offices, any friction was in the past. The bigger issue was that I had almost doubled the number of women being flown to Chicago for the meet and greet and Gloria was none-too-happy with me.

"You were supposed to pick twenty-five."

"Nuh-uh," I retorted with a finger wave, "thirty. We're still close to that, which is good enough for me."

"But you doubled the travel costs, and some of the women are from outside the US," she persisted.

"Really? That's so cool."

She gave me a cold, hard look.

I took a breath and decided to stop being intentionally dense. "How is the viewership?"

She fought it for a moment, but a smile broke loose. "Pretty great, actually. Our live feeds, when they're going, are consistently North of a million viewers, and the interview with Stephanie last week was at almost five. For an interview." She shook her head disbelievingly.

"Good," I said simply, and we didn't talk about the number of women again. Instead, I asked something that had been bothering me. "How do you want me handling nudity in the apartment?" I didn't mean it to be so abrupt, it just felt like time for a new topic. Unfortunately, it caught Stephanie off guard and she snorted water out her nose, then coughed more onto the table. Gloria was chuckling while we helped clean up.

"I was wondering when this would come up. We did say all access," she started, "but I think we should start slowly to let the audience build."

"So no walking around naked?"

"You walk around naked?" asked a wide-eyed Stephanie.

"Not usually, but for my fans..." I replied with a wink.

She folded her arms and looked away. "Impossible man."

Like me, Gloria was grinning. "Do what you like. The production team will have enough notice to switch to a different camera if it's not the right time. If they do get a brief glimpse of your... self," she said with a smirk, "it's only going to tease what's coming later.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" asked Stephanie, literally aghast.

"We'll see how it plays out," Gloria replied neutrally.

Stephanie turned to me. "You don't care if you're naked all over the internet?"

"Not really," I responded. "I'm not the best looking guy, but at least I'm in shape. I just wanted to make sure I understood everyone's expectations before the apartment feed is on all the time. Are we still going live 24-7 tomorrow night?"

Gloria nodded. "We'll let you get partially dressed and then start the cameras. Stephanie will be waiting in the living room and you'll ride to the Bellham together to meet your ladies."

"My ladies. I like the sound of that." Gloria reached over and patted my hand affectionately. Across the table, Steph still looked shaken.