Live, Laugh, Locked Ch. 07

Wednesday morning, I made the drive down to Phoenix for my meeting with Mr. Gardner. The hour long drive gave me ample time to dread what he might say to me, although it's not like I'd felt anything else for the past two days. I'd hardly ever spoken to him; when he first agreed to support my channel, we'd made all of the arrangements by email. Even after that, the few times I'd met him had been at little weekend conferences he held for his network of conservative and religious creators. Claire had met him a few more times, but they were all extremely brief -- usually some paperwork formality that needed to be done in person.

He loved to tell people his backstory. By his account, he'd gone off to Hollywood when he was young, working his way up from the bottom through various backstage roles until he was a powerful studio executive, making money hand over fist. After that, so the story goes, he became dissatisfied with the lifestyle he was living and found religion, choosing to focus his work in the accompanying conservative niches. The exact details of this conversion experience tended to move around, but the overall tale remained consistent. He chose to turn his back on all the success in exchange for more morally upstanding work. I had a nagging hunch, though, that both his level of prior success and the purity of his intentions were at least slightly exaggerated; he may have just wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. However, none of our limited interactions provided any strong evidence. If he was only playing a part to profit off of conservative audiences, he was playing it well.

Claire was waiting for me in the parking garage; I'd asked her to so I didn't have to walk in alone. She had gladly agreed since she didn't want to either. We greeted each other, each exchanging terse "hey"s, not sure what else to say.

"It passed a million this morning," she said, trying to ease the tension by addressing it head on

"Yeah, One million one hundred and fifty-eight thousand as of nine this morning," We'd both been checking these numbers obsessively. A car door shut somewhere on the other side of the garage and echoed around the concrete walls. This reminder that we weren't alone made me realize the real possibility that anyone on the street may have seen my video. Maybe whoever just shut their door had. Would they recognize me? Would they laugh at me?

she strode by Claire and me a few moments later, directly to the elevator, not taking a second glance at me to my relief. I checked my watch, "we should probably start heading up." Claire nodded in agreement.

"Oh, ****, by the way, I have your key in my purse. I figured after the last two days you might..." She trailed off, but I understood her meaning: I might want to take it off, throw it away, and try everything in my power to make it like this never happened.

"No, I don't need it," I replied. Ironically, until she asked me, I hadn't thought about my physical denial at all. I'd been so overwhelmed with this sudden unwanted burst of attention that there was hardly room for me to think about what my body wanted. Now that Claire's question brought my attention back to it, it dawned on me that this was the start of my ninth day locked and there was already a tight knot of desire behind my belt that begged to be untied. I was almost thankful for the swarm of other worries and emotions that kept my focus off of it.

Claire and I walked across the garage and rode the elevator up in silence. Whatever was going to happen, it was out of our control now.

The meeting

As we walked into his office, Mr. Gardner's secretary greeted us, saying they were expecting us. The tall, blonde woman lead us back the hallway into the small conference room. She took her seat next to Mr. Gardner who was already there along with another, younger man I'd never met before. Mr. Gardner stood up, reaching out to with a firm handshake. "Well if it isn't our new star," he said warmly. I relaxed slightly at his reception, it didn't seem like my absolute worst fears would come true. He clearly wasn't too angry. Still, this was the first time I'd faced anyone besides Claire who knew I was locked in chastity. I was keenly aware of their eyes on me. It felt like whenever I looked away from them, they were stealing glances at my waist and between my legs to try to spot the outline under my dress.

He gestured for us to sit and began right away. "I have to start by saying I wish you two'd have told me about this one before you posted it," he spoke slowly with a relaxed, southern affectation, "That being said, I really can't argue with the results. Plus, it really shows how committed to your message you are." I thanked him, sheepishly and waited for him to go on. He took a moment to commend my bravery for being so open with the world before getting directly to the point. "People clearly are eager for more. I think you've really found what you should focus on. I think you should keep making more content like this; you've got such a unique story to share now. No offense, but your other things didn't exactly stand out the way this does. I'll be happy to support you with whatever resources you need to really make this something special. Of course, you can still stay with what you've been doing, but I really don't know how much potential that has after you posted that bombshell video."

"Yeah, that, that sounds great" I replied, smiling in relief feeling the weight on my shoulders lighten significantly. There was still so much for me to navigate, but at least I had Mr. Gardner's support. Compared to this morning, I felt like I was walking on air.

"Great, I figure we'll put things on pause for a few weeks on your channel while we all figure out the new direction." He replied. I realized there really wasn't much room for me to choose. When he said there "wasn't much potential" in my old content, it meant that he'd quickly lose interest in funding it, slowly leaving me out to dry. Still, his enthusiastic support for anything was better that I'd hoped for and mixed with all of my anxieties was genuine excitement about where this would take me.

"Now, I don't want to be out of line, but I have to ask: are you really as serious about this as you said in the video?"

"Yes, I am. I don't think I'd have the courage to put something like that out if I wasn't."

"Again, forgive me, but does that mean you're wearing it right now?"

"Yes, I am," I replied again, blushing.

"That really is so interesting. What exactly do you do with the key, do you carry it with you?"

"Oh, no, I... I actually asked Claire to hang onto it this week." I answered, my nerves making it hard to do anything but tell the truth.

He turned to Claire, "You don't have it with you now, do you? I'd like to take a look at it, this is all completely foreign to me still."

I nearly panicked. I couldn't pinpoint why, but I couldn't let it get into his hand. It was just reasonable, really, why would I want basically a stranger to even touch it.

"No, sir, I keep it at home, in this little fire safe, actually. She trusted me with it, I really want to respect that," Claire lied, to my relief. My heart still raced, worried he would press the question again.

The third man, silent until now, spoke up, "I have a bunch of spares if you want to check them out." Mr. Gardner finally introduced him, apologizing for not doing so sooner, seeming like he'd almost forgotten he was sitting just to his right before he spoke up. "****, Claire, I'd like you both to meet Mr. Whitney. He owns the company who made your belt. He saw his orders spike almost immediately and reached out to see if we wanted him involved. I don't know anything about this stuff, so I was thrilled to have him involved. We met for a long time over lunch yesterday and I thought our conversation was very productive."

He nodded in our direction, saying it was nice to meet us and to call him by his first name, Howard. He sat with poor posture, lounging back in his conference chair, over relaxed and under dressed next to Mr. Gardner. I was stunned. Of all the surprises of the past few days, I was least prepared for this. It felt like his hands were under my dress, like he could feel between my legs since it was his own creation locked around my waist, like he might share with the room just how wet a woman gets after nine days of denial. How could Mr. Gardner not warn me ahead of time? Worse, how could he have spent all day yesterday talking to him without me there? Seeing Howard there, so relaxed, nearly bored by all this made me furious.

In the pressure of the moment, though, all of these feelings of betrayal could only sum to "oh, nice to meet you too," as my response.

Mr. Gardner started to conclude the meeting, saying he'd likely remain in the background much like before, but that I'd probably want to collaborate with Mr. Whitney, saying he shared some interesting ideas yesterday. I replied that I'd be sure to keep him in the loop. We agreed to meet at the beginning of next week.

Claire and I walked out together, remaining silent most of the way. Alone in the elevator, I thanked her for lying to protect my key and she replied that it was really the least she could do since I put my trust in her. When we reached our cars, I hugged her close to say goodbye and thank her again for being a good friend. We planned to see each other in a few days to figure out what we'd do next. I didn't plan to be in this deep, but now that I am, I'm glad I had her to rely on.