Page 69 of The Producer: Aaron

I watch her grab her cup and squint as she sips the hot liquid. A small moan slips from her lips, and I am lost imagining her in the bedroom while she comes. A thought that awakens partsof my body in these pants that are too tight to hide an erection. I look down at my cup of coffee and try to take my thoughts elsewhere before dragging her into the bathroom of this place and making her moan for entirely different reasons.

“What do I bring to you?” the waitress asks me, and I am happy that, for once, there is someone who doesn’t strip me with her eyes or hits on me while completely ignoring the person who accompanies me. I like this place more and more.

“The same that she ordered.” I smile at her as I bring the cup of hot liquid to my mouth.

She nods as she writes down our orders on the pad of paper to take to the kitchen and then walks away with the coffee jug in her hand, humming “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra that they are playing on the radio. Everything in this place has been frozen in the fifties, making the atmosphere almost surreal.

“Am I the only one that feels like we stepped into a time machine and went back seventy years?” Dakota asks as she looks at me from behind her cup of coffee.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“I liked the movie. What do you think?” she then asks, changing the topic.

“I think it’s a great product. They have worked very well on the promotion. It will be successful,” I confirm.

Dakota tilts her head and studies me carefully. I look at her curious expression and know she is thinking about something.

“But it’s not something you would produce for the streaming division.” This is not a question, more of an observation.

“That kind of film is suitable for cinemas. You need large investments, and the economic return is in gross income onthe weekends following the release. Producing something for a streaming company is different. You need to retain the audience on the platform, make them pay the subscription month after month, and find a way to ensure that sponsors are constantly enticed to invest. A movie like that is a product of its own. You have to grab the viewer’s attention for those few hours. A show on our platform must keep the viewer glued to the screen even after it ends. It has to make the viewer loyal to the platform.” I like her concentrated expression as I explain how it works.

“That’s why you prefer to opt for famous books and then adapt them for TV. Because this brings you to the platform and all the readers who are already passionate are already faithful to that series,” she reasons while biting into a potato chip that the waitress has brought us along with our food.

“It’s one of the ways to do it, yes. It’s easier to create hype around something that people already know,” I say before biting into my sandwich and hearing my stomach growl. I hadn’t realized until this moment how hungry I was.

Dakota seems to be thinking about it while chewing on her dinner. Her furrowed brows and sulky lips are the most beautiful sight I have seen tonight. The film, in comparison, becomes banal.

“Is that why you don’t want to opt for the series I suggested? Isn’t she famous enough to take advantage of her fan base?”

I shake my head while wiping my mouth with a paper towel and swallow the bite I was chewing.

“No. We can invest a budget to make a blast with the book and reach other readers besides her avid fans. The problem is that we can’t find the author of the book. She has no contacts, not even social. We’re still working on it.”

Dakota wrinkles her nose, and a grimace appears on her face. “Iknow. The comments against her were so bad that she decided to completely eclipse herself from social media. Sometimes people don’t have a limit when it comes to crucifying someone online.”

I nod and start with the fries. “I saw. For certain comments, I would have hired a lawyer and dumped a lawsuit on them.”

“Me too!” she agrees with me.

Between a potato chip and a bite of the sandwich, we fall into the comforting routine that has accompanied us for months. We talk for hours, and I will never stop enjoying her expressions when she tells me about the things that fascinate her. It is a bottomless pit of stimulating conversations, never banal, that touch on topics that link us with a disarming naturalness.

That’s what I like most about her, not her perfect physique, her sensual lips, or the chemistry we have in bed. It’s her brain that makes me her slave. I am totally enraptured by this woman who, on paper, should be too young but who is actually more adult than many of my peers with whom I usually interact.

***

“It’s dawn,” Dakota says with a yawn as I put my jacket on her shoulders and we leave the diner.

“Would you like it if we let Gaspard sleep for a few more hours before he picks us up?” I ask, unable to let go of this night that turned out to be perfect.

She turns and looks at me, raising an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

I shrug and smile. “Something I’ve never done in my life.”

I wink at her and lower myself, signaling her to jump on my shoulders. She doesn’t think twice before she slides the slit of her dress up to the thigh and jumps to cling to my back. I grab her legs and wait for her to hold firmly to my neck before walkingdown the road with a few cars passing us at this hour.

We must look like a circus for those who see us, dressed in elegant clothes as we walk to our destination. I notice some cars slowing down and looking at us strangely before resuming their drive toward their destination.

“You have never been to the beach?” she asks, perplexed as I let her descend on the slightly cold and damp sand of Santa Monica’s beach.

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