Fahrenheit (Preview). Release Date: 9/22/15

Chapter 1

I hate the smell of latex.

It's exactly what I smell when I enter this place, that, and bleach.

Gross.

I prod my finger into a bright pink tube of lube, an array of different options also lining the shelf next to the entrance of this sex shop. I squint at it, confused how watermelon flavored lube is supposed to entice women to make giving oral better —but making it bearable? I'll give them that.

Not that I've had any recent encounters with a penis. Vaginal or oral. Nope.

I sigh, banishing the thought while cursing under my breath, hating my boss for so many different reasons right now.

The most prevalent one is the fact she's the reason I'm here.

My eyes take a journey around the room, the walls of F-Street are lined with nothing I can seem to define other than the overly sexualized images of woman on packages of inanimate objects people can apparently have sex with. Mere minutes ago upon entering I learned what a flesh light was, and nearly cringed until the creeper behind the register was all too eagerly watching me.

I pull in a deep breath, recounting my meeting with Rebecca yesterday morning.

Not because I want to bone her. I don't swing that way. But because she's my boss, and as a right of passage in order to get the journalist position at Frenzy magazine, she has given me the task to write an article she doesn't think I'll be able to commit to.

You might be asking yourself why someone who I look up to, hell, might've even been my mentor at one point, would try and hold me back? Political, selfish reasons, of course.

I huff, smacking a neon green nipple tassel as I stroll through the store, scorning my boss, and her attempt to keep me as Editor-in-Chief at Frenzy.

Maybe I should be bizarrely honored that my boss doesn't want to lose me in my current position, on account I'm so damn good at it. However, it's something I never really wanted to do. I'm bored with fact-checking, grammar Nazi-ing, and hugging my Elements of Style close, while still trying to keep the fun flirty feel of Frenzy Magazine.

Rebecca, my boss, who's witnessed my tendency for obsessive compulsive double-checks, my neurotic love of track-changes in Microsoft Word, and the delicate way I like to pile my post-it notes, as a sign that I won't be able to write something for the woman who read the magazine.

Little does she know, she has made me into the person I am today.

If I wasn't so organized the ship would most definitely go down with its captain (I'm the captain). I'm ready to shake off this claustrophobic veil of being put-together.

I'm aching for freedom, and word play. Writing is what I did in college, and the want to write is what brought me to the magazine in the first place. I revel in the sexual innuendos, the bedroom advice, and the style recommendations Frenzy Magazine publishes. Why can't she see that?

However, when Rebecca asked me to write about the ever-growing popularity of sex meet-ups and fetish clubs of downtown Los Angeles, I might've blatantly gasped.

My sexual expertise is limited, to say the least, and my knowledge of sexual positions ranges from missionary, to doggy style ... and maybe, The Wheelbarrow? I don't know. I read it in the dang magazine I work for, and I know they make half their shit up.

Regardless, failure isn't an option, and I want the job. If I can somehow manage this, I'll get my promotion to journalist, which I so desperately want, and that my sanity needs.