Tell Me a Story

Look, I get it. It's smut. Reality doesn't enter into the picture. Pizza boys don't really "deliver" in real life, appliance repairmen don't really "fix" what ails a bored housewife, and highway patrol officers don't let you off because you got them off.

But this is sooooooo ridiculous, so out of the realm of any remote resemblance to life on planet Earth, it's only redeeming quality would be if it was supposed to be a satire of the billionaire erotica trend. Alas, it's far too earnest and plodding and absent any spark of wit to hope that was the author's intent.

And it's not all that sexy, either, if the reader was hoping to skip right to the smut.

We're asked to believe that someone hired to be a lowly records clerk is suddenly promoted to executive assistant to a billionaire businessman who actively runs a successful conglomerate. Not only does she not have the skills, she doesn't interview for the job and she is given no choice to refuse it. She then meet cutes her boss, who is all demanding and dominant (but of course) and insists she calls him "Sir." Oh, and she spills her vibrator out of her purse at his feet because who doesn't take their vibrator to work with them as a matter of course?!

But maybe this company has a Sex Toy Tuesday, like Casual Friday at other offices. It certainly explains why the billionaire has a hidden bar - no, not the kind for drinks. The kind subs apparently hang onto when being punished by doms. Either that, or he likes to practice his pliés in secret. And obviously, the sexual harassment policy at this office is absolutely nonexistent.

So...she screws up nearly every task he gives her, he tells her not to sit down before mere sentences later waving her to a chair, and then he comes over all Bluebeard by telling her not to go into his office without permission (because executive assistants to billionaires never, ever need to be in the executive's office to fetch papers and other items when the billionaire isn't around.). But oh noes, she's misplaced her vibrator! And guess where it might be?

But again, I get it. Who wants reality with their erotica? Except that when the characters are cardboard and the sex is tepid, it only makes the ridiculous scenario stand out that much more.