Evan Brooks arrived just after eight, which, according to the file, was two hours before anyone else at Clarity Holdings, Inc. usually rolled in, unless there was an espresso giveaway or a new crypto drop. The lobby was tall, glossy, and trying very hard to impress someone’s venture capitalist uncle. It was all steel beams and polished stone fronted by a reception desk shaped like a lowercase “c.” It was the kind of success you could lease for six figures a month.
Companies like this didn’t get flagged by the IRS unless somebody got sloppy, and someone here had been very sloppy, three years running. The first two audits somehow had been derailed by the incompetence of his predecessors, but the complaints kept coming. So this time, the Feds sent Evan. He was always the guy they brought in when other auditors failed.
He stepped into the elevator with grim efficiency, clutching his briefcase like it held state secrets and not the same Texas Instruments calculator he’d had since high school. His reflection shone back off the brushed steel walls, reminding him of what he already knew – he was completely unimpressed by all of this.
Clarity Holdings, Inc. was such an innocuous name for a “cutting-edge lifestyle optimization platform,” which, when translated from startup jargon, meant absolutely nothing. Evan figured the name was picked at random by a brand consultant pulling keywords out of a hat: Transparency, Growth, Holistic, Synergy, until someone called bingo.
It was one of those companies you’d read about in the Wall Street Journal, but weren’t convinced they actually existed. They raised $42 million based on a pitch deck featuring one buzzword per slide and a stock photo of someone doing a handstand on a mountain. Once the first million went in, FOMO had every other investor begging to be next. Evan had audited six others just like it. None of them had indoor swings. This one did.
The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, because executive offices on the top floor would have been too hierarchical for a company like this. Evan stepped into what looked less like a place of business and more like the inside of a reality show about tech interns who were afraid of growing up.
There were bean bag chairs spread out between standing desks, a glowing VR rig dangling from the ceiling like a neglected jungle gym, and a whiteboard scrawled with ideas ranging from Dating app but for brunch to NFTs of NFTs???. One note had a hopeful circle around it and simply read: Q4 maybe?
In one corner, there was a kombucha fridge next to a beer dispenser labeled OUT OF ORDER – AGAIN. Evan spotted a ping-pong table surrounded by four people in matching headbands wearing blazers with ’70s tennis shorts, all typing furiously away on laptops. He had no way of knowing if it was a meeting or a team-building exercise.
He adjusted his tie and walked forward like a man entering a lion’s den, except the lions were twenty-six-year-olds named Tanner, with noise-cancelling headphones, answering every question with, “I’ll have to kick that one up the ladder and get back to you.”
Evan, in his pressed wool blazer and government-issued leather shoes, looked like someone who’d been dropped into a tech cult’s weekend retreat by mistake… or as punishment. Everyone else was in cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts, drinking out of mason jars, and speaking in a language that mostly consisted of TikTok memes and acronyms.
He didn’t smile or even raise an eyebrow. He just stood there, stoic, scanning for some indication that this was, in fact, a workplace and not a pop-up adult daycare propped up by venture capital.
A young Asian woman with electric blue hair, oversized glasses, and an aggressively bright hoodie finally noticed him and waved from across the room. She zig-zagged through a jungle of standing desks and bean bags and met him with a smile that was either genuine or heavily caffeinated.
“Mr. Brooks? From the IRS? You’re here to see the Head Secretary, right?”
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “I’m here to audit your books.”
“Oh, sure,” she said cheerfully, as if her question was an adorable misunderstanding. “But you’ll definitely want to speak with her. Sometimes I think she’s the only one who actually knows what’s going on around here.”
Evan glanced around again. A ‘worker’ was taking a nap in a hammock. Someone else was holding a yoga pose while yelling into a headset. “I was promised a quiet workspace?” he asked, already halfway sure it didn’t exist.
“Follow me,” she said, already turning.
He walked behind as the blue-haired girl led him through the kind of workplace that would make his old boss break out in hives. The place was littered with lava lamps, ironic neon signs that said things like Code Hard, Cry Later, treadmill desks, and half-eaten burritos left out like offerings to tech Gods. One guy was inexplicably wearing chainmail with a tie and sport coat.
They stopped in front of a glass office door with a single sheet of printer paper taped to it. Written in thick Sharpie were the words:
IRS GUY — DO NOT DISTURB
Beneath it, someone had scribbled in red ink:
He’s already disturbed!
The blue-haired girl giggled like it was the wittiest thing she’d ever seen. “We like to have fun around here,” she commented, expecting Evan to laugh along with her. He did not. Instead, he gave her a long, flat look, then he stepped inside.
By 8:35, Evan was seated in what was, shockingly, a tastefully sparse conference room, with tinted windows and the faintest scent of a eucalyptus air freshener fighting off the stink of printer toner. For a place where someone had spelled “synergy” wrong twice on the lobby whiteboard, this was… not awful.
The company’s “books,” on the other hand, were. They’d been splayed out on the conference table with no rhyme or reason. And by books, they meant notepads, journals, stacks of Post-it notes, and an assortment of seemingly random documents stapled together like a kid’s last-minute school project. It looked like someone had emptied a filing cabinet blindfolded during an earthquake. Evan had seen messes before. This one needed an exorcism.
There was no order. Nothing was labeled. Half of it looked like it had been fished out of a recycling bin. Just paper. Actual paper. In a tech company. Evan could feel his blood pressure rising just from the thought of it.
With nowhere to start, he thumbed open a red spiral-bound journal, hoping for a ledger, or at least a hint of sentience. Instead, he found impossibly unhelpful scribbles, half-finished lists, and a sad little doodle of what appeared to be a goat wearing a raincoat.
Then he saw it:
Executive Bathhouse Retreat – aromatherapy suite upgrade
$3,200. No name attached. Just a job title: Head Secretary.
The first was a red flag was soaked in lavender essential oils. He flipped a few more pages, and a small bundle of receipts and folded forms slipped out like they were trying to escape. He flattened them on the table.
$7,400 for “entertainment” in Prague.
$1,900 for a “client gift: bespoke lingerie set.”
$11,000 for “taking care of that problem” followed by a little winking smiley face.
No names or signatures on any of them. Just that same job title: Head Secretary. Whoever she was, she had a very flexible interpretation of what “office supplies” were and no understanding of what was or wasn’t a deductible.
Evan popped his head out the door, spotting the blue-haired girl nursing an oat milk latte.
“Could I get a meeting with the Head Secretary?” he asked.
“She’s in a closed-door sesh with Robert,” she replied cheerfully, expecting him to know who the hell Robert was.
“Well… whenever she’s available.”
“She’ll circle back,” the blue-haired girl said, already scrolling on her phone.
Two hours later, he was told she was “in a briefing with the marketing guy.” After lunch, she’d “stepped out for a confidential client matter.” At one point he heard someone say she was “offsite onboarding a new vibe.”
He knew the runaround when he saw it. IRS auditors practically trained for this kind of evasive nonsense. So, he did what any good agent would do: he started asking very pointed questions, in a very calm voice, to increasingly nervous employees.
By noon, he’d spoken to eight different people. None gave her name. All spoke like they were describing a deity or a particularly talented therapist:
“She’s essential.”
“She just gets things done.”
“She’ll explain everything when you meet her.”
It was like trying to book an appointment with a myth.
Evan returned to the books and kept digging. The deeper he went, the worse it got. Nothing added up. There were vendors that didn’t exist. Reimbursements that led to shell companies. Contracts signed by luminaries such as Mick E. Mouse, I.P. Freely, and Hugh Jass. One contract was signed by a Mr. Tommy Jefferson from Mount Vernon North Carolina. They couldn’t even get the state right.
One memo approved $85,000 in “internal morale expenditures.” Evan figured that meant sushi or strippers, flown in fresh from Japan either way.
By 1:30 p.m., Evan had everything he needed. The report basically wrote itself. He had enough on them to go ahead with a criminal investigation, and to know that whoever approved the last two audits had to have been the worst auditors in history.
He could’ve packed up and left, and would’ve under normal circumstances. But the seemingly mythical Head Secretary stuck with him. The whole company was a walking indictment, and half the staff would probably end up in prison, making this his one and only shot to meet the elusive woman.
He just had to meet the kind of person who could rack up this many felony charges and still inspire full-on cult devotion from a group of people who considered “Waffle Wednesday” a sacred day.
Just after 2 p.m., the door to the conference room creaked open, and a guy who looked like he’d just stepped out of a longboarding catalog poked his head in. Maybe twenty-five, definitely high.
He juggled three hacky sacks in one hand like it was something people did at the office.
“Hey, bro-ski,” he said. “We’re aiming to have you outta here by, like, three if you can just, like, sit tight.” Then he disappeared without waiting for an answer.
Evan stayed put, and spent the time polishing off the report. Every sentence he added felt like a career high score.
At 2:21, the door clicked open again. He didn’t acknowledge it, instead he continued to focus on dictating a professional milestone into his phone. It took a few seconds, but he noticed something was off. A scent. A nice one. Not the patchouli oil the blue-haired girl wore, but actual perfume. Evan turned his chair slowly, and there she was.
And she wasn’t what he expected.
Not exactly some fresh-faced intern, but nowhere near the power-suited executive he’d pictured. More like office eye candy with premium styling, the kind of woman you assumed was hired for brand optics, not balance sheets. It was no wonder the company was in trouble.
She looked ornamental. Like a Fox News host. Perfect blonde hair, upright posture, a white blouse playing chicken with its buttons, and a pencil skirt that dared you not to stare. The glasses weren’t for sight. They completed the look of a Penthouse forum letter come to life.
“Mr. Brooks!” she called in a loud, unapologetically confident voice. “You’ve been looking for me.”
“I’ve been looking for answers,” Evan replied dryly.
“Then let’s not waste time,” she said with a wink, and walked around to the far side of the table, not to sit across from him, as would be normal, but to plop down beside him, closer than necessary, like they were old friends looking over their senior year book.
She tossed her tote on the table with a thud that rattled his pens.
As she settled, Evan had a flash of recognition. Something about her… those eyes… that smile… he had an inkling that he knew her from somewhere. She wasn’t personally familiar, but culturally familiar, like a song he didn’t know he knew the lyrics to. He couldn’t place it yet, but it was coming.
Trying to stay on task, he tilted his tablet toward her and scrolled through the first few entries in the report. She leaned in, chewing gum loudly, and nodded as her eyes moved across the text.
“Oh, yup,” she said, grinning. “Nailed that one.”
She flicked to scroll down. “Oh yeah, you caught that, too. You’re good.”
She used two fingers to zoom in. “Whew! All be danged. I thought that one might slip by, but you found it, even hidden in the small print.”
Evan sat stunned. That was just page one. She didn’t bother looking at the rest.
“Well,” she said in a remarkably chipper voice, “Mr.—uh…Banks was it?”
“Brooks.”
“Right, right, Mr. Brooks.” She nodded with a smile that suggested she’d already forgotten it again. “I meet so many people. Sometimes I mix up names. Comes with being famous, I guess.”
Evan’s brow furrowed. “Famous?”
“Anyway,” she continued, steamrolling his confusion, “looks like you’ve got us dead to rights, huh? Case closed?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “You’re in violation of multiple—”
Before he could finish, she laid a hand gently on his knee. Evan felt like he’d just been zapped by the office defibrillator. And that’s when it hit him. It wasn’t just the voice, or the hair, or the wildly unregulated cleavage. It was her. Zara Zest.
Zara freaking Zest. A name Evan hadn’t thought of in years, and a face he’d never admit to recognizing in public. She was porn royalty. An Industry legend. Holder of the… well, he didn’t want to finish that thought.
She saw the realization hit him and smiled.
“Yup,” she said. “It’s really me.”
Evan swallowed. “You’re… Zara Zest.”
She smiled again and gave a proud little nod. “In the flesh. And silicone.”
Evan’s mouth opened, this time in disbelief. “You— I mean, you were in—”
“‘Zara Princess Whorrior.’” She beamed. “I won an award for that one.”
“Right.” Evan blushed, remembering the exact scene. A well-earned Best Anal Threesome.
She held his eyes, letting the silence do a little slow dance before leaning in like she was going to share a secret.
“So here’s the deal,” she said. “You can take that little file of yours back to IRS… or…” she patted his knee, “…you can get your dick sucked by someone who’s actually earned the title of Head Secretary.”
Evan’s jaw dropped.
Zara loved this part. The stunned silence. The moral tug-of-war playing out in real time. At least this one wasn’t pretending he didn’t know who she was. She hated that. Zara hadn’t set the bukkake world record because she didn’t want to be recognized.
“So what’s it gonna be, hero? Career integrity or a story so good no one will ever believe it?”
Evan, to his credit, managed a sentence. “This is… highly… inappropriate.”
“I know, right?” she said, gasping theatrically. “So unprofessional. We definitely shouldn’t do this.”
She mock-shook her head like she was scolding a sitcom side character.
“I mean, the ethical violations alone!” she said, in the tone of someone who’d once delivered that line in pigtails, bent over a teacher’s desk, in the kind of movie Pornhub and OnlyFans made obsolete.
Evan’s brain was short-circuiting. He could already hear the IRS ethics committee pounding on his frontal lobe.
“It’s up to you,” she said sweetly, like she was offering toppings on a sundae. “World-class blowjob from someone who was nominated for Best Oral Performance six years in a row…” She gave him a few seconds to imagine that. “Or, you can walk out of here and face an angry mob of forty tech bros and baristas with coding certificates who are gonna be out of work by next week.”
Evan didn’t move. His body was frozen, but his thoughts were sprinting, with professional ruin colliding with slow-mo flashes of Zara in a dozen dimly lit scenes, and the sudden, pants-down reality of being offered a starring role in Zara Zest: Conference Room Confessions.
She snapped her fingers gently in front of his face.
“Hellooo? Earth to Mr. Banks. You want the blow job or the angry mob? Which will it be?” Zara asked, eyes wide with faux innocence.
“Dick sucked?” she said, beaming, head bobbing in an enthusiastic yes, like she was pitching him a game show prize.
“Or… angry mob?” she added, switching instantly to a cartoonish pout, shaking her head no, bottom lip out like a scolded puppy.
Evan struggled for words. “That’s… not a… real—”
“It’s very real,” she assured him. “I’ve already cast the mob. There’s a guy with a man bun outside who’s dying for a reason to flip a desk.”
“This is insane,” he muttered.
“Of course it is. You think sane people get into tech?”
He tried not to smile.
Zara gave him a moment, then slid down between his knees.
He didn’t move, which Zara took as ardent consent. She smiled, pleased with herself and happy for him. She settled on the floor like she was dropping into a yoga pose she’d held many times before.
Her fingers tugged at his zipper, pulling it down with all the delicacy of a woman opening a particularly expensive purse. She did it all without breaking eye contact, which, honestly, made it impossible for Evan to resist.
“This is the part where you exhale,” she said gently, as she reached into his boxers. “You look like someone just found your high school browser history.”
He did, in fact, forget to exhale until that moment. It came out as a wheeze.
Zara laughed under her breath. “There we go.”
When she first took him in her mouth, Evan felt his soul leave his body, and not quietly either. It practically ran for the elevator. But she eased him into it, because that’s what pros do.
Zara paced it perfectly. She didn’t have all day, but she didn’t want him popping in 10 seconds like when Suzy Ackerman let him touch her boobs under the apple tree. She guessed that’s how he first got to second base. Sometimes her mind wandered at the strangest times.
Evan gripped the sides of the chair like he was on death row and a Warden was about to flip the switch. Every tongue swirl and glide of her mouth was pure muscle memory, the kind of confidence that came from experience, trophies, and a total lack of modesty.
Every now and then, she tossed out one-liners between sucks like she was working the room, “IRS guys don’t usually smile this much,” or “If you keep auditing my throat, I’m gonna expect to see some liquid assets.” Evan laughed, and immediately regretted it. Then groaned, for multiple reasons.
He was starting to forget how he’d even gotten here. One moment he’d been highlighting misappropriated funds, and now he was in a Herman Miller chair getting professionally unmade by a woman who carried the first three installments of the Grand Theft Orgasmo franchise.
Evan began to relax, finally working up the courage to look down. That was his mistake.
The sight of himself in Zara’s mouth, the lips, the eye contact, her casual this is what I do and I’m good at it attitude, broke whatever grip he still had on the moment. He came with a choked grunt that sounded more like a filing error than an orgasm, and she kept going, licking and sucking, calmly coaxing every last drop like he was doing her the favor.
He was now part of a semi-elite group of men, no more than a thousand. Maybe two thousand. Three tops. All of them blown by the world’s best cock-sucker.
Later, he would’ve sworn it lasted at least half an hour, and felt like a lifetime, with all the pacing of a Terrence Malick movie. In reality, it was about eleven minutes, which was better than most – and record for IRS agents.
Zara pulled back with a soft, satisfied sigh, wiped the corner of her mouth with a finger like she was polishing off a really good cocktail, and stood.
“Solid performance,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “You held out longer than Robert. And way longer than that guy from Legal.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Lawyers, amirite?”
Evan sat there, red-faced and winded, staring at the ceiling.
“You okay, sweety?” she asked. “You look like you just realized this isn’t something TurboTax covers.”
Evan fumbled with his zipper as his brain rebooted and came back online.
Zara gave him a moment. She knew what he was going through; she’d seen it before. Many times.
He looked at her, wanting to say something that matched her wit, or at the very least, something coherent. He failed on both counts.
“That… was…uh…”
“Legendary?”
Evan nodded in agreement. It was all he could manage in the moment.
“Anyway,” she said, adjusting her blouse like she hadn’t just deep-throated a government employee, “about that report?”
“Right,” Evan said, trying to sound professional, and not like he was speaking to someone who had a drop of his cum drying on her blouse.
“You could submit it,” she said. “It might be a big win for you. Lots of paperwork and court dates, maybe even a congressional subcommittee.”
He stared at her.
“Or,” she continued, “you could chalk this place up as a cautionary tale for startups who add ex-porn stars to their senior leadership. Let Clarity Holdings collapse under its own ego and save the IRS a couple months of headaches.”
“Are you bribing me with… aftercare?”
“The bribe was the blowjob. I call this strategic post-tonsil tickle policy realignment.”
He gave her a look. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is here.”
Evan sighed, staring down at the report for what must have been minutes. It was finished, complete, airtight, and ready to bury the company. A career milestone. All he had to do was hit send. But then there was Zara, impossible, disarming, and unforgettable.
He looked up, meaning to meet her eyes, and the moment. Then he slowly felt himself turn to stone.
Outside the glass wall, a small crowd had gathered. Blue-haired girl. Juggling guy. At least four others pretending to check their phones while very obviously watching. The blue-haired girl caught his eye, smiled, and mimed a slow, exaggerated high-five.
Zara gave him a wink and patted his chest. “Welcome to Clarity, Mr. Brooks.” Zara quietly congratulated herself for getting his name right this time.
Evan looked at the report one last time. Then he exhaled. And deleted it.
