His Name Is Sir (The Power to Please #3) (38 page)

And if there were another video, he would want me even less. Well, I told myself, nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

Until I said it aloud to Gibson, I had kept my fears of a third video pushed to the sidelines of my worries. I was revolted to think that the incident with Kamun may have been taped, a permanent record of the beer bottle, my fear and the fight.

The “X” on the mat. Michael’s insistence about where I stood near the bench. Damning evidence. Sickening likelihood.

Then there were considerations of other kinds. I had wondered how truthful Michael was with me that night, afterward. I never could fully accept his claim that it was all a terrible misunderstanding. Eventually, I stopped wondering. It didn’t matter, ultimately, since there were plenty of other things wrong with that night and our other encounters to make me never regret my decision to break it off with him.

But now I thought of Michael leaving the room and not returning until I shoved Kamun to the floor. I imagined Michael in another room in the apartment, staring at a monitor, watching what was happening in the dungeon between Kamun and I. Watching what Kamun did with that beer bottle. Listening to me cry “no” over and over, and then screaming “yellow.”

And I thought about how Michael didn’t return to the dungeon until I was racing for the door. How he was running when he entered the room, as if he knew what was happening in there.

Surely not. He protected me from Kamun’s revenge, after all.

I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t want to be thinking about any of this, let alone analyzing the details of Michael’s actions anew.

I needed to stop torturing myself with it. I was unlikely to ever know the full truth about that night.

I returned to thinking about Gibson, and all the progress he had made, how I should be thrilled with the outcome so far. But I was too occupied with fear, worried that Gibson would find another video of me. And even worse, horrified that he would watch it.

I knew he would watch it. Had no doubt whatsoever.

My anxiety only increased over the course of the afternoon and evening. Not even the Hoytes’ company could distract me. I went to bed early, but not to sleep. No, sleep was an impossibility. I went to bed to give Ron and Elaine some relief from my morose company.

I heard from Gibson around midnight. He sent a text.

It read: “No other videos found within date range, not on site servers or in personal library.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, took a few deep breaths. Then I opened my eyes and read the text again.

“No other videos found.”

It seemed too good to be true, but I would take it. I would definitely take it.

I replied to his text, a simple, “Thank you.”

His response came rapidly. “Are you okay?”

I sent back, “Better now. Thanks again. Goodnight.”

A few minutes ticked by before I received another text. It read: “Sleep well.”

For the first time in two days, I thought there was a chance that I actually might.

I awoke to an empty house, if not restored by the sleep, then at least coherent enough to function. I passed the day much like the one before, puttering around the house, trying to find ways to occupy myself.

It was Friday. Three days since Michael brought ruin upon me. Gibson’s efforts to fix the situation notwithstanding, I couldn’t shake my sense of doom.

Regret. It was a sour taste in the back of my throat that wouldn’t be rinsed away. And it only became more potent as I relived the many impetuous and foolhardy decisions which had led to this disaster.

I wanted to undo my time with Michael, spin time backward to that moment in Private Residence when I met a handsome playboy and allowed myself to be charmed into his grasp. The more I thought about our time together, the more warning signs I recalled. Many of those signs I recognized when I was in the moment, but I ignored them.

I ignored them because, well, because he was sexy and he gave me mind-blowing orgasms.

It shook my self-respect to admit that. Did I have some kind of toggle switch inside me? An either/or? I could either be a thinking person or I could come really hard? What did that say about me?

I wasn’t the first person to confuse passion with love, to blindly trust the object of lust. And I wouldn’t be the last. Unfortunately, this knowledge was no consolation. This was about me, not an unknowable someone. I should have been different. I should have known better.

Friday night, Ron and Elaine once again tried to get me out of the house, but I wouldn’t leave. On Saturday, Elaine tempted me out with promises of shopping. I didn’t go. Saturday night, I convinced them to go out and leave me at home.

And then it was Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. One week since the devastation.

I didn’t see Gibson during this time, or speak to him. He sent me a few text messages, brief updates about ongoing efforts to retrieve DVDs and delete outstanding files. Michael was still unaccounted for.

One week. And I wasn’t feeling any better. In fact, I was feeling worse.

Ron and Elaine began to despair of ever getting me to go outside again. They didn’t understand. How could they? They didn’t see how Frank Linton looked at me, how Stephanie wouldn’t even say goodbye.

The more I worried about someone recognizing me out there, the more impossible it became for me to leave the house. The more I imagined the sneers, the lewd looks, the crass comments, the more I knew an outing wasn’t worth the risk.

I stopped talking for the most part. Elaine would chat at me and I would nod and smile but I wasn’t hearing her, or anyone. I was sunk deeply inside myself, the only conversation worth listening to was the one inside my head.

And it was a bitter, bitter conversation. I had come to realize that the person to blame in all of this wasn’t Michael. It was me. I was to blame.

I had behaved like a child with a new, dangerous toy, had recklessly played with that toy and didn’t stop to consider the repercussions of my actions. Even after my experience with Kamun and nearly being raped, I hadn’t let that be a warning to curb my impulsiveness. No. I’d hopped right back into the fray, enjoying a vacation fuck in front of a stranger. Scened publicly with the Hoytes. Fucked Gibson in my office.

When I thought about how I vowed to throw off convention, how I bragged that I would make my own rules and not let others contain me, I wanted to slap myself. Look at where throwing off convention had gotten me. Unemployed, perhaps unemployable in any good job. Humiliated. Degraded.

And Gibson Reeves. I was feeling bitter about him as well. Gibson, who had started all this. Now here was this ugly fallout, and where was he? Was he holding me at night? Was he kissing me and telling me it didn’t matter to him what Michael had done? Nope.

Oh, he was trying to fix the problem, as he put it. But Michael had been right about him. Gibson didn’t want me anymore. I was a taint on his image. I would be a taint on any respectable man’s image.

A new blow fell Tuesday night. One of my best friends, Sherry, called and told me she had heard rumors about me, rumors about me being fired and about a kinky sex video on the Internet. Apparently, she was the last of my friends to hear the rumor, and the only one with the courage to call and ask me about it.

I could have lied, but she would have known it was a lie, and it would have been between us. So I told the truth, and let that come between us. If I were to be parted from my friends, it would be for the truth.

I didn’t give her any details, beyond the fact that I was filmed without my knowledge. Details weren’t necessary. I was certain she had heard plenty already. She told me she was sorry that all this had happened to me, said it didn’t change anything for her.

It did, though. I heard it in her voice that she thought differently about me now, that I made her uncomfortable. And Sherry was the most open-minded of my friends.

So of course, knowing I was outed to my small circle of friends led me to enjoy a particularly nasty Tuesday night and Wednesday.

It’s difficult to say how long I would have imposed myself on the patient Hoytes, wallowing in my misery, if I hadn’t watched Elaine’s home videos.

Wednesday night, Elaine played me recordings of her family, showing them on vacations, special events like Christmas with the kids, camping, all the usual things families do together. I only paid half attention, not really listening to Elaine’s chatter.

It was just another scene of a happy family. I had the passing thought that it would be horrible if anything happened to break their family apart. And that’s when it struck me. When I first met Elaine, she mentioned that she and Ron had scened with Michael in the past. My God.

I turned to Elaine and interrupted her mid-word. “Have you checked to make sure that Michael didn’t record you and Ron when you were with him?”

She looked thrown by the abrupt change of topic. Then she gave a little shrug. “Oh yes. Gibson went through Michael’s files for us. Just to make sure. It wasn’t likely, since it was only twice and both times were in public rooms at Private Residence.”

“So Gibson didn’t find anything?”

“No,” she assured me with a gentle smile. “There was nothing. Michael wasn’t able to film at the club.”

I took a deep breath. I was relieved. And appalled. Appalled that all this time, I had not once thought about the Hoytes and how they might have been affected, too.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should have asked you this before. I’m ...”

Elaine reached over and patted my hand. “It’s okay, honey. You had other things to worry about.”

I didn’t, though, not really. I knew, from what Gibson had told me in his letter from weeks before, that he monitored Michael’s site to make certain all the women in the videos were paid and had agreed to be filmed. My own videos and photos hadn’t been up long enough for Gibson’s team to check my assent before Michael revealed everything to me himself.

But we didn’t know about Michael’s private library, his secret stash, not back then, before Michael posted my files.

I knew about the library now, though, had known for a week, and hadn’t thought once about Ron and Elaine, or about any other women who might have been recorded without their knowledge. I was disgusted with myself. To not even consider the well-being of the Hoytes was irrefutable evidence that I had sunk too far.

I realized I needed to snap out of my orgy of self pity. I had obsessed long enough, and I had imposed on the Hoytes far too long. It was time to pick myself up and make some decisions about what I was going to do.

I spent the rest of that night doing exactly that.

The next morning, I woke early and met Elaine in the kitchen before she left for work. I thanked her for everything she and Ron had done for me, and told her I could never repay her for her kindness.

I told her I was returning to my apartment that morning. I would be packing up some more of my things, and then I was leaving town. Permanently. A new start somewhere else, to begin a new life.

Of course, I expected Elaine to be surprised by my decision, and she was. She tried to talk me out of it, which I also expected. What I hadn’t expected was for her to put up less of a fight than I anticipated. I felt encouraged by her weak argument, believed it meant she agreed that I would be better off starting over elsewhere.

We hugged our goodbyes, vowing to keep in touch, with me promising to call her every day with updates in my travels, since I didn’t have a clear destination in mind yet. She tried to get me to stay one last night, to give Ron a chance to say his goodbyes, too, but I didn’t think I could stand another goodbye. I said I’d call him later in the day.

Not long after Elaine departed for work, I was packed and had my things loaded in my car. I left a note for the Hoytes, thanking them for everything they did for me, then I locked up their house and drove away, trying not to think about how much I’d miss them.

I had a few stops to make on my way home. It was difficult being out in public, and even though I rationally knew that there was virtually no chance anyone I met that day could have seen my video, my irrational side made my heart pound every time someone glanced my way.

I needed a change in look, anything that would boost my confidence and make me feel less recognizable. I stopped at a walk-in hair salon.

While I waited for an available stylist, I had a mental flash of movies where women cut off their hair in times of trial, as rebellious acts of empowerment, or as de-sexualizing acts of self-loathing. I asked myself if I were doing that. No, I wasn’t in the salon to gear up for a fight, or to punish myself. I simply wanted to hide.

When the hairdresser had me in her chair, I told her to do what she wanted with me, but to make it completely different from what I already had. She did as I asked.

She gave me a short, chunky, razored-edged style. My hair was now shorter than I had ever worn it, barely reaching the nape of my neck. I liked it. I looked different, and younger in spite of the dark circles under my eyes. When I got up from the chair and stepped over the heaped pile of my shorn black hair on the floor, I walked away from the recognizable old me.