Chapter Three

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” I whispered to Paul as we walked down the hall. Paul drove me nuts at least half the time, but that’s just what bosses did.

He winked. “Don’t push me out the door quite yet. I still have four months.”

As we approached his office, he reverted to his usual absentminded-professor mode and frowned down at his smartphone. “I installed some sort of update last night and now nothing is working correctly.”

I arranged my features into one of concern, but inside I was chanting: Please don’t ask me to fix your phone. Please don’t ask me to fix your phone. That could be half my morning.

Thank God he just said, “Don’t suppose you know if the timing of the Cubs playoff games has been announced yet?”

Of course I did. The first reason Paul started to prefer me above all his other project managers was that I always knew the sports scores, stats, and gossip around his insanely wide scope of favorite teams. I considered it another job skill, like being really proficient at Excel Pivot Tables or something.

“Sure thing. Game one is on Friday at 6:00 p.m. Game two is on Saturday at 7:05 p.m.” I wanted to roll my eyes at the way the facts tripped off my tongue. I was his own personal version of Siri or Alexa. “They haven’t announced the pitching lineups yet,” I said before he could ask.

He smiled at me and opened the door to his office. “What would I do without you? Good job this morning, Tess.”

Whew. I’d made it through my colossal hangover. The headache was still fighting back against the four Advil I’d taken, but at least I had no other in-person meetings today. I could shut the door to my office and massage my temples during my afternoon conference calls. Maybe I’d start my research into the FSG and find a lawyer to make him take my video off his site. Actually, no—I needed to keep everything about my personal situation completely away from the office. I’d tackle that tonight.

Instead, I’d research Away-Ho and Zack Morris. I needed to knock my first meeting with him out of the park. A frisson of excitement and panic danced up my spine. I’d hate Jack Sorenson’s scrutiny, but it would be worth it if he made me a VP. I shook my head, still a little dazed from the conversation. I couldn’t wait until I felt better and could process this news properly.

My cell rang as soon as I dropped into my chair. It was Kat. I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to answer, as I was still a little raw over the whole Facebook thing. Of course, she didn’t know I’d seen the picture or what she’d written in response to Daniel.

I almost let it go to voice mail. But my twenty-five-year-old sister was my favorite person in the entire world, and it was unusual for her to call me in the middle of a workday, so I answered. “Hey.”

“Happy Monday, Disaster Girl.” She sounded strangely giddy for a weekday morning. I ignored the nickname. She loved it because of my technical expertise and because of the odd misadventures I’d waded through during some crazy weekends. I just thought it sounded like the worst superhero ever.

“What’s up?” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. How much Advil was too much to take in a four-hour period? I’ve always thought it cruel that alcohol and ibuprofen—the thing that makes your head feel better after overindulging in alcohol—are both harmful to your liver.

“I have big news.” Car horns and wind joined her voice on the line. That was strange.

“Are you not at the office?” I asked.

Kat worked at one of Chicago’s hottest digital marketing firms. I had very little idea what she did day to day, even though she’d explained it to me a thousand times: “You know how when you go look at a dress online at Nordstrom and then that same dress is in an ad on every website you go to after that? That’s what I do.” I hated that. One time—ONE TIME—I’d worried that my hair was thinning so I’d looked up a few things. For months, wig advertisements had followed me around online. I didn’t want the internet thinking I was bald.

“I took a walk,” she said. “I couldn’t tell you my big news from my cubicle.”

My stomach started to hurt. “What is it?”

“I got a job offer, Tess. A big one! To be an account manager! At Starcross!” She squealed. “Oh my God. I can’t believe it.”

I read a lot of novels, but I’d never understood the expression “my heart plummeted” until now. I had heard of Starcross. It wasn’t located in Chicago.

I forced myself to sound excited. “What? Kat! Holy shit! That’s amazing. Wow! Congratulations. You totally deserve it, of course!” I closed my eyes. “Remind me. Starcross is in…”

“San Francisco!” she shrieked. “Can you believe it? I’ve always wanted to live in San Francisco!”

I joined her cheering, encouragement spilling from my lips while a heavy weight of some toxic feeling settled on my chest and the rest of me went completely rigid. My brain detached itself from my body’s emotional cocktail and examined each ingredient critically: What was Tess feeling?

1. Pride. Kat was brilliant and wonderful and deserved everything she wanted.

2. Sadness. Good God, I would miss her.

3. Jealousy. Yep, that ugly little bugger was definitely here too. There’d been a time I wanted to live in California, back when I’d been accepted to Stanford. Of course, there was no question of me actually going. Kat was so young back then. I’m sure I didn’t even mention it to her.

“When do they want you to start?” I interrupted.

She paused because the “L” train was screeching overhead. “In a month. I’ll give my two-week notice today, and after I’m finished at work I’ll have two weeks to focus on packing and the move. Oh my God, you have to help me find an apartment, Tess! Real estate is so crazy out there. Oh wow, what do you think Mom will say?” And, she was off and running again.

I leaned back in my chair and put my free hand over my eyes, blocking out as much as I could. I drew long breaths of air through my nose and blew them out slowly through my lips.

At home that night, I pulled out my laptop and booted it up, emotionally preparing myself to dive into the FSG fiasco. Micki sat on my couch with her legs crossed and a glass of Merlot in hand. “Don’t worry, Tess. We’ll figure this out.”

Roz popped through my open door and handed over a Xanax and a glass of Alka-Seltzer. She’d seen me clomping down the hall, a half weary, half terrified look on my face, and promptly decided that her presence was needed.

After I swallowed her gifts, she squeezed my shoulder. “Mohawk is right,” she said, jabbing at Micki. “There’s a plan for everything, and there’s nothing new under the sun. Whatever’s going on, I’m sure I’ve been there.”

Micki snorted into her wineglass. Maybe it was because Roz’s nickname never failed to give her the giggles, or maybe it was because she couldn’t imagine Roz ever having been exactly here. Although, hell, with Roz, who knew? Maybe there were sex tapes of her all over the internet.

Sighing, I summarized the FSG situation. As unflappable as ever, Roz’s only visible reaction was to narrow her eyes slightly behind her cat-eye glasses before nodding, sagely. “Got it. Let’s dive in, shall we?”

Whether it was the ladies’ support or the Xanax, I did finally feel calm enough to navigate back to the site Micki had showed me the night before. I was going to need as much information as I could find to figure a way out of this.

The FSG’s home page featured a large photograph of the man himself. He was an extraordinarily handsome blond man with a finger to his lips, in some kind of supposed-to-be-sexy shush.

The moment I saw his picture, I remembered him. I remembered it all.

“Oh God.” My stomach acid began an epic duel with the Alka-Seltzer.

“He’s annoyingly good-looking,” Micki said after we’d gazed at his face in silence for a few seconds.

“Hmm.” Roz cocked her head. “Good-looking but smarmy. Who does he remind me of? Someone famous?”

I flinched, remembering some of the first words I’d exchanged with him five years ago. We were at a little hot spot downtown, a trendy tiki bar in the lobby of a fancy boutique hotel. My friends from work had just left, and I’d been sitting alone at the bar, wondering if I should call Kat to meet me. She’d insisted she wasn’t angry anymore, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still resentful. Debating the trajectory of my evening, I didn’t even notice him until he sat down next to me and offered to buy me a drink.

My jaw had dropped, comically, when I looked straight at him. He had wavy, thick hair, bright white teeth, and an honest-to-goodness movie star face. I’d resisted the urge to look over my shoulder to confirm he was actually talking to me.

“What’s your name?” I’d asked, taking a sip of the expensive cocktail he’d bought me.

He’d smirked. “Call me Westley.”

“He looks like the actor from 'The Princess Bride,'” I said to Roz. “It’s actually his whole schtick. Said he was a failed actor and told me to call him Westley, for God’s sake.” I put my face in my hands and moaned. “So fucking cheesy. Why did I even keep talking to him after that?”

Micki laughed. “Uh, because he’s gorgeous? Do you know how many times a night I see a girl give a pass to a cheese ball with a pretty face? Besides, who wouldn’t want to be hit on by Buttercup’s true love?”

Roz made me lay out the rest of our meet-cute, word for word. She grabbed a pen and pad of paper from my coffee table and started jotting notes. “A failed actor,” she muttered. “Figures. Probably an egomaniac with no talent. Would explain how he’d eventually turn to this,” she said, gesturing at the site. She raised her eyes to me, pen poised above the paper. “Now, how did you get from pick-up lines at the bar to sexy time?”

I closed my eyes tightly, said through gritted teeth, “We were only talking for about ten minutes when he suddenly leaned closer to me.”

His gaze had skimmed up my legs and lingered on my chest. “So listen, pretty girl. I’m only in town until tomorrow morning, and I have a room upstairs. I’m looking for a good time tonight. Are you it?”

“That’s fast,” Micki commented sagely. Her years of bartending had made her a guru of the pick-up scene. “Generally, there’s a little more flirtation or banter or basic conversation before the ‘come home with me’ request.”

“He didn’t even ask my name,” I admitted. “But at the time, I’d thought if we both knew where the evening was headed, why not get there faster? Why not just appreciate his flat-out honesty? I sure as hell wasn’t looking for anything beyond a fun one-night fling myself. And he was one of the most physically perfect men I’d ever seen in real life. Why not just run with it?”

“I hear you,” Roz said, shrugging. “Sometimes it’s best to skip the verbal foreplay. Or any foreplay. Sometimes you just want efficiency!” I purposely did not look at Micki because I knew she was two seconds from spitting red wine all over my sofa in a scream of laughter.

I stood and took a lap around the couch. The memories were clear now, but that night still seemed like a very long time ago. A much younger and slightly different Tess. “I wouldn’t go home with someone that quickly now,” I said. “Now I’m more discerning about a guy’s personality. Now I have a strict ‘no assholes’ policy. But back then I was more…inexperienced.” I paused and they nodded. I didn’t need to go into it; they knew all about Daniel and everything that happened.

Roz nodded briskly, scribbling away. “So you’re in the hotel room with ‘Westley.’ How did the idea of making a video come up?”

I flicked my eyes to the ceiling, making sure I remembered the exact sequence of events. “I was looking out the window at the skyline when I heard a snapping noise. When I turned around, I saw that Westley had used his laptop to take a photo of me.”

“You’re beautiful silhouetted against the city lights like that.”

“Don’t take pictures of people without asking. It’s rude.”

“Sorry.” He raised his eyebrows. “Can I take a few more?”

“I asked him if pictures were what he was into. He gave me an expression that tried to be innocent but failed. No wonder he didn’t make it as an actor.”

“You don’t have to put on a whole silly act,” I’d said. “If naked photos are your thing, just say so. I won’t judge.”

I truly wouldn’t have. Who was I to say what was right or wrong when it came to turn-ons? Everyone had their own kink. As long as actions were consensual, I had no problem with different sexual tastes. I’d still been discovering what I liked myself.

Westley had taken a deep breath, looking like a man about to roll the dice at a craps table. “So, what if I told you that naked photos aren’t exactly my thing. Videos are.”

Micki and Roz were both leaning forward, eyes rapt and lips parted. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I know, right? After he took the photos, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But still. You just never know where life in the city is going to take you.”

“Are you asking me to make a sex tape?”

“You’d be incredible. And you can delete it right after we watch.”

That was really all it took; I hadn’t needed a lot of convincing. Because… “I’d thought maybe I’d like it.” One of the reasons I enjoyed sex so much was that it could pull me completely out of the labyrinth of my head for a time. There were few moments in life where the distraction was so complete. Good sex could be an immediate renewal…a satiating physical release that was also a mood re-setter, a reorientation of wherever your mind was before.

“I wondered if being filmed would add a layer of intensity to the sexual experience,” I elaborated. I didn’t mind saying it aloud. Micki and Roz were the two least-judgmental people I’d ever met.

“But I never wanted anyone else to see it,” I said loudly. “I saw nothing wrong with making a recording for our own viewing, but for me, privacy and pleasure go hand in hand. I told him we had to delete the file immediately after we watched it.”

He’d nodded quickly. “Of course. You’re in control, baby.”

Micki cringed, Roz flipped a page in the notebook and continued to write furiously in jagged handwriting, and I paced faster.

“Fuck, I was stupid.”

Micki made a protesting sound, and I looked her in the eye.

“NOT stupid to make a sex tape. That’s not what I’m mad at myself about. I’m mad that I made a sex tape with him.” I jabbed my extended middle finger into Westley’s slightly older face on my laptop screen. “I’m infuriated with myself because I thought he was just sort of a harmless, self-involved dude…not a freakin’ predator!” My voice dropped. “And I’m mad that I was so naïve to believe that I’d deleted it.”

Roz cleared her throat. “Yes, we’ll need to talk about how you deleted it. But first, not to be crude—”

I burst out laughing in spite of myself. Roz positively lived to be crude. Her eyes sparkled at me, practically outshining the rhinestones on her cat-eyes. “Let’s hear about the sex. And did you actually watch the video when you were done?”

I nodded, nose wrinkled. “Yeah.” I let out a harsh laugh. “I’d wanted to see what I looked like in a moment of pure abandon or distraction or pleasure. Unfortunately, what I actually saw was just a video of myself looking bored.”

Side by side, we’d watched ourselves on his laptop. Westley had been fixated on the screen, nodding and emitting little grunts of approval every time his video-self flipped me into a new pretzel pose. Despite my rather loud comments about what I usually liked and what actually worked for me, he had insisted on maneuvering me into a series of different positions like we were working our way through some sort of porn checklist.

“I remember feeling uneasy as we watched it,” I said, feeling the same jitters on my spine. “He was clearly no stranger to making videos. He made eye contact with the camera almost the entire time. He flirted with it and flexed to it and thrust toward it. I remember thinking that performing for a video means you’re not performing for your partner.” I let out an ironic huff. “My takeaway from the evening was that sex tapes were definitely not my thing. Possibly if my partner hadn’t been a giant ass, I would have felt differently.” But as he and I had finished watching, my fingers had itched to delete, delete, delete.

Finally, on the screen, Westley had pulled away from me, slapped my ass, and said, “Now that was a good time!” I hadn’t liked it when he’d done it, and I’d hated watching it on the screen.

“I grabbed the laptop, hit escape to stop the video, and deleted it. Same with the photo. Then I emptied the recycle bin.”

“That was quick.” Westley had pouted.

“You’re telling me,” I’d volleyed back.

“I practically ran out of the room.” I’d thrown my dress and shoes on while he lay naked and smirking in the bed.

I looked at Micki and Roz, my lips twisted. “By the time I left, he didn’t look the tiniest bit handsome to me anymore. He looked less like the 'Princess Bride' hero and a lot more like a bad guy from an ’80s movie…one of those blond villains with an air of smug superiority.”

“Ooh!” Micki piped. “Like James Spader from 'Pretty in Pink'?”

Not to be outdone, Roz added, “Or Johnny from 'The Karate Kid'?”

I had to chuckle. “Exactly. Like a smoosh of those two.”

Micki shuddered. “Awful.”

Roz consulted her notes. “So that’s all? No other contact with him?”

“No,” I said emphatically. “On my way home that night, I stopped for a burrito. Kat met me with some of her sorority sisters, and I treated them all to late-night eats. By the time I went to bed that night, Westley was already a faint memory.”

I glared at his face on the laptop again. “Which makes this all so surreal.” My hands went to fists in my lap. I wanted to punch his face and break that exquisitely shaped nose. How dare he?

Beneath the glamour shot, there was a link that said, “Watch my mission statement!” Reluctantly, I clicked on it.

Beaming, he said, “Welcome, new fan of the Ghost!” His voice, I recalled now, had been one of the least attractive things about him. It was thin and reedy, weak. An odd contrast to the strong features of his face. “I’m thrilled to welcome you to my site. Over the past decade or so, I’ve banged a lotta women. Created a lot of good content. At first it was for my own personal, private viewing.” He let out a greasy chuckle.

Then he flattened his expression into one of mock concern and rested his head on a manicured hand. “But you know what? Men have had to put up with a lot over the last several years.” He rolled his eyes. “The #metoo movement? Please. Fuck that. Time’s Up?” He snorted. “I’ll tell you what it’s time for—time for me to show you a lot of women just plain begging for it.”

“Oh my God,” Micki murmured. Roz quivered, probably with fury.

“Why keep my collection to myself?” he continued, waving his arms expansively. “Why not share?” He leaned closer, becoming larger. “In fact, let’s all share! If you have a sex tape you’d like the Ghost to feature, let’s make a deal! I’ll give you a nice chunk of cash for any video that meets the guidelines explained in the clearinghouse portion of the site.” He leaned even closer to the camera lens and his tone became mocking. “And by guidelines, I mean the chick has to be sort of hot, OK?”

He paused and raised his eyebrows as though listening to a question from the audience. “Don’t have a sex tape yet, but you’re interested in making and selling one? A lot of my bros ask me how I get so many chicks to make a video in the first place. Visit my FAQ section for some tried-and-true methods.”

The Alka-Seltzer gave up; it simply couldn’t match the amount of acid rolling in my stomach. Shaking with rage, I watched as Westley went on to explain that a visitor to his site could choose one video for $1.99, but he really encouraged a “site pass” in which members paid an annual fee of $89.99 and got loads of fresh content every month.

His current release was a set of “the easy girls from New Orleans.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I considered entering my PayPal info and watching the first video just to know what I was facing. But I couldn’t do it. “I can’t pay that asshole money or watch another woman get taken advantage of.”

“You don’t need to,” Roz assured me. “We have enough to go to a lawyer as it is. And I think that’s your next best step, Tess. Maybe the right kind of lawyer can do a sort of cease and desist to get your video taken down from the site.”

It took us only about ten minutes of poking around Chicago’s legal community to find Natasha Long, Esq, an attorney who specialized in the horrible acronym that was now going to rule my life: NCP—nonconsensual pornography, the “distribution of sexually graphic images of individuals without their consent.”

Roz put the cap of the pen back on with a loud click. “I’ll type up my notes tonight and email them to you. You should send them to the attorney ASAP.”

I put my hand on her tough little shoulder, finally starting to feel like myself again. “Thanks.”

Micki laughed, low and long. “That son of a bitch sure messed with the wrong girl.”

I grinned at her, appreciating the sentiment. “Oh yeah?”

She snorted. “Uh, I’ve never really wondered if you were a fight-or-flight kind of girl, Tess. You know I consider you an unofficial bouncer at the bar.”

Now I laughed too. No, I wasn’t a “flight” kind of girl when it came to conflict. Sometimes I flat-out looked for a fight. In this one, I’d use my nails and teeth.

Twenty-four days.