“Only a hundred and thirty-five calories per serving, and fat-free. You may have two helpings if you’re a good girl,” said Cray, looking at her over his shoulder and down his perfect nose.
She gave Hank a warning look, closed the door, and followed them down the wide hall toward the kitchen where she hoped that Drew was fully dressed again. Hank’s remark hadn’t been far off.
“Yes, Daddy,” laughed Reilly.
“That’s my line!” joked Hank. “Let’s crack open that awesome bottle of wine we brought and watch Drew get her Rachael Ray on! I know that Reilly had nothing to do with the fabulous smells wafting through this house.”
“Hey, I’m helping with the cooking, too.”
“Did you open a box of crackers? Slice some cheese?” asked Hank.
“Yes. And I arranged pickles and olives on a relish tray.”
“What? Was there a shortage of caterers this year or something?”
“Drew likes to cook. I even went shopping with her. It was fun.”
“Watch out world, Reilly is gonna take over the Food Network next!”
Reilly pinched Hank’s arm as they entered the professionally appointed kitchen that Reilly had never cooked in. Drew’s head rose from a cloud of steam issuing from the oven that she had just opened. The scent of roasted vegetables filled the room.
“Hey! The boys are here!” she called out as Hank laughed and she saw them. She pulled on a pair of oven mitts. “Hugs in a minute, I have to turn the veggies.”
Reilly smiled at the scene. Drew cooking always reminded her of their first night together, and a tremble pulsed low in her belly. The fact that they had just finished a quickie when the doorbell sounded didn’t diminish the blaze that swept through her once again. Drew smiled at her, and Reilly saw post orgasm softness in the beautiful silver eyes.
“Said boys are present and accounted for, ma’am,” responded Cray, as Reilly envisioned herself vaulting the counter separating her from Drew. She dragged her eyes away from her lover and laughed at Cray’s sharp salute. He was filming a World War II movie and the skater-talk that she had so despised had been replaced with soldier-speak. She preferred the soldier-speak.
“Tell me one of you has some music with you. Reilly and I don’t have anything worth listening to around here,” came Drew’s voice from below the countertop. The smell of roasted bell peppers and onions intensified as Drew stirred the vegetables. She closed the oven door.
“All the Zen Master over there has on her iPhone is yoga and meditation music,” explained Reilly, hooking a thumb at the two identical phones lying on the counter. “And I haven’t had a chance to download all my stuff onto my new phone since I dropped the old one during that impromptu salsa you and I did for Ellen last week, Cray.”
“Fret no longer. Cray will save the day,” said Cray, setting the trifle dish on the counter with one hand and sliding his phone out of his back pocket with the other.
Hank rushed over waving his phone and tried to push Cray’s phone back toward his pocket.
“Uno momento, mi amore! At the risk of being asked to hand in my gay card, I have to say that I am not listening to ‘It’s Raining Men’ tonight!”
“Well, I’m not listening to that brain rattling skater music tonight,” countered Cray, flashing a mean frown and devil-horn hands.
Reilly smiled and looked at Drew, whose eyes widened, and she pointed to Reilly’s chest. When Reilly looked down, she saw that her shirt was buttoned askew. She turned away and fixed it while the boys were bickering. She tossed Drew a knowing smile and blew her a kiss as she turned back, a rush of body memories from the frantic sex they’d just had against the island counter flooding her senses.
“Boys, boys. Have we discovered trouble in paradise?” asked Reilly, fixing the last button and moving to stand between them.
Hank winked at Cray with a smile.
“Don’t worry, Sweet Reilly. The beautiful music we make together surpasses all obstacles—even Cray’s unfortunate taste for all things disco.”
Cray returned the smile and reached around to swat Hank’s ass.
“You guys make me a little sick with all this sweetness,” Reilly said with a roll of her eyes. “Just hand me one of your phones.”
“Hey! That reminds me. I found an old phone in your car when I was cleaning it out,” said Hank heading toward the foyer. “I charged it with the cord I found in the console. But there’s a password on it, so I don’t know if it still works or not.”
“Let me see. I’m sure there’s music on it, and I probably remember the password,” said Reilly, hoping it was her old phone just for the photos she had on it.
Hank retrieved the box he had brought in and set it on one of the dining room chairs. The first thing he held up was a light blue hoodie with rhinestone and sequined applique of a puppy on the front.
“Classic barf,” he said as he held it up to his chest.
“That is hideous and not mine. I have no idea where that came from. Are you sure you cleaned out the right car?” laughed Reilly.
“Do these ring a bell?” asked Hank holding up a leopard print thong, which she did remember.
“They do. But also not mine,” she said, offering no details, although she saw his eyes begging for more of the story. “The phone?”
“Here we go. The high tech LG Dare,” announced Hank. He held the phone next to his face and waved his other hand under it, a la Vanna White. “If I remember correctly, they were the shit back in the day. You always have had the latest gadget.”
“They were and I do,” agreed Reilly. “But that’s not mine. That one was Sylvie’s. We had the same phone, but she had the red case. Mine was silver.”
“So much for music, then,” said Hank dropping the phone back into the box. “It’s password protected.”
Reilly had mixed feelings of curiosity and avoidance about peeking into a past that she normally didn’t want to visit, but she held out her hand.
“I think I remember the password. She had some good music. Let’s check it out.”
Hank pulled the phone out of the box again and tossed it to Reilly, who tried a couple of passwords before unlocking the touch screen.
“Success,” she said as an image of her and Sylvie appeared. She immediately regretted succumbing to her curiosity. A confusing mix of emotions swirled within her. In the picture, she and Sylvie appeared to be having the time of their lives. There was a party in the background and Sylvie kissed Reilly’s neck, while Reilly smiled for the photo. Typical for that time in her life, Reilly remembered posing for the shot but not much more. She scrolled through the files on the phone, searching for more of what she suspected would be there but worried about what she would find. Sylvie had a habit of taking naked snapshots of people—which is why she knew the password. When they had been together, she had routinely scanned for and deleted them. At the time, she justified it as being cautious, just in case Sylvie lost her phone. But she now knew that it was because she hadn’t trusted her. And for good reason.
She wasn’t ready for what she found. The first was of Sylvie with her hand up Parker’s dress in the backseat of Reilly’s car. Parker must have been holding the camera. The angle of Sylvie’s arm and the half-lidded expression on Parker’s face indicated that Sylvie’s hand was up something more than just Parker’s skirt. A third person’s arm was draped along the back of the seat behind them. Reilly knew whose arm it was before she saw the next photo of herself passed out, curled up, her head resting on her arm that was lying across the back of the seat. The photo featured Parker smiling into the camera beside her, sticking out her tongue. Yet another picture showed Sylvie kissing Parker, and Parker was cupping Sylvie’s breast.
Reilly felt sick. She recognized the green dress that she had on.
“Reilly, what’s wrong?” asked Drew, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“These are pictures from the night that I… that I… of that night,” said Reilly, her eyes never leaving the
images that rotated across the screen of the phone in her hand.
“What kind of pictures?” asked Drew, peering down at the phone.
“Just pictures of me passed out in the backseat of my car, while my former girlfriend fucks another woman right next to me,” said Reilly. Her words were wooden, but there were three sets of startled eyes before her.
Despite her words, the content of the photos didn’t bother Reilly, not really, not after all the time that had passed. She and Sylvie had had an open relationship and Reilly had known that Parker had joined them on occasion, so there was no surprise there. It was the fact that she had absolutely no memory of that night. Nothing beyond the party at Cray’s house. For all she knew, she was looking at the very moments of decision that had altered hers and so many other people’s lives, and it looked like she had been sleeping right through it. She wanted to reach back and shake herself, to wake herself up, to warn herself.
“Let me see,” said Hank, holding out his hand.
Reilly gave the phone to him, and she watched as he flipped through the pictures.
“What a filthy whore!” said Hank. The words made Reilly felt a little better, if for nothing more than they were predictable. “And I touched those panties with my bare hands. There’s a video. Should we watch it?”
“I don’t care what you do,” replied Reilly. “Go in the other room or something, though. I don’t want to see or hear anything.”
Reilly moved closer to Drew, who tightened her embrace. She watched Hank pull a set of headphones out of the box, and he and Cray, each with one ear bud in, began to watch a video that probably featured her ex-girlfriend having sex with another woman. Drew kissed the side of her neck and squeezed her. Reilly shut her eyes and leaned into it. It was nice to know that all of that was behind her. She liked who she was now. She didn’t even know that Reilly anymore.
“Reilly, you should watch this.” Reilly opened her eyes and saw Hank riveted to the screen.
“Hank, I don’t really want to—’
“No, Reilly. You really need to watch this,” said Cray, waving her and Drew over. Hank pulled the headphones out of the phone so that the audio played into the room, small and tinny.
“There’s no video,” said Reilly, glancing at the screen and then at Drew, relieved.
“There is, but I think the phone is in her pocket or something. I don’t think they meant to record this,” said Cray, pointing at the screen. “The video is still playing, though. See the lights every once in a while? You can still hear stuff.”
Reilly nodded her head as she heard the sounds of rustling coming from the phone.
Then she heard Parker’s voice, muffled and far away, but clearly Parker’s voice.
“…stupid bitch. Out like a baby every time.”
“Stupid, yes, but never a bitch. She’s just a wet blanket,” came Sylvie’s very familiar voice from a distance. Then there was laughter. “Unlike you, who are a bitch and will do anything, anyone, anytime…” The rest was unintelligible until Parker could be heard again.
“It’s the only way to get a job in this town. Don’t knock it, baby.”
“I don’t know how you get any jobs when you wear shit like that,” laughed Sylvie.
“What? You don’t like my doggie hoodie? My niece gave it to me.”
The sound of dull rustling and whooshing as the phone, wherever it was—in the pocket of the hoodie being discussed?—was tussled by casual movement.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t go out with you in public if you had it on.”
“Good thing I have other plans for you, then.” There was a pause. “I think she’s totally out. Let’s dump her and then go back to your place so I can fuck your brains out.”
The next words were unintelligible under a knocking noise, and then it was quiet for a few seconds before Sylvie spoke again.
“How much did you give her?”
“Just a few drops in her drink. Check it out.” Reilly wished that she could see what Parker was doing. There was a thump and a moan. “We could light fire to her hair and she wouldn’t even know.”
“Just as long as you didn’t give her too much. She was out too long that first time after we gave her a second dose because it wasn’t working fast enough. That was scary,” said Sylvie, again from a distance, and Reilly had to struggle to hear it.
“They drugged me?” asked Reilly, incredulous. “I can’t believe they fucking drugged me.”
“Do you know what this means?” asked Hank. He was excited and tugged at Reilly’s sleeve.
“Shh!” said Reilly. She wanted to hear the rest. “Rewind it. I missed that last part.”
Hank ran the recording back.
“—that was scary.”
“People don’t O.D. on this shit. Otherwise there would be a lot more frat boys in jail for murder. It’s not like she’ll ever know, anyway. No one ever tests for it,” said Parker.
“I don’t know—”
“Stop overthinking things. We’re just having fun. Now let’s do it.”
“Hold on. Make sure no one’s around,” said Sylvie.
There was a pause.
“Now?” asked Parker, and Reilly heard the impatience in her voice.
“Yeah. There’s no one. It’s too cold even for the hobos tonight.” Sylvie laughed.
“Is this some sort of forties movie? Who says hobos?”
“Bums, then. Jeez,” said Sylvie, and Reilly could hear the impatience in Sylvie’s voice now.
“There’s one over by the garbage bins. He’s probably passed out cold on his Thunderbird, though.” Parker laughed. “Get it? Out cold?”
“Yeah. Very funny. Just like his fucking dancing Snoopy blanket. Who the hell has Snoopy anymore?”
“Um, people who take what they can get?”
Reilly blew out an impatient sigh, thinking about the irony of Parker schooling anyone on being more sensitive.
“Well, it looks like he’s zipped all the way in. Who’s he going to tell anyway?”
“Should we put a jacket on her?” asked Parker.
“No. Hopefully the cold will wake her up so she’s not out here all night. We want to fuck with her, not give her pneumonia.”
“Are you sure? We could put my doggie hoodie on her.”
“She’d never wear something like that over this dress. It’s Marlo Leechy. She’d know something was up if she woke up wearing it. Okay, let’s go. Let’s knock the movie queen down a notch or two,” said Sylvie.
“Remind me not to act like I might want to break up with you, okay?”
“It’s more than that. Three years together and I don’t have so much as a toothbrush at her place and she’s been in my house exactly once. She’s never even brought up living together. She doesn’t care if I fuck other women. She didn’t even care when I brought you around. That alone should have set her off.”
“Is that what this is? You were using me to piss her off?”
Reilly pictured Parker standing there with her hands on her hips and her hip thrust out in the defiant pose she struck at least once in any movie she made. She was known for that posture. It was part of her B-movie charm.
“Payback’s a bitch.”
“Ouch. It’s a good thing that I’m not in love with you, then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You using me to piss off your girlfriend.”
“Hey. You told me up front that you only wanted to be fuck-buddies.”
“True. But still…”
“Just shut up and grab her feet. No, leave her shoes on. We’ll just put her on the bench—” Sylvie said something else but Reilly couldn’t hear her over the noise in the background. Her head spun. Had it all been because Sylvie thought that Reilly was going to leave her? Reilly didn’t remember having thoughts about leaving. Sure, she had been getting a little irritated at Sylvie for small stuff, and there were the feelings that she had for Drew, but she didn’t remember having any focused thoughts
on breaking up with her. Sylvie had broken up with her, in fact. Had it simply been a game of revenge gone horribly wrong? Had Sylvie’s fast retreat after everything had happened been an act of guilt for putting Reilly in a position to harm someone?
The sounds of rustling got louder, and Reilly huddled with the others around the phone in Hank’s hand. There were grunts, as the two women in the recording exerted some sort of effort. Reilly imagined that they were having sex.
“We don’t need to listen to—” she started to say before voices issued from the phone again.
“Fucking cow,” complained Parker, her voice strained. “This is hard to do in a dress. We should have changed our clothes.”
“You’re just weak. We’re almost there. That sweatshirt goes great with those heels, by the way,” teased Sylvie.
“Fuck you.”
“Promises, promises.”
A thump sounded, and a moan floated from the phone’s tinny speakers.
“Shit, Syl. Gentle. That’s going to bruise. Besides, you’ll wake her up.”
“My hand slipped. Anyway, a train wouldn’t wake her ass up right now. We’ve done this before. She’ll have no fucking idea what happened to her. She’ll wake up on the bench and think she had another blackout. I can’t wait to hear what she says this time.”
“She tried to hit me the last time we did this,” said Parker.
“That’s why you gave her more of the stuff. She woke up when we were fucking that woman we met at the bar.”
“She kept calling her Drew.”
“Yeah, I think she thought it was the Ice Queen you brought to the party tonight. What’s with you bringing her to the party, by the way?”
“I know her from yoga. Cray invited her, but I think she has a thing for Reilly. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell. Drew’s nice, but totally not into having fun,” said Parker.
“I’m sure I could warm her up.”
Reilly felt the old jealousy rise in her and she tensed. Drew squeezed her, as if she knew what she was feeling, and the jealousy went away.
“So, are we gonna do the same thing? Just leave her here?”
Life in High Def Page 36