by Ray Garton
“They go on my websites.”
Her eyes widened a little. “For how long?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long do you leave the pictures and videos on your website?”
He shrugged. “As long as the sites are up. You have a problem with that?”
“Well… what if he sees me?”
Another shrug. “Some men, they really get off on it. It turns them on, seeing their girlfriends or wives on a website, knowing other people are looking at them. Some men love it.”
“I don’t think Nate would.”
“Does he join paysites?”
“What do you mean?”
“He would have to pay to see you. Does he pay to join websites?”
She released a small sigh of relief. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
She stood and thought some more. “You get a lot of people coming to your site?”
“In the millions. I have a few different sites. They’re all very successful.”
“I see. Well.” For a moment, she looked like she was about to turn and leave. Then she put the purse on the couch. Her voice trembled as she said, “Okay, the whole thing for twelve hundred.”
“Wonderful,” he said, “just wonderful.” He stood and went to the end table by the couch and picked up the cordless phone on its base. “I’m going to have to call a friend over to help. I’m going to need a hand.” He punched in the number, waited a moment. “Hey, it’s Steve. You got some time? I’ve got a session set up, and I need a hand.” He listened a moment, then said, “Great, see you in a few.” He turned the phone off and put it back on its base. “He’ll be here in awhile. He lives just north of Redding. In the meantime, why don’t we get some pictures. C’mon in the studio.”
Heather followed him down the hall to a bedroom with a king-size bed on one side, and lights for the photo shoots on the other. He turned a couple of the lights on, then went to a small desk behind the lights. “I need you to sign a couple forms before we do anything. How old are you, Heather?”
“Twenty.”
He took a couple sheets of paper from a desk drawer, put them on the desk, and handed her a pen. “Just sign here,” he said, pointing to a line at the bottom of the page. She signed it, and he pulled the first page aside. “And here.”
As she signed the second sheet, she said, “What are these for?”
“One swears you’re of age, and the other is so you won’t sue me when your pictures and videos show up on the Internet, and gives me permission to use the photos and videos on my websites.”
“Oh, I see.”
Regent took a digital camera from the desktop. “Now, we’ll start with your clothes on. Just lie back on the bed and pose for me. Give me your sexiest looks.”
Heather slipped her flats off and got on the bed, stretched out on her back, propped up by her elbows. She went through a series of poses for him – bend the knee, raise this arm, lift that hip. Her movements were stiff, her poses rigid.
“You need some more wine,” Regent said. “You’re very stiff, Heather. We need to loosen you up.”
“How about some of that scotch?” she said.
Regent smiled and said, “Attagirl.”
* * * *
Regent had discovered the greatest job in the world, and he was a huge success at it. He and his buddy Josh Garner – they’d known each other since college – had joked for years about starting an adult website. Then one day they decided to put their money where their mouth was. They got a loan from the bank for “online entertainment sites,” and assembled a website made up of pictures they’d found on the Internet. But they knew they couldn’t charge for membership unless the pictures were originals. They purchased the equipment they would need, then decided to try the local community college. They put notices up on bulletin boards:
WANTED: ATTRACTIVE FEMALES
Are you an attractive young woman
in need of some quick money? Earn
up to $750 posing for photographs
and video. Tasteful.
They included Regent’s cell phone number as a contact.
Regent and Garner were stunned by the response. They were astonished that so many attractive young women were willing – even eager – to take their clothes off for total strangers.
Regent and Garner had been living together at the time in an apartment in Redding. They’d held auditions there – every girl passed. They’d set up lights and a camera in the spare bedroom. At first, most of the girls just went for the topless photos for a hundred. A few opted to pose for more explicit photos. Only one girl that first week agreed to give Regent head on camera. But she was insatiable. She didn’t want to stop with that – she wanted to fuck. She invited Garner to service her while Regent recharged. She took on both of them, and they recorded every minute of it. It remained the hottest video in their collection.
Usually, Regent had to listen to them whine a lot longer than he’d had to with Heather. That was the hook – he and Garner wanted to help them out, so what was the problem? And they spilled their guts. They were just looking for someone to listen to them for a while. They didn’t get it from their boyfriends, or their husbands. Really listen to a woman, acknowledge what she had to say about things, and she’d be eating out of your hand – that’s what Regent had learned. So he listened to their problems, and eventually it got around to some kind of financial needs. And then he presented them with the opportunity to make some quick cash. But by then, they trusted him, and that was the key. He’d listened to them, he had validated their problems, their opinions, and he had expressed sympathy and understanding. To be listening to, taken seriously – Regent was surprised by how little of that women got in their everyday lives. He and Garner gave them that. And after an hour, maybe two hours, maybe a drink or two or three or more, they felt so grateful that they were much more inclined to take off their clothes for them.
Regent and Garner had four websites – Young and Lovely, which featured college-age girls; MILF Parade, featuring mostly women in their thirties and early forties; Lusty Lesbians was self-explanatory, and was made up of pictures and videos of those women they encountered who were bisexual, women to whom more money was offered for lesbian action photos and videos; and Carnal Couples, where they posted pictures and videos of Regent and Garner having sex with women in couples only, no three-ways. But now, Regent was working on something new.
Trailer Park Girls would be a website featuring only women who lived in trailer parks from all over the country. He’d purchased a mobile home and an SUV that could pull it, and his plan was to drive around the country and move into trailer parks. He’d stay at each park for a few months – long enough to get to know some of the women there, to get them to pose for him – then he’d move on to another and do it all over again. He’d keep an online log for members and write about the trailer parks he stayed in, the people he met. He’d do video updates from the road in which he appeared with nude women. The whole thing was planned out in his head.
But he’d just started. Actually, he hadn’t started yet. Riverside Mobile Home Park was his first shot at this. His plan was to move east in his tour of trailer parks, but he’d decided to start right there at home. That way, if there were any problems, or if it somehow just didn’t fly, he’d know without having traveled across the country – he’d know right away. He always knew right away if something was going to work or not, he felt it in his gut. Riverside would be his testing ground to see if it worked. For all he knew, there were no attractive women in trailer parks and they all really did look like Jerry Springer’s guests.
Heather was not a trailer park girl. At the age of twenty, she would be featured on the Young and Lovely site. He had not yet had a chance to meet any of his fellow residents at Riverside. But he would.
* * * *
With some scotch in her, Heather loosened up, relaxed. She posed with ease on the bed, and sh
e looked great.
“Now, take off your shirt,” Regent said.
“My shirt?” she said. “Couldn’t I take off my skirt?”
“We’ll get to your skirt, but I’d like to start with your top.”
“But I… I don’t… my breasts… “
”Honey, your breasts are just fine. And believe me, the guys who visit my site will want to see them. Trust me. They’ll want to see them, and they’ll love them. Really. Whatever you may think of your breasts, these guys are going to adore them.”
She laughed a little and said, “Really?”
“Yes, really. And where’d you get the idea there’s something wrong with your breasts, anyway?”
“Nate says they’re too small. He wants me to get implants.”
“Well, if your boyfriend hadn’t already given me enough reason to think he’s an asshole, that would clinch it. You hear me? Your boyfriend’s an asshole.”
She laughed again. “Thanks for saying that, but… well, I love him.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, but… like I said… “
”You love him, yeah. Well, that sucks, it truly does. Whattaya say you take that top off and we get some great pictures of your gorgeous breasts.”
She took the shirt off and tossed it aside.
“Yeah, screw your boyfriend!” he said as he took pictures.
Regent took a few topless pictures, then had her take her skirt off and got some panty shots.
“Now, what-say you take off those panties?” he said.
She hesitated for a long time, then removed her panties. She knelt on the bed facing him.
“What do you want me to do now?”
Regent said, “Get on your hands and knees with your back to me and let’s get some shots of that incredible ass.”
Heather turned and got on hands and knees. Then the sobs started again, quietly though. She tried to fight them back, but could not. When her shoulders quaked, Regent said, “What’s wrong? Are you crying?”
She said nothing, just kept crying.
“Oh, well, that’s okay. I’ll just get some more pictures of your ass while you get it out of your system.”
She tried to pull herself together. She reached up and wiped her eyes. She rolled over and said, “Is this gonna show?”
“Yeah, it looks like you’ve been crying. You want to go wash your face?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back.”
“Second door on your left.”
While she was in the bathroom, Regent heard the front door open. Garner had arrived.
“Now we can get down to the fun stuff,” he said to himself with a smile.
Seven
The night had been a battle so far, a battle not yet won. The Xanax had made Reznick groggy, and he stayed in his recliner and passed in and out of sleep. Each time he woke up, he could smell the perfume. It wasn’t there, of course. It was just the memory of smelling Anna Dunfy’s perfume. It lingered in his mind like a ghost in a castle tower. Each time he woke, there it was, that fresh, cool scent that plunged daggers into his eyes, all the way into his brain, deep into his brain, where the blades triggered just the right synapses and he could hear Victoria’s voice, see her, feel her touch.
It was some kind of barbaric torture, but it was not physical. Tormenting memories sent jolts of electricity down to his stomach and made him feel nauseated. As Letterman started his monologue, Reznick hurried into the bathroom, knelt before the toilet, and vomited his guts up. The NyQuil stung his throat and mouth as it came back up. Afterward, he brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth out, then drank some more NyQuil, straight out of the bottle. He finished it off and dropped the empty bottle into the waste can.
When he left the bathroom, he swayed dizzily. His chest ached from all the retching. He staggered back to the living room, where Conan was running in circles at the front door.
“You need to go out, kiddo?” Reznick said hoarsely. He opened the screen door and let Conan out.
Reznick went down the steps barefoot, walked out from under the awning and carport, and looked up at the trees overhead. Even at that hour, the night was still warm – the pavement was toasty beneath his bare feet.
He had a little over two hours before his battle would end. At two o’clock, the bars would close and the stores would stop selling liquor, and he’d have nowhere to go to get it. If he could hang on that long. When he wasn’t smelling Victoria’s perfume, he was hearing ice jingle in a glass. All in his head, of course.
As he stood on the edge of the park’s road outside his trailer, a car pulled into the entrance and came his way. All he could see at first were the headlights. Then, as it passed, he got a look at it. A black car, maybe a Crown Victoria, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell how many people were in it. It went around the loop behind the Snodgrass house and stopped at unit seventeen across the road. The engine was killed and the lights went out. Whoever was inside the car just sat there and did nothing.
Conan came over and licked Reznick’s foot, startling him. He picked the little dog up and went back inside.
* * * *
By midnight, Andy had not returned to unit seventeen.
Sherry paced the living room, but did not get too close to the body under the blanket on the floor. “I don’t understand why he’s not back,” she said. “And I don’t understand why his phone isn’t on. Andy always has his phone on, it’s how he works, it’s his life.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have it with him,” Philpott said. He was slumped at one end of the couch.
“Are you kidding? He practically sleeps with that phone. Seriously, he sleeps with it on his night stand, right by his head.”
“You seem pretty uptight. You wanna feel better?” He took her kit from the end table.
“I don’t know. I was thinking maybe I should stay straight, y’know? Until Andy gets back?”
“Nah, you don’t wanna stay straight.”
She laughed. “Okay.” Laughed again. “Boy, I guess I caved on that pretty easily, huh?”
Philpott went to work.
Lissa was gone. She’d called a friend and asked him to come pick her up. To make it easier for him to find her, she’d gone down to the entrance and stood waiting for him there. She’d been gone for about half an hour.
Philpott hurt her with the needle and she winced.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said.
When he was done, he set the kit aside. Sherry started to slump back on the couch, but he stopped her and slid behind her, then let her lean back on him. Philpott put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them.
“You look like you could use a back rub,” he said.
“Mmm, that feels good. Do that a little harder.” Her speech slurred a little, her eyes closed.
He did, and she seemed to melt against him.
“You like that?” he said.
“Oh, yeah.”
He continued to rub her shoulders.
After awhile, she said, “What time is it?”
“Uh, lessee, it’s about twenty after twelve.”
She clicked her tongue and whispered, “I can’t believe he hasn’t at least called by now. He knows I’ll worry. What if something’s wrong? He said he probably wouldn’t be gone long, and he usually does what he says he’ll do, you know? If he says he’s gonna be somewhere at a certain time, he’s there at that time, y’know? He’s very, uh… what’s the word?”
“Punctual?”
“Yeah, that’s it, he’s that, and he expects everyone else to be, too. That’s why I keep worrying that something’s gone wrong because he’d either come back soon, like he said, or he’d call and let me know he’d be late. He always does that because he knows how I worry.”
Philpott stroked her upper arms, massaged them.
“I don’t even know who to call,” she said. “I don’t have David’s number. He was supposed to meet with David and score some pot tonight. Bu
t he said he’d be back soon. He said so.”
Sherry realized that Philpott’s mouth was on her neck and his hands were on her breasts, squeezing them, and she pulled away and stood, facing him as she said, “Philpott! What’re you doing?”
He sat there with his hands held out in space where her breasts had been for a moment, then his arms collapsed at his sides. “Oh, I, um… I… I’m sorry,” he said. His face turned bright red.
“You’re blushing, Philpott,” she said with a smirk.
He tried to smile, but his lips trembled. He bowed his head instead.
She sat down on the couch beside him, turned so she could see his face. “Look, I’m tempted to take you up on it, you wanna know the truth,” Sherry said. “Andy deserves to come home and find me fucking someone. For making me sit up and worry like this, he’s got it coming.”
Philpott lifted his head slowly and said, “Really?”
“But think of what it would do to your friendship with Andy. You guys’ve known each other all your life. You wanna bust up a friendship like that over me? Trust me, Philpott, I’m not that great in bed. For one thing, I don’t give head. I just refuse. I mean, most men won’t go down on women, and I find giving head to be a… well, an unfair thing for that reason. So I won’t do it. You’d be very disappointed in me, Philpott. But thanks for the interest. It makes me feel good.”
In one surprisingly quick and smooth movement, Philpott put his arm across her shoulders, pulled her to him, and kissed her hard.
Sherry started to push him away, but stopped. It was such a sincere and passionate kiss that she didn’t want to interrupt it. It was a very nice kiss, in fact, and after several seconds had passed, she lifted her hand and put it to the side of his face, stroked his cheek with her thumb.
The kiss softened and he put a hand on her neck, stroked her earlobe with his thumb.
When they finally pulled apart, it was Sherry’s turn to bow her head. She stayed that way a moment, then looked at him and smiled. “You’re a great kisser, you know that?”