by Candy Quinn
The way out was even easier than the way in. Back up the chute, out into the now-empty bathroom, out the window, and across the yard I went, and except for the serving woman who’d been so desperate to have me come on her, nobody even knew I had been anywhere near the house. A short walk later, I was back on my motorcycle and headed home.
Back home, I was relieved to find that my equipment worked just fine. I had just sat down with a beer at my computer, and after a couple of minutes setting up the connection, live feed of Mackenzie’s room was up on display on my screen. I smiled to myself and leaned back. Everything had gone as planned, and now I just had to wait until she got back. As I took a swig of my beer, my phone buzzed.
“Hey, c u 2nite at the usual club? missed u yesterday, had to take care of myself ;)”
I frowned a little and glanced back up at the screen. Normally, I’d be getting ready to head out already, and might even have a couple girls over already for a few shots. But right now, if there was one thing I knew, it was that Mackenzie had to be my first priority. No fooling around until she was absolutely safe. Until then, I had to watch her every move. I left the text unanswered and turned my attention back to the screen. The only girl I wanted to see tonight was Mackenzie.
MacKenzie
My phone lit up and vibrated several times in a row, and I scrambled to reach it before it could fall of the edge of my bed, already knowing who it was. Sure enough, when I slid the phone open, there was a barrage of text messages from Jessica. Just as I moved my thumb to hit “reply,” another message illuminated the screen.
“girrrllllll. i’m outside. this place is a fucking castle!!!”
I wracked my brain for the gate password, then suddenly recalled the ten-digit sequence and dialed the front gate access line to type it in. Amid follow-up texts from Jessica, I managed to get the number in and received the notification which said in bold letters “UNLOCKED.” About five minutes later, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I hopped up to answer it and Jessica burst into the room wearing a maroon halter top and a tight black skirt that barely reached mid-thigh. She strutted past me to lean against the wall with her arms crossed. Gazing around the room wide-eyed, she nodded approvingly and said, “Kenz, this is fucking sweet.”
I giggled and sat down on the bed, pulling my legs up and wrapping my arms around them. “Yeah, it’s alright,” I said coolly, resting my chin on my knees.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh please. I’m so jealous! This is amazing! You’ve gotta be a little excited to live somewhere like this. What’s the square footage?”
“No idea. Maybe 11,000?”
Jessica gaped at me and shook her head. “Holy shit, girl. Julie did real good.”
Deciding just to let that one slide, I changed the subject. “So what are you doing tonight? I know you’re not staying in with a movie and a blanket dressed like that.”
“Oh, this?” she asked with a little smirk. “I’ve got plans.” She twirled her hair around her pinkie finger, coyly avoiding my eyes. She did this all the time: play the coquette. I wondered how much of it was real; how much of Jessica’s personality was real.
When we were younger, I had always thought she was genuine—a real, live movie character. She was every teen girl stereotype, one after another. In high school, she played each role separately. Freshman year, she was a mousy band geek with thick glasses and thick, frizzy hair, and she had her first kiss with the first chair of the trombone section. As a sophomore, she took up art and photography, trading in her ugly old spectacles and band uniform for stylish thick-rimmed glasses and a sleek new hairstyle. Junior year, she dyed her hair blonde and spontaneously joined the cheerleading team. After a meteoric rise to the head of the squad, she made out with her co-captain’s ex-boyfriend under the bleachers after the homecoming game and quit the team in a blaze of bad-girl glory. This image was only further cultivated and intensified over the summer, so that when senior year rolled back into session in September, Jessica waltzed into school in studded black leather, heavy eyeliner, and dark red lipstick. She was suspended during the first very month of school for smoking in the boys’ restroom.
I hadn’t even known her to pick up a cigarette before then. And throughout all those years, I hardly changed. Too afraid to dye my hair, to change my clothes, to color outside the lines my whole life, I was relatively content to play sidekick to Jessica. It was safer to just watch from the sidelines, to live vicariously through her crazy exploits. It was a symbiotic relationship: I got to stand on the edge of something exciting without any real risk, and Jessica got a built-in second-fiddle, the character who made her look better, cooler by comparison.
“What kind of plans?” I asked, leaning back on my bed and affixing an interested look on my face for her benefit. I already knew it was probably just some guy, but maybe it came with a good story or two.
“Just going to meet this guy I’ve been seeing,” was the sly response.
I cocked my head to the side and pursed my lips. “What guy?”
“You’re gonna freak out if I tell you who it is,” she confessed.
There it was. The typical Jessica response. The bait-and-drop. The I’ve got a secret, but oh! I just can’t tell you. I knew it all too well. I also knew that with a little push, she would easily spill. She always did.
“Oh my god, Jess. You can’t do that! Just tell me!” I exclaimed, just as I had done a gazillion times before. She slowly met my gaze and shrugged, a smile creeping to her lips.
“I, uh, started hanging out with this dude. It’s not exactly illegal, what we’re doing. But it’s… um… frowned upon.”
Immediately I went into a minor panic. It was silly to worry about her, honestly, because these things she did never morphed into anything very dangerous. She liked a good thrill, but not even Jessica was dumb enough to take the kind of risks you don’t recover from. Still, I couldn’t help but be concerned sometimes. After all, she was my best friend—my only friend.
“Hey, don’t scare me. What’s going on? Who is it?” I asked. Before I could force myself to chill out, I added, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
She gave me a sympathetic cluck of her tongue and sat next to me on the bed. “No, Mackenzie. It’s nothing that bad. Just something we have to keep on the down-low, ‘kay?”
I heaved a sigh and leaned into her shoulder. “Tell me.”
“You know how I signed up for that dumb biochemistry course for the summer session?” she began.
I nodded, already fearing where she was going with this one.
“Well,” she said softly, “I haven’t been doing so hot. Turns out science isn’t my jam.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Jess? I mean, I’m no chemist either but I could have helped you make flash cards or something,” I told her, and I meant it.
“Nah, it’s fine. I figured out my own way to get by.”
“Are you cheating?” I asked, feeling a little queasy. I was reminded of a secret I’d been harboring for quite awhile.
“Ha!” she scoffed. “No. But he sure is.”
I felt the blood drain from my face and I blinked dubiously at Jessica. “What? You’re not telling me that you’re… you’re…”
“Fucking my professor?” she finished. “Oh yeah. It’s happening.”
“Jessica!” I gasped, pushing back from her in shock. “That’s crazy!”
“Oh, come on. It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever done. Is it?” she asked, and for a split second there seemed to be genuine concern in her voice. But she quickly reassumed her usual cool demeanor and shrugged. “Whatever. If I don’t make an A, my dad will stop paying my bills, and I am definitely not gonna let that happen.”
“What if someone finds out? Won’t you be expelled? He’d get fired!” I spluttered.
“Shhh!” she hissed, glancing around nervously. “Nobody is going to find out.”
I forced myself to calm down a little bit before asking tentatively, “Well, is he at l
east good-looking? He’s not super old, is he?”
“Oh god, no. I mean, my grades are super important, obviously, but even that wouldn’t convince me to sleep with some gross old man, Kenzie. He’s, like, thirty-six? I think? Dark hair, tattoos on his back. Big dick!” she added with a giggle.
“Just be careful, Jess,” I said emphatically. “Seriously.”
“Ugh, I will be. It’s fine. It’s more fun than cheating on the tests, that’s for sure.”
I gulped. There it was. After a few moments of heavy silence, Jessica peered over at me with a frown. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. Wrong move, I realized too late.
Jessica crossed her legs and moved closer. “No it’s not. You got all quiet. Are you mad?”
“No, no,” I insisted.
She lifted one eyebrow and gave me her sternest, most disapproving look. “Mackenzie Renee Mason. You’re doing that thing you do when you have something you’re not sharing with the class. You’re shaking your leg. I can tell you’re holding something back.”
I noticed that she was right: my left leg was jiggling nervously. Finally, after what seemed like forever with her eyes boring holes in the side of my head, I caved. “Okay, okay, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
She looked positively gleeful. “Well, well, well! Are you fucking a teacher, too?”
“No,” I groaned.
“You stole money from your mom.”
“No!” I spat, offended at the accusation. Jessica laughed, and I instantly felt stupid. Of course it was just a joke. We both knew I would never do anything like that.
“Come on. If I could tell you I’m banging Professor Leeds, I know you can tell me what your big secret is. We’re best friends, remember?” Jessica nudged me on the shoulder.
I nodded. Staring down at the carpet, I mumbled, “I cheated on a test. A big test.”
“So what?” she said. “I literally cheated on every single history quiz senior year.”
“I cheated on the SAT,” I admitted, as quietly as possible. She was quiet for a whole minute, just staring at me open-mouthed.
“Holy shit, Kenz,” she uttered, truly surprised. I felt my heart plummet. Then, without warning, she hugged me tightly. “Oh, honey. That’s not so bad. I mean, it happens all the time. And I know you’re smart enough to make a good score anyway—you just get nervous taking tests like that, right?”
Taken aback by her compassion, I said, “Yeah. I studied my butt off, but the night before the exam I just got so freaked out I couldn’t sleep. So when I got to the facility I was so scared that this guy—I don’t know his name—approached me and offered me the answers. He was really shady and weird, but I was desperate. I paid him all that I had in my wallet, and he gave me a list of answers. Obviously I couldn’t memorize them all, but I remembered enough.”
Jessica was shaking her head with a grin on her face. “I know this has been eating at you, but I have to admit, I’m actually kind of proud. Still, that ain’t got nothing on my secret.”
For some reason, this didn’t reassure me the way it usually did. It hit me then, just how pathetic I was. How boring. I had cried and cried over something so dull, while Jessica was out doing her edgy thing, living an interesting life. Suddenly, I felt compelled to do something crazy for once in my life. I wanted something to show for my eighteen years, something cool, something dark, something real.
It came to me, and I couldn’t stop myself from what I was about to say.
“And there’s something else, too,” I said. “I had a sex dream about my future stepbrother. I have a crush on Cole van der Hausen.”
Jessica jumped to her feet. “What the fuck?”
Afraid that maybe I’d gone too far, I started backpedaling. “I haven’t, like, done anything about it, obviously! It’s just a little passing crush, okay?”
“This is fucking fantastic,” she gasped, giddy with excitement. “You little slut!”
“Keep your voice down!” I warned.
“I so called it. I knew this was gonna happen!”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough. No one can ever find out. Seriously, I can’t ruin my mom’s marriage with something dumb like this.”
“Alright, girl. I’ll keep it to myself. But the second you and that fine piece of ass even do so much as hug, you better call me! This is so bad. I love it!” she exclaimed. Just then, her phone let out a discreet little ding. A sneaky smile spread across her face as she read the text message. “It’s my private tutor,” she said. “He, uh, wants to teach me something.”
I groaned. “Gross, Jessica. Go ahead!”
Hoisting her purse on her shoulder and readjusting her shirt so that her ample cleavage was optimally displayed, she blew me a kiss on the way out. As she lingered for a moment in the doorway, she whispered wickedly, “Good luck trying not to fuck your new brother.”
“Oh my god. Get out!” I said urgently. I could hear her laughing as her heels clacked down the hall.
Heaving a deep sigh, I locked my door and stripped out of my clothes to stand in front o my full-length mirror totally naked. I rarely did this, as the sight of my own body tended to make me a little uncomfortable. But this time I stood there for a full few minutes, just taking in the rounded curves of my breasts, the slope of my neck, the tautness of my ass. Still, I thought as I grabbed a towel to go take a shower, I would definitely never be good enough to be noticed by someone like Cole van der Hausen. And even if I was, it would be unthinkable for us to do anything about it. Wouldn’t it?
Cole
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. My fourth beer almost fell from my hand as I slumped back in my chair in disbelief at the information I’d just been given on the first night of having the camera feed set up. She cheated on her SAT. I was surprised to find my first thoughts being How could she? Rather than Jackpot! How could someone so sweet and hardworking as Mackenzie have cheated to get where she wanted to go? It must have been nervousness, I told myself. She could have aced the test on her own, but the pressure must have built up on her too much.
The how and why didn’t matter, though. I had what I needed: hard information that could get her in seriously hot water. Now was the best chance I’d ever get to do what I had to do. I was going to blackmail my step-sister out of the house. It was the only way to keep her safe, truly safe, I told myself.
Throughout the whole conversation, though, I found myself liking her all the more. Mackenzie was a sweet girl, and all she wanted was to have the good life she deserved, just like Chelsea would have wanted. Even though it was just idle banter, I started to notice her mannerisms, and I could tell she wasn’t really a bad-hearted kind of person. Truth be told, Jessica was probably a bad influence on her. If I ever needed some kind of dirt on that one, I had all I’d ever need and more. Mackenzie wasn’t like that at all, though, and I needed to make sure that she stayed that way.
I snapped out of my planning to look back at the screen. I watched Mackenzie getting ready for bed, and when I realized she was changing, I turned my head and finished off my fourth beer. No matter how much I wanted to protect her, I wasn’t going to watch my future step-sister strip. After a few minutes, ignoring the couple more texts I’d gotten from some of the girls down at the club, I looked back and saw that she was in her pajamas and slipping into bed. It was getting pretty late, after all, so I stood up from the leather couch and went to throw away the beer bottles.
I changed into my own sleep clothes while I was up, and I realized I’d forgotten to shut off the laptop feed for the night. As I did, though, I noticed a strange sound coming from the monitor. Raising an eyebrow, I tapped the side of the monitor and checked the sound to make sure that I wasn’t getting some kind of feedback. Then I noticed the movement in Mackenzie’s bed.
I squinted my eyes and leaned in, and I realized that she hadn’t even gotten under the covers. She was lying on the top of the sheets, and she had a weird look on her face that I coul
dn’t read from here. But her arms were moving, and…
Then it dawned on me, and I put a hand over my mouth and leaned forward. That sound was the buzz of her toy I’d heard earlier today. Mackenzie was masturbating with her vibrator. My face flushed, and suddenly I felt like I was trespassing. I’d just listened to her conversation and sure, that was necessary, but now I was watching something private. I reached to turn the monitor off, but then I noticed how she arched her back as she got into a more comfortable position to pleasure herself. Her motions were quick and nimble, her small body manipulating the little toy with practiced skill. I didn’t tear my eyes away as I noticed her pulling her pajama pants down and off, and the next thing I knew, I was watching my future step-sister masturbate with a full view of her smooth, small pu—
No, this was so wrong! I heard the sound of a sigh, so full of simple, relaxed pleasure as her hands worked the light purple toy in her cunt in the same place where my sister might be doing the same thing at this age. The thought made my face go hot, and I gripped my chin and leaned in as I watched her go on.
Her small frame twisted and turned as she worked the toy, and I could see a faint smile on her mouth. She bit her lip periodically, and through all the pleasure in her expression, I zoomed in to see the occasional crease in her brow as she went on, as though she felt ashamed of what she was doing. I suddenly felt the need to reach out to her, to brush that stray lock out of her face and assure her that she didn’t have to be afraid of her sexuality, that it was okay. Then I realized her shirt was close to slipping off as her small hand reached up to stroke her nipple. It was supple and pink, and she moved her fingers around in small circles, turning her head upward against the soft pillow her golden locks rested on. I could almost see the pleasure ripple up her body as soft moans escaped her. I wanted to quiet her, to tell her that someone might hear if she wasn’t careful.
