by Rainey Daye
But as he looked at Troy sitting across from him, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Not to mention a type of kinship. Troy was trying to protect his ex, Alex’s present, even if it was in a very fucked-up way. He wasn’t currently trying to win her back. He wasn’t spying on the three of them in the way that they feared. Rather he was watching from a distance, trying to identify whoever might try to hurt Maggie with these pictures. He still loved her enough to do that.
“Tell you what,” Alex finally said. “Let me think about how to help you. Let me sleep on it for awhile. Is the disk also in the envelope? Good. I’ll take those with me and have a long talk with Maggie. We’ll get to the bottom of this so you won’t have to worry about it again.”
“Promise?” Troy asked, sounding very tired all of a sudden.
“I promise. Here, let me get the mattress back on the bed for you. That’s better. Oh, and Troy?” he added as Troy collapsed fully clothed on the bed. “Don’t do drugs again, okay?”
“Okay,” Troy mumbled as he burrowed into the pillow. “Night, Alex.”
“Good night, Troy,” Alex said as he picked up the envelope from the table, squeezing and bending it in his fingers to confirm a disk was inside and then flipping off the light switch before letting himself out.
His spy ambled over as Alex closed the door. “Ever’thing okay, man?”
“Yeah. It’s cool. But do me a favor?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t sell him anymore drugs, okay?”
“Sure, sure, whatever, dude. It’s cool. Won’t even offer him a toke, neither.”
“That’s good.”
“You still want me to call you with updates?”
Alex thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I think that’s best. Keep me updated.” And he passed over yet another twenty.
* * * *
When Alex got home, he was unsurprised that his late night, early morning arrival went unnoticed. He thankfully entered the study and took a seat at Aunt Ida’s ornate oak desk. He stared at the envelope in his hands, knowing that he had to look but unwilling to do so. After all, these were the photos that had sent the seemingly sane Troy over the edge. And the one picture he had seen was enough to make him want to spit nails.
He pondered how these photographs had gotten on Lois Conner’s home computer, of all places. Did it mean that Maggie was aware of them and for some unknown reason downloaded them on her mom’s computer? Why the hell would she do something so stupid? It didn’t make any sense, but Troy had been very clear with his story when he related that Lois’s computer had seized up and in cleaning up the files, Troy had stumbled across this one. And he said that the dirty photos were mixed in with a whole shitload of other pictures.
Deciding to put off the distasteful task of looking at the naked pictures of his lover, Alex upended the envelope so that the disk slid out. He booted up their home computer and then inserted the disk, deciding to view the pictures as Troy had originally seen them, maybe garnering some clues as to when or where they were taken.
Alex took his time, telling himself that he was being meticulous in his investigation, yet knowing deep down that he was trying to stave off the inevitable reveal. The more pictures he clicked through, the more he frowned. He recognized some of them, of course. Maggie had shared many of the pictures she had taken with both of them. He even recognized date pictures and breathed a silent prayer of thanks that all of those pictures were innocuous. Okay, he took that back. A stranger looking at the pictures would accurately label them date photos, but someone buying into the lie that Alex, Jess, and Maggie were platonic roommates would view these pictures as purely innocent in nature.
He kept clicking, trying to reconcile that the pictures were out of order in this file while trying to determine a pattern that might help him figure out when the damning photos were taken. And then, just like Troy probably had back in August, he froze as a picture of a partially clad Maggie appeared on the screen.
He tried to study it dispassionately. He acknowledged that it was either the same picture that Troy had shown him back in his room, or was taken at the same moment in time. His finger froze on the mouse as he debated if he wanted to click on the arrow and display the next picture. Finally, he took a deep breath and did just that.
Alex let out a sigh of relief as a very similar picture appeared on the screen. Sexy but not blatant. He could handle it. And even appreciate it if he didn’t know who the subject was.
He clicked again and frowned as Maggie’s breast was entirely revealed in the next photo. He clicked again and her other breast was revealed in the next one, and Alex leaned forward, frowning. He centered the mouse over her nipple and areola and zoomed in. Christ! They were puckered and hard and glistening! The bastard had snapped the picture after he had suckled her!
Alex sat back in the chair, his hands clenched into fists. This was no photo shoot. This was a sexual encounter with a camera. He sincerely doubted that Maggie had agreed to a photo shoot that involved ice cubes applied to her nipples. And he knew that look on her face far too well to think otherwise. She was aroused. She was a willing participant in this seduction.
Alex frowned. Maggie had never mentioned dating anyone after she and Troy broke up. He concentrated on the timeline as he knew it. Freshman and sophomore year, Maggie was dating Troy long-distance. The summer after their sophomore year they decided to break up and did so amicably. Junior year Maggie lived in the dorm with the roommate from hell until he and Jess rescued her, and she moved in with them as soon as she returned from spending winter break back home. In the almost six months it took them to get Maggie into their bed, she hadn’t dated anyone.
So when the fuck were these pictures taken? She was with Troy for their senior year of high school. If these photos were taken by a previous boyfriend, then that would make them over five years old. He shook his head as he zoomed in on her face. Maggie looked the same in the picture as she did now. So the pictures couldn’t be that old. He slapped himself alongside the head as he suddenly remembered that Maggie’s camera had been a present from her parents when she left for college. And the other pictures he had seen so far were taken with that camera. So these were taken with it, too. It narrowed the time frame considerably.
So, had Maggie cheated on Troy? Maggie wasn’t a cheater. So the pictures had to have been taken sometime in her junior year.
Alex decided he needed to narrow down the time frame. They were outdoor shots. So obviously winter was out. But it was still warm enough around here in the early fall for these photos to have been taken then. Maybe…With that thought in mind, Alex clicked through the rest of the photos, hoping that some of the pictures would show more of her surroundings. One leaf, that’s all he was asking for. Just one leaf to see if they were turning color yet.
But as he clicked, he found it impossible to pay attention to any of the background and instead found himself focusing on Maggie instead. God, but she was beautiful. She was an odd mixture of innocent girl next door and sexy siren. He hated himself for developing a raging hard-on as he clicked through the photos. More than once he found his left hand dropping down and rubbing himself through the rough material of his jeans as he studied the photos.
Troy had mentioned how the idea of someone masturbating to these pictures made him feel homicidal, and Alex found himself empathizing with the man. And still he couldn’t help himself. And he suddenly knew that Troy hadn’t been able to help himself either. Feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite, Alex undid his pants and stuck his hand down his shorts. He leaned back in the desk chair and sighed as his fingers encircled his engorged cock. He stared unblinkingly at the current photo on the screen in front of him and began to move his hand rhythmically along his shaft. When the screen saver came on due to no window activity, Alex nudged the mouse with his free hand, bringing a wonderfully Technicolor Maggie back up on the screen.
Alex sighed and increased both the pressure and the speed of his strokes. Within
minutes he was grunting from his muffled orgasm, irrationally so afraid that he would come so hard that he would wake up the two people sleeping upstairs, that he had covered his mouth with his free hand. He slumped back in his chair, gasping for breath, hating himself for what he had just done.
Finally, disgusted, Alex reached across the desk and grabbed the box of tissues so he could wipe himself off. He tossed the used tissues and zipped himself up before reaching for the mouse to continue with his investigation and then pulled back with a scowl. Grabbing more tissues from the box, he grimly wiped up the remains of his ejaculate, which had apparently arched onto the desktop. He then surveyed the monitor to see if he had hit that, too, and with a grimace grabbed yet another tissue from the box.
Alex berated himself in disgust but grimly right-clicked the mouse to bring up yet more pictures of the woman he loved in flagrante delicto poses. He growled when a man’s hand finally appeared in the shots, apparently adjusting her clothing to reveal more flesh. But he literally saw red when the disembodied hand blatantly rubbed into and around her silky mound. And from the changing positions of her body, it was apparent that Maggie was writhing in orgasm!
A final shot, like that of a smug bastard who had just bested some poor schmuck, showed a thoroughly sated Maggie gazing languidly at the camera man, her arms reaching toward him, and Alex knew what happened next. He closed his eyes, unwilling to have his worst fears realized, and forced himself to right click. He slowly opened them and breathed a sigh of relief. The next picture was of Jess posing with some of her friends while he had been visiting her back in July. Apparently his torture was over, but just to be sure, Alex pulled the printed photos out of the envelope. He flipped through them and confirmed that he had already seen all the photos in the envelope on the computer monitor.
Alex briefly thought about burning the pictures and erasing the disk. He gave it very serious thought. Maggie would not have to be embarrassed, and Jess wouldn’t be driven further out of his mind with jealousy. Only Alex would suffer from the memories of these last few horrible hours, and it was a price he was more than willing to pay to protect his loved ones. But as he reached for a lighter, he thought about Troy and his wild theories. And unfortunately, Alex agreed that the threat could not simply be forgotten. It existed. And it seemed that only Maggie could help them eradicate it.
Sighing, Alex ejected the disk from the computer and then placed both it and the photos in the top desk drawer. He twisted the key in the lock, dropped it in an empty vase on the mantle for safekeeping, and then tiredly made his way upstairs where he woodenly stripped out of his clothes and crawled into bed with Jess.
Chapter 17
The alarm clock jarred Jesse awake. He rolled over and slapped his hand down on it before rolling onto his back and blinking at the ceiling as consciousness slowly filtered through his sleep fogged brain. He finally sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stretching his arms over his head before standing up. He glanced back at the bed and saw Alex facedown, still deeply asleep. He walked around the bed and gently shook Alex’s shoulder to awaken him, but Alex simply groaned and burrowed deeper into the pillow.
Shrugging, Jess went into the bathroom to relieve his bladder and brush his teeth before he attempted to awaken Alex again. That attempt was rewarded with a growl before Alex pulled Jess’s pillow over his head in a very clear Go Away signal. Figuring that Alex had been out on Troy patrol later than usual and that he’d be more forthcoming with pertinent details after he had some more sleep, Jess left the room and headed downstairs, where the delicious aroma of brewing coffee alerted him that Maggie was already up and moving.
He entered the kitchen wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and saw Maggie rummaging in a cabinet, her sleep shirt just barely covering her lower half. Walking up to her, he dropped a quick kiss on her shoulder, murmuring “good morning,” and then reached past her for a juice glass. He wandered over to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of some tropical blend before continuing on to the kitchen table in its nook. Placing the glass in his usual position on the right, Jess sat down to wait for the coffee to finish brewing. Maggie brought a plate of donuts to the table and sat down in her center position, sipping her own glass of juice, having already filched a donut while she was arranging them on the plate.
Jess was just biting into his first chocolate glazed when Maggie broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking about Christmas,” she began.
“Really?” Jess asked, swallowing his bite. “I haven’t had much chance to think about it.”
“And that’s my point. We made a big to-do about how this was our first Christmas together and how we would be starting our own holiday traditions this year. And then we have our big reveal about Troy two weeks ago, and now that’s all anyone can focus on.”
“Well, it is a big deal,” Jess tried to point out to her.
“I know that. But tell me, Jess. If we hadn’t revealed everything we know to each other, what would we be doing now?”
“Huh?”
“The two of you would be trying to protect me from the knowledge that my ex is probably stalking me by pretending that everything was normal. And that means the house would be decorated by now. Hell. We don’t even have a tree up yet, and it’s already the middle of December.”
Jess frowned as he thought about that. The coffeemaker dinged, so he got up and poured coffee into both of their mugs, carefully carrying the steaming brew back to the table and retaking his seat. “You’re absolutely right. When we get back from classes this afternoon, Alex and I will go downstairs and pull Aunt Ida’s Christmas decorations out of storage. We’ll probably have to wait until this weekend to put up the lights, but we can decorate the rest of the house in the meantime. And we can even stop at a tree lot on our way home tonight.”
“Why would we have to stop at a tree lot?” Maggie asked, confused.
“Uh, to get a Christmas tree?” Jess replied, equally confused.
“You put up live trees?” Maggie asked, sounding horrified.
“You don’t?”
“Good God, no,” Maggie exclaimed.
“Why not?”
“Do you want the practical reason or the environmental reason?” Maggie queried, and Jess sighed.
“Might as well tell me both,” he said.
“Well, when my dad was a kid, they had a live tree and it almost burned down their house due to a faulty string of lights catching it on fire.”
“You do realize that lights are a whole lot safer than they probably were back then?” Jess pointed out.
“Yeah, I do. But if you allow the tree to dry out, any stray spark could ignite the tree. And then whoosh!”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that some people might forget to properly maintain their trees, but…”
“I know, I know,” Maggie interrupted, “You and Alex were Boy Scouts, and you would never forget something like that.”
“I’m glad to see that you still have faith in us,” Jess remarked sardonically, and Maggie rewarded him with a scowl as she savagely bit into another donut. “Okay, hit me with the environmental reasons.”
“Well, frankly, it just doesn’t seem right to chop down a tree, essentially killing it, and then bring it into your house and decorate its corpse while celebrating.”
“Maggie,” Jess began, but Maggie overrode him.
“I know, I know. But that’s what it feels like to me. And you do realize how much we need trees to survive? I’m not just talking about forests to provide shelter and refuge for wild animals, I’m also talking about the fact that trees suck up carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. The more trees there are, the cleaner our air will be. And if people planted trees on hillsides and allowed them to grow big and strong and dig in their roots, then maybe there wouldn’t be as many landslides. Did you ever think about that? Okay, I admit that it would be putting some Christmas-tree farmers out of business, and I also admit that we do need wood, but with the right type of e
nvironmental management, replacing the resources that they remove…”
“Maggie, Christmas-tree farmers do just that,” Jess pointed out.
“Yeah, but can you honestly say that all Christmas trees come from those type of farms? What about those families who decide it’s a great adventure to go out in the wilderness and chop down their own tree? And then you hear on the news how they got stuck in a freak snowstorm and they all died. And all because they wanted to murder a tree and decorate its corpse!”
“Wow!” Jess breathed. “You really are adamant about this, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight I am!”
“What about those people who live in places that don’t have adequate storage for artificial trees?”
“Then they shouldn’t buy a full-sized one. They could still experience the spirit of the holidays with a small tree that’s easy to store. And besides, if they have room to store all their decorations, then they should be able to make room to store a tree!”
“You know that artificial trees can be quite pricey?”
“You look around for the deals. In the long run, a one-time expenditure compared to how much you shill out over your lifetime for live trees makes sound economic sense. We’re talking a couple of hundred dollars for an artificial tree. And since Aunt Ida left behind all kinds of holiday decorations, then you don’t have to buy a pre-decorated tree, which is what really wracks up the price. No, a seven- to nine-foot high, flame-retardant tree is the perfect investment if you like to decorate for the holidays. And besides, you can fluff up the branches to make an artificial tree really beautiful whereas with live trees, you have to trim off some of the branches and you always wind up with a bare spot or two.”
