He nodded and looked back down at the envelope.
Then he moved to open it and I tensed, whispering, “Honey,” not wanting it to be an envelope bomb or something because I didn’t want our house to explode. I loved our house, of course, but mostly I didn’t want Ty and me to explode with it.
He ignored me, pushed the clasps back, flipped open the lip, turned it over and a CD in a transparent, green plastic case slid into his hand.
I got off the couch and moved to him as he turned the envelope to look inside and I made it to him as he leaned forward and dropped the envelope on the coffee table and was looking at the case back to front.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Ty answered.
“No note?” I went on, looking down at the case which was a CD, no writing, nothing.
“No note, nothin’ on the envelope,” he replied.
Then without another word, he moved to the stairs. I hustled after him. His legs were longer than mine and he was already in the office, reaching to the computer to turn it on when I got there.
My computer was an all in one unit, just a big, long monitor, a wireless keyboard and mouse. Shiny black. It was awesome. I bought it because it looked good not because I knew anything about computers. Still, the dude at the store said it was a really good one and I’d noticed it was super fast, at least compared to my old one.
Ty dropped the CD on the desk and felt around the sides of the computer. After about a second, the CD drive slid open at the side.
I kept quiet and reminded myself to breathe as the computer booted up, Ty loaded up the CD, shoved in the drawer and sat down in the swivel chair, rolling it to the desk, his big hand covering the mouse.
I leaned into the side of the chair as the computer read the disc then opened up a window listing things Ty could chose from for what he wanted to do with the disc.
He picked, double-clicked, the screen went entirely black and I held my breath, hoping that it wasn’t some virus that would explode my computer because I liked my computer and my man that day asked me to slow down spending, he did it in a way that was super nice and we didn’t need to drop a whack on a new computer when mine was only five months old.
Then a small, square screen popped up, my breath came back, I blinked as what I saw and heard hit my brain, Ty’s hand moved the mouse, he maximized the image and it filled the big monitor.
Then I stared.
“Holy fuck,” Ty whispered.
Holy fuck was right. And also a big, fat euw.
This was because we were watching what appeared to be a homemade porn video and it was not a good one. Not that much porn was high-budget, high-quality just that this was bad.
And it was bad for more reasons than the director clearly had no vision.
Two women working an old guy. He was tall and lean but he was old. And he was into some seriously sick shit.
Seriously sick.
I’d never seen anything like it, I didn’t know anyone was into that kind of thing, I didn’t actually even know that kind of thing existed and, watching it, I wished I still didn’t know.
I was staring in fascinated horror, wanting to pull my eyes away but for some reason not able to. I wondered why some anonymous man had dropped this at our backdoor. I wondered how anyone could get off on that crap.
And as I was wondering and struggling with the nauseous roil in my stomach, I heard Ty whisper, “The blonde.”
I had been concentrating on the activities, not the participants so I focused on one of the two females, the blonde not the brunette.
Then I froze.
It was Misty Keaton.
“Ohmigod,” I breathed.
I felt Ty’s eyes on me but mine didn’t move from Misty. Thinner, younger, I couldn’t guesstimate by how much but half a decade, at least.
“You ever see that man?” he asked.
My eyes moved to the guy even though I didn’t want them to considering what the women were doing to him and I shook my head.
“The other woman?” Ty went on.
I looked to her and shook my head again.
“Look, Lex, at the salon? Grocery store? Anywhere?”
I kept looking and, for my man, I did it hard though it cost me. Then I shook my head.
I felt Ty’s eyes move away from me then I forced mine to his hand which was again moving on the mouse. He hovered the cursor at the bottom the screen so the controls on the video came up and I saw the video lasted over thirty-five minutes.
Gross. I couldn’t imagine sustaining that activity for one minute without hurling much less over half an hour.
Ty clicked on the control and the action stopped when he slid it across to take it to the end. The screen went blank. He slid it back half a centimeter and we were treated to an empty bed, covers mussed, no one in the room.
Then I sucked in breath when the camera caught Arnie Fuller, full face and close up, his attention focused on something then the screen went blank.
He’d made the tape.
And it was highly likely one, a couple or all the participants didn’t know he’d done it when he’d done it.