How could he possibly think this is OK? Even without everything else that’s going on, he knows more than anyone that I’m an immensely private person who would find this excruciating.
I suddenly feel so desperately alone and vulnerable, magnified by the knowledge that the one person who could make me feel secure again has just invaded my privacy in the most unimaginable way.
“The video you left running on my laptop,” I say, impatiently.
“What are you even talking about?” he asks, sounding exasperated. “I don’t know anything about a video.”
“You have to!” I shriek, struggling to hold it together. “How else would it have ended up on my laptop? How else would it have been filmed?”
“You’re not making any sense,” he says.
“There is a video on my laptop—of you and me—having sex,” I say in clipped syllables.
“Of you and me?” he repeats.
“Yes!” I snap.
There’s a long silence. “And it’s definitely us?”
His doubt is so convincing that I feel forced to open my laptop and have another look.
The video has freeze-framed with my face contorting in ecstasy while Leon’s head is buried between my breasts, both of us naked. I can’t bear to press play.
“Oh God, it’s so awful,” I cry, dropping my head into my hands.
“Is it us?” asks Leon, still keeping up the pretense that he knows nothing about it.
“Yes,” I choke.
“Well, where? When?”
“How often are you in the habit of videoing us making love without my consent?”
“Never,” he says. “I would never do that to you.”
I press play, shutting my ears off to the animalistic noises we’re both making.
“Oh my god, we’re in my office,” I say, turning the sound to mute. “It was the other night, when you—”
“Jesus,” he exclaims. “Has someone spied on us?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Has it been sent to you?” he asks, his voice thick with trepidation.
Hot bile shoots up into my chest as the possibility, and what it means, worms its way into my psyche.
“As in blackmail?” I say out loud.
“Well, I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t see any other reason for doing it otherwise.”
“But how would somebody have got this in the first place?” I ask. “And why would they try to use it against me?”
“I don’t know,” he says wearily. “Perhaps it’s the same person you meant to send the text to.”
“Text? What text?”
He sighs, breathing heavily down the phone. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think it’s best if we take some time out.”
“What?” I say, almost laughing. “You want us to take a break?”
“I don’t know what I want, but I can’t be with you while all this is going on.”
“So just when I need you most, you do a midnight flit?” I say, unable to believe what I’m hearing.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s me you’re in need of.”
“OK, this is crazy,” I shriek. “You’re being completely insane.”
“Naomi, you sent me the text,” he says. “Instead of him.”
“What fucking text?” I yell, losing my patience with this ridiculous conversation.
“Hang on,” he says. The fan noise that made him sound as if he was in a wind tunnel suddenly disappears.
His voice comes back on the line.
“‘Hi, it’s me,’” he says. “‘I haven’t told Leon yet, but I will, I promise. Just give me a couple more days and we’ll be together. Love you more than you’ll ever know. N.’” He adds, “‘Kiss kiss,’” with such vitriol that I can’t possibly relate him to being the man I’ve loved for seventeen years.
I try to speak but my tongue feels too big for my mouth.
“So, that’s it?” he barks. “You’ve got nothing to say.”
“Do you honestly believe that I wrote that text?” I croak.
“Well, it all seems to add up, doesn’t it? You’re just biding your time, playing some kind of weird game with me, waiting for the right moment when you can be together.”
“I can’t believe you’d even think I was capable of that,” I gasp. “What the hell has happened to us?”
“I think we need some space,” he says, dismissing me.
The line goes dead and I’m left looking at my phone in disbelief. I’d gone to bed last night daring to believe that when we woke up, we’d work together to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on. Now, I’m alone. And I can’t even be sure whether or not, despite his protestations, Leon is somehow involved.
I go to my emails to see if the video has been sent as an unwelcome attachment. There’s nothing showing in my inbox and I’m consumed with relief as I check my sent items, pathetically grateful that it hasn’t been sent to everyone in my contacts. Though the very next second, I’m faced with the unnerving reality that whoever’s behind this has been in my home and downloaded it onto my laptop.
I think back to when Leon had interrupted me in the office, which he rarely ever does, and seduced me into making love. He didn’t have to work too hard to persuade me, but I can’t remember the last time we’d had sex outside the bedroom.
I’m sure I’d asked him to turn the lights off and he made the lewd comment that if someone wanted a ringside seat, then let them have one.
A gut-wrenching nausea coils around my insides as his methods of manipulation play out in my head.
But how had he filmed it? I surely would have noticed if he’d been holding his phone.
I force myself to press play again and watch through my fingers as Leon drives himself into me, with his hands on either side of my hips. His fingers dig deep into my flesh as he quickens his pace, and as much as I almost want to spot his phone, because it’s suddenly the better option, it’s nowhere to be seen.
The thought that he had someone else watching us and filming it for him not only horrifies me but fills my head with so many questions that I don’t even know where to begin.
I’m about to turn the tap on, to pour myself a glass of water, when I hear the unmistakable creak of the third step on the stairs again. The video had distracted me so much I’d almost forgotten what had awoken me in the first place. My muscles tense, my body too frightened to move from where it’s pinned against the sink. I swallow the metallic tang in my mouth.
“Hello?” I say, into the eerie silence that used to be my safe place. Not anymore.
I back myself slowly toward the French doors, checking, with my hands behind me, that they’re locked. I can’t turn my back on the room, as I feel sure that the danger is inside the house.
“Is anybody here?” I ask, hoping to God I don’t get an answer.
I inch over to the knife block on the island and grab the largest handle. My hand is shaking as I hold it out in front of me, my eyes darting into every dark corner, my heart jumping as the shadows play tricks on me.
My feet feel as if they’re encased in concrete with every step I try to make as my body fights against what my brain is telling it to do. I can’t help but be reminded of all the horror movies I’ve watched where I’ve shouted at the screen, “Don’t go upstairs,” to which Leon always responds, “But the director’s told her to.” We’d laugh and I’d appreciate the released tension, but there’s no one here to shout “cut” now, is there?
With my back to the wall, I rise up the treads of the staircase, taking care to avoid the third from the bottom. As I reach the top, a door creaks and I almost fall back down. Clinging on to the banister, I swallow the ball of fear lodged in my throat.
I look at the bathroom door at the end of the corridor off the mezzanine, fully expecting it to suddenly swing open. I almost wish it would—to put me out of my misery.
There’s a draft as I edge closer toward it, a cold stream of air that chills the intense heat raging through my body. Holding the knife out at arm’s length, I kick the door open with my foot and make a noise that doesn’t sound like it’s come from me.