Chapter 9: The Bargain

Lara slammed her mouse against the table again loudly, her frustration boiling over as she stared at the obscure error message displayed on the screen. It was as if the computer was mocking her.

“What was that?” Alan asked her from down the phone.

Alan was on speaker phone as Lara’s phone sat on the desk in front of her. They were mid conversation from their daily call to each other when she had abused her mouse in anger.

“I’m getting that stupid error message again,” she said to him. “It won’t let me export the file.”

Lara had spent the last day and a half editing the blowjob video she had filmed with Dave. Stitching together footage from different angles. Syncing up the original audio explanation to the video. Adding a little royalty free music to certain parts.

She had also recorded some fresh audio for the part where Dave had thrown her over the side of the bed and fucked her face. That part had been challenging. He had been brutal and tonally, it didn’t really fit with the rest of the video. But she had managed to put together a product she was proud of putting out to the world.

She had mostly avoided angles showing Dave’s face and body. It wasn’t an appealing image. His dick was impressive, though. So she had focused there. And obviously, on herself. And she was nearly done. She was trying to export the finished product from her editing suite into a file format that would play on any device. And her computer was not co-operating.

“Maybe save it, and restart the program again? Might help,” Alan said, his voice coming through clearly from the phone.

“Yeah, I’ll try that one more time,” Lara said, a little exasperated at this point. As irritating as this minor setback was, she had enjoyed the experience. The satisfaction of the project slowly coming together had felt really good. She had told Alan this already.

What she hadn’t told him was how aroused she had gotten from watching herself blow Dave. So much high definition footage, from a multitude of angles. It had made her incredibly horny. She had to admit to herself that this wasn’t some fleeting thing. It was a pattern. Her amateur video with Alan, walking in on Jenny with Dave in his office, and now spending hours watching herself fellate Dave in all manner of ways as her own voice described everything. There was no denying it any more. She liked watching people have sex. She liked it even more when it was her on screen. It was a kink, for sure.

When Alan had called her for their regular chat, she had almost asked him to come over. She needed to be fucked. But she had resisted. He had a big exam later today and it wouldn’t have been fair on him. He would have jumped at the chance, she knew that, but he needed to concentrate on studying. So she had clamped down the urge, her plan being to finish the video and reward her hard work by spending some time with her favourite toy. But inches from the finishing line, her laptop was not behaving itself. She had gone nearly the entire project without a single hitch or technical problem. Until the last few minutes.

“No joy. Same error,” she said, sighing.

“Okay. Just do a full restart. You haven’t tried that yet. Save everything and shut down the laptop completely. Let it sit for a minute and then start it up again,” Alan said, trying to be helpful. His technical knowledge was limited but he figured that the old “turn it off and on again” approach was worth giving a go.

“Yeah, good idea,” she replied. “How is the studying going?” she asked, filling the time as she waited for the laptop to shut down.

“Well, it’s going. How good or bad, I won’t really know until I’m put to the test. It’s a lot harder without Lenny’s help, I’ve got to admit,” he said.

Lara had asked Alan to stop using Lenny’s “help” on his exams. Help being a euphemism for cheating. Lenny had been supplying Will, Rob and Alan with the answer keys for their college course. Lara didn’t like the thought of them using him and making fun of him behind his back. Alan had taken some convincing as he didn’t see the harm in a friend helping another friend out. But she had insisted, reminding him that if he finished college without doing it himself, he was only cheating himself. He had admitted that she had a point.

Lara had followed up the moral argument with a more physical one. She had told him teasingly that she only fucked honest guys. That little titbit had sealed the deal. Alan was now taking the exam under his own steam. Pass or fail, it would be all him.

“You’ll do great,” she said, trying to encourage him. “When you get your results back, let’s go out to celebrate,” she said, her laptop now whirring to life again as it booted back up.

“Yeah. Definitely. I can’t wait to see you. In person, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, talking every day is great but ... um ... what I mean is...” he said, worrying he was about to say the wrong thing.

“Trust me, Alan. I know exactly what you mean. It will be worth the wait. I’ll make sure of it,” she said giggling down the phone at his obvious desire.

God, I wish he was here right now. I’d jump him.

“Sounds great. Where would you like to go? There is a decent restaurant I know halfway between your new apartment and my dorm. I could book something for the two of us?” he said, sounding excited. Lara didn’t answer him.

“OH MY FUCKING GOD!” she shouted in disbelief.

“What? What’s wrong, Lara?” Alan said, concerned something had happened to her.

“It’s gone! Everything is gone! The files. The project file. Even the raw footage. It isn’t here!” she said, panicking as she clicked into random folders hoping it would all reappear.

“Are you sure you are in the correct directory?” Alan said, privately relieved that she was fine and that it was just a technical hiccup.

“Yes, I’m sure!” she replied back irritably. “It was here before and now it’s just ... gone. Fucking hell, Alan. All my work. Fuck, fuck, fuck! What do I do?” she asked him in desperation. The line was quiet for a moment.

“I don’t really know, Lara. I’m more of an email and pornhub type of guy,” he said, wanting to help but not knowing exactly how.

“Alan, you’re course is in engineering for Christ’s sake!” she said, confused on why he wasn’t helping.

“Yeah. Lara I know how to use engineering stuff. AutoCad and the like. You are hardly using that to edit your video,” he said, defensively.

“Right. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry, Alan. I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said.

I shouldn’t be blaming him. It’s not his fault.

“It’s fine. Listen, the rest of your files are there, right? The drive isn’t wiped. So they can’t have just disappeared on their own. They might still be stored somewhere. We just have to find out where,” he said, trying to work through the problem.

“Yeah. Yeah, good thinking.”

“Oh shit,” she heard Alan say down the line. “The time, Lara. I have to go. My exam starts soon. Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. You concentrate on your exam. You’ll do great. I’ll talk to you later,” she said.

“Bye,” he said hanging up the phone.

Lara just stared at the screen. Hours upon hours of painstaking work, meticulously editing the blowjob tutorial into something presentable, had all been for nothing. Her computer’s inexplicable behaviour had wiped out over a days worth of progress, leaving her with nothing but a bitter taste in her mouth and the urge to smash something.

She dragged a hand through her hair, tugging at the brunette locks in agitation as she tried to think. Alan was right. There had to be a way to salvage this. She couldn’t let all that effort go to waste, not to mention the money Dave was counting on from the sales.

If the footage was lost, she would have to go back to Dave and explain. He’d want to film it again. He had gotten carried away last time. Who knew what he would try if they had to reshoot it? Plus, she had assured him she knew what she was doing. It would be really embarrassing. She had worked hard to prove she wasn’t just some bimbo. This setback would not help her case to be taken seriously. Then a thought occurred to her.

Lenny!

If anyone could help with this sort of thing, it was him. He could probably do it in his sleep. And he was besotted with Lara, she knew. If she asked, he would come running. Lara picked up her phone and scrolled to the “L” section of her contacts list and clicked on his number, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for him to pick up. After a long and frustrating wait, he finally answered.

“Hello?”

“Lenny, it’s me. Lara. Listen, I could really use your help. I’m in a real bind here. My computer just randomly deleted some files. Files I need. Lenny, it’s the footage I made with Dave. You know the footage I’m talking about?” she asked, not wanting to spell it out completely.

“Uh, yeah. I do. And it’s just gone?” he asked.

“Yes. The raw footage. The edited footage. The entire project file. I was getting some error when I tried to export the finished product and I restarted the machine. When it booted back up, the directory was completely empty. Lenny, I don’t know what to do here. Can you come over and help? Please?” she asked. “You made me a promise once to help with any tech issues I had, remember?”

He didn’t answer straight away. The silence down the end of the phone made her worry. After a long pause, he finally answered.

“Lara, you know I’d help normally. But today is just, really bad timing. Can it wait?” he asked.

He was busy? Lenny? Really? She thought in surprise. She had assumed he would just be home alone, as per usual.

“Not really, Lenny. Dave wants it by tomorrow and part of me is afraid the longer I leave it, the less chance there is of recovering my work. I’ve spent hours on this. Can’t you come? What are you in the middle of?” she asked, trying not to sound too demanding.

“I’m LARPing,” he replied, simply.

“Lenny, I’ll be honest with you. I have no idea what that is,” she said.

“Live Action Role-Playing. We dress up. Cosplay, ya know? We each have characters and roles and we play out a story. It’s a lot of fun,” he said, excitedly.

“Right. And you can’t LARP some other day?” she asked, hopefully.

“Lara, I’m Knight Harold of Cumbersnatch. He’s kind of important to the story. If I leave, it sort of fucks everything up for everyone else,” he said, doubt in his voice.

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” she said, trying to convince him. “Lenny, I’ll make it worth your while,” she said, her voice low now.

“Okay. I’ll tell the guys and be on my way shortly. Give me an hour or two,” he said.

“Thanks, Lenny. I mean it. You’re one in a million,” she said, hanging up the phone.

She didn’t feel good about it. She had chastised Alan for taking advantage of Lenny and here she was doing the same thing. He was leaving his LARP thing for her and she knew he didn’t get out much. But one thing was for sure. She wasn’t filming that scene again with Dave. She’d work Lenny if she had to. Besides, she had said she’d make it up to him so it wasn’t like he wasn’t getting anything out of it.

He loves my tits, she thought. She headed into her bedroom to go put on a push up bra.

“Say that again?”

“Mike, I know who the hacker is. The guy who hacked into The Pearl’s system and siphoned money from Dave’s accounts,” Jo said.

The pair were sitting in their usual booth in the Rise and Grind cafe. The place was bustling with activity. The lunch rush, Mike figured. So he hadn’t quite heard Jo the first time. But there was no mistaking her the second time. He couldn’t keep the shock from his face.

“Who? How?” he asked, pleased but also baffled at how Jo had discovered such a vital piece of the puzzle on her own.

“You know the I.T. guy?” she said.

“Leonard Kowalski?”

“Yeah, Lenny. Well, he left his computer logged in when he went to take a leak or something. I had a good look through his files,” Jo said, lying.

Jo had surreptitiously installed an electronic infiltration and monitoring device inside The Pearl’s system. She had asked an ex-boyfriend who worked in the cybercrimes division to scour the system for anything useful. They were still on good terms so he had agreed. And he had struck pay-dirt. But it hadn’t been legal. They had no warrant. Jo didn’t care but Mike most certainly would. She didn’t like lying to her partner but she figured it was the only way to advance the investigation at this point. The priority, for her at least, was nailing Captain Price to the wall. If she had to break a few rules along the way, so be it. She just hoped Mike bought her story. They needed the information and this was the only way she could think of to get it to him.

“What did you find?” Mike asked quietly while looking to his right. Somebody had jostled by him as he sat there. He didn’t like meeting at such a busy time. They could be overheard or spotted. But Jo had called the meeting urgently.

“A lot. I don’t know if Lenny just hasn’t made the connection yet or he knows the information and is just discounting it. Maybe he just missed it. I don’t know. Either way, the answer is staring him in the face,” she said.

“Okay, Jo. Suspense has been built. Well done. Spit it out.”

“Lenny doesn’t spend a ton of time at The Pearl. He works from home when he can. So he remotes in. He is the only one who does it. But here’s the thing. The logs show a second IP address doing the same thing. And it’s not his,” she said. “I wrote it down before Lenny got back.”

“We’re going to have to request some help with this. Find out where exactly this IP address leads,” Mike said, trying to formulate a plan on how he was going to use department resources without Price finding out.

“No need,” she said, pre-empting him. “I called in a favour. From outside the department. I’ve got it all, Mike. Name, address and occupation” she said, sliding a piece of paper across the counter towards him. Mike looked at it.

“This is great, Jo. Amazing work. Now, we know where to find this guy. We offer him immunity, he gives us everything he has. Once we have Dave’s off the books accounts, I’ll get my financial forensics guy to give it the once over. We’ll finally be able to link payments from Dave Miller to Price. That’ll be enough to get Dave into an interrogation room. He’ll flip to save his own skin. Fuck, Jo. The domino’s are lining up,” he said, grinning.

She didn’t smile back. “Not quite. Mike, look at his job title,” she said with a grimace.

“Translator. Yeah, so?” Mike said confused.

“Yes, but a translator where Mike...” she said. Then it dawned on him.