Chapter 5

Uncle Ryan keeps his promises. Every evening, he makes sure to be home by 6 and spends time chatting with her about her day and her studies. Nicole gobbles up the attention since her tutor and the maids are really all the other people she has to talk to.

Uncle Ryan, is there a computer I can use?” She calls down to him from the large spiraling staircase, folded halfway over the banister.

“Sure, honey, what do you need it for?”

She shrugs as her arms wobble lazily. “I got an email that says my photos are ready, but the link won’t open on my phone.”

“Sure, you can use the one in my office.”

Her eyes light up and she teases him, “Oooh, the mysterious office.”

“It’s not so mysterious.” He complains.

“It’s always locked, and I’ve never been in it. I was starting to think that it’s a lair.”

“A lair?”

“Yeah, you know like an evil mastermind’s lair where he plots to kidnap the princess or rob the crown jewels.”

“Goodness Nikki, where do you get this stuff?”

She heads along with him, even looping her arm into his elbow and grinning excitedly. She’s been feeling so energized lately, excited even. Distractible for certain. A few times this week, she daydreamed about ... fun and sexy things while her tutor was trying to teach her some stuff. God, she’d been so hot for him when he first arrived and she teased him by the pool. What a dud he’d turned out to be. He didn’t even do anything more than look down her shirt when she was teasing him this week. But he definitely looked and that’d given her a sexy nipple crinkling thrill. But now she’s with Uncle Ryan and he is paying attention to her and being nice to her ‘cause he is such a nice man. She leans her head on him awkwardly as they walk and sighs. Why is he still single? He probably works too much.

Cherry wood double doors open up into a high ceiling office room with bookshelves built into the walls and a bar cart over by the side. There is a large wooden desk dominating the center of the back wall with three monitors. It looks out over the elongated expanse of the room where a wide rug hides the wood underneath. It is masculine, in bronze, deep stained wood, and even sentinel goblin-like creatures carved into the woodwork watching from just below the ceiling.

He wakes the machine and switches to a new lockscreen where her name and a picture of her smiling from her Facebook. She feels like she looks so young in that picture, it’s miles apart from her now. She was with two of her friends back home and grinning ear to ear. She cropped in for her page, she couldn’t have been more than 14 then.

“Go ahead, I thought you might need to log in for homework or something, so I created an account for you.”

“What’s the password?”

“Whatever you want to type.” He smiles and heads out of the office. “Have fun.”

She used the password she uses for everything and pulls up the link they’d emailed her. Instead of the gray screen and spinning indicator, a website pops right up with a gallery of photos. There wasn’t a download button to get them all, so she figures she’ll just download them individually. But when she right clicks, it wouldn’t let her save to file. Ugh, what is with this site?

She decides she can figure it out later and starts to look through the photos. There are tons of them! All of the photos are available, while at the start of each section, there is a subset of photos labelled “Best Of” that are finished off and look really good. She clicks through feeling not a small amount of pride. They really did make her look beautiful. She’s not this beautiful, but looking at the pictures, she feels it.

She scrolls down further to the swimsuit pictures. Gosh, Clayben sure had an eye for her. He was kind of cute too - in a forbidden kind of way. and the sexier pictures. Of course, then there was Xavier and Juliet.

Oh wow. A click pulls up an image of her and Juliet in close embrace on the verge of a kiss. Her own fingers unconsciously trace her lips as her memory slides back to that moment. She’d felt so excited, even more than now. That was wild, that was sexy, that was the most crazy thing ev-

“What are we looking at?”

Nicole panics, her first instinct to slam down her laptop closed but it’s not a laptop. Hurriedly, she minimizes the window. “Huh? No, I’m done.” Thankfully, he didn’t see anything, he is still walking up to her along the length of the room.

“Come on now, don’t be shy, let’s see some of those pictures of my beautiful Nikki.” He smiles with a coffee in hand and joins her behind the desk.

She’s petrified as he takes the mouse from her hand. “No, no, no, because their not quite done and I need to pick out the best ones cause I don’t think they’re all done and-”

He smiled disarmingly at her, interrupting her hurried stammer. “Come on now, Nikki, I asked you for complete honesty. No secrets.” His hand takes her shoulder. “Relax,” he commands. “You’re safe with me.”

She’s flush, part from sexual memory, and more from humiliation. He is about to open up the window and see her about to kiss a woman. And wearing lingerie! What will he say? Oh God, she’s going to be in so much trouble!

The window open up and the picture of her and Juliet in flagrante flares across the screen. She’s ready for the sharp intake of breath and the questions that follow.

“Oh my.”

She winces, waiting for it.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her words tumble out, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stayed, the photographer you hired left and I should have left too, but then there was this other model and I thought I could get some more pictures, I guess, I don’t know, I just kind of went along and-”

His voice returns, soothing, “Relax, relax, calm, honey.” He plants his lips on her forehead. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Really? I’m not in trouble?” She still shrinks in the chair, but her eyes flutter up with trepid care.

He shakes his head, amused. “Not in the least. No one is in trouble. Besides, look at you, honey.”

He turns her attention back to the screen where Juliet is slipping her bra strap off her shoulder. “You’re so raw and sensual. I’m not much of an artist, I’m more of a businessman, but it seems to me like there is joy here. But how it looks only matters so much. Tell me, how did you feel?”

HORNY. She couldn’t say that, but it was the word that thrummed in her mind. She bit her lip. “I dunno.”

He steps behind her, his hands taking her shoulders squaring to face the image of her own seduction. “It’s okay, take your time.” His hands gently massages her neck which she looks in on herself voyeuristically.

“I dunno, kinda hot?” She blushes feeling hot shame dripping over her from the heat of his looming form.

“Mm-hmm, go on.” He moves his hands under her hair, now laying them on her warm skin at the base of her neck. It sends a tingle down her back, making it harder to think.

“Yeah, it was really sexy I guess, kinda? Should I- Uncle Ryan? Should I be talking about this kind of stuff to you?” She knows the wrongness of what she’s feeling instinctively. It’s completely humiliating to click through images of herself in lingerie in front of her uncle. But what is more mortifying is the excitement she’s feeling. God, what is wrong with her?

“Of course you should. Total honesty, right?”

“Yeah, I guess ... Yeah.” Her fingers clicked to the next, even bolder picture; Her lips were kissing down her body. Another click and her bra had pulled far enough to reveal her breast.

“It’s important to understand yourself, sweetie. You’re on a journey. An intense period of self discovery. You can relax, I won’t judge you and you won’t get in trouble. You are doing what you should be doing.” His voice is calm and reassuring while being devoid of any sign of arousal.

She latches onto his words, trying to steady herself from the swirling feelings and twisting tingle she feels in her own belly. “I should?”

“Of course. Maybe in some other countries or places, people can be backwards and repressed. But you won’t get that here. You’re allowed to be yourself, sweetie, whoever that ends up being.”

Hot memories are making it hard to keep from picturing things that she knows she shouldn’t. He’s her uncle! The thought doesn’t stop her back from arching expressing the unspoken need by raising her trembling breasts towards his hands. “I ... I’m embarrassed.”

“I understand sweetie.” His lips press into the top of her head. “You grew up in a small place with small minds. Now that you’re truly free, you’re growing so fast and that can be scary.”

Her toes are curling in her shoes, she withers. “I’m sorry.”

His hands leave her shoulders with a pat. “That’s okay, take your time. When you’re done, come out back, we’ll practice your archery.”

She’s breathless when he leaves the room. Her head is a cloud of spinning thoughts. She is dying to talk to someone about all the craziness, and now her uncle knows about it. More than that, he seems okay with it! But she really wishes her friends would return her messages. No, even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to understand this. She’d reached out after getting the designer dress but she couldn’t give them the details about being naked and drinking champagne at a store in front of strangers. They wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t sexual, except that is was sexy. She just needed someone who would understand to talk to.

She closed the browser. Uncle Ryan was right, they were small minds from a small town. They couldn’t understand. They’d probably call her a slut, especially Sunday School Christina. They’d be praying for her instead of listening to her.

But talking about it with Ryan would be a little much. Even with his honesty no judgement policy, she isn’t quite ready for that.

She logs out and stands. What she needs is new friends. California friends.

After archery and laps in the pool, she feels much less stressed. She’s positively confident enough to speak up at dinner.

“Uncle Ryan?”

“Yes, honey.”

“So, um, I was thinking, I’m sixteen now and since I’m here in LA, it might make sense if I, you know, took driving classes and got a license?” She stuffed a bit in her mouth.

“You don’t have a license?”

“No, and if you think about it, it really makes sense. I don’t really have ID, just my school ID from my old school, and most everyone else gets licenses by the time they are juniors. Summer is the perfect time to do it. Right? I mean if you think about it, it would be really weird for me not to get one since we have to drive to go anywhere.”

He lets her babble for a few moments and absorbs the silence after she stops. “I hear your take. But, do you really need a driver’s license?”

“Well, yeah.” She tossed in a bold smile to try to persuade him.

“You have drivers that can take you where you need to go. You have Uber on your phone, attached to my credit card in case of emergencies. I am having a hard time seeing where you really need to be driving.” He pauses watching her struggle to come up with a response. Satisfied that she doesn’t have one he continues. “I’m always willing to listen with an open.”

She bites her lip. “Don’t you have a driver’s license?”

“That I do. I mostly use it as ID at the bank.” He smiles wistfully. “It’s a remnant of a time before I got here.”

She latches on. “That’s a good point, Uncle Ryan, I really should have some form of ID that’s legally valid? There are a lot of situations where that could be super important for me?” Her nerves shine through with her rising tone at the end of every sentence.

He chuckles. “You’ve made your case, we’ll get you a legal form of Identification post haste.”

That’s not what she’s going for and he knows it. She thinks furiously for more reasons. “What about for getting to school next year?”

“For school?”

“Yeah, I’ll be a junior, and at my old school, all the rich juniors got cars and drove, so I figured since I’m a rich kid now...”

“That’s what tutors are for.” He didn’t bother to look at her as he stabbed a piece of meat for consumption.

“But, I will be going to school right?”

“There’s no need.” Again, he doesn’t even pretend to care.

“Are you serious? This is crazy, you can’t do that! It’s - against the law! It is truancy!”

The shrill and panicked shaking in her voice broke through her calm veneer. He respond with a stern tone. “Tomorrow, you will be taking a test. It is standardized and will certify you as having passed the requirements for sophomore year. You will pass it because you are a Flaherty and -”

She bangs her shaky fist on the table to shut him up. “No! I won’t do it, I will fail on purpose. I won’t do any more studying or anything until you promise me you are letting me go back to school!” Her heart pounds in terror and anger, she feels the need to flee from the table, but she is suddenly so angry.

“-and because you have been studying at a senior level already. I made sure you would be more than prepared.”

She crossed her arms and steamed, thinking of all the ways she was going to make his life a living Hell. After all, it would only be fair since he was absolutely ruining her life.

“Once you are done with the testing and if I get confirmation that you did you best, then you’ll be driven to my private jet and we’ll go see your dad.”

Her eyes float up and her features soften, “Daddy? He’s out?”

He sighs softly. “Unfortunately, no. But we will see him in prison. It took a bit of arranging but-”

“And Mom? Can we go see her?”

“That is quite out of my hands for the moment. She is here illegally and your father’s situation doesn’t help. It is best we show the court that you are doing well here. Your test scores will go a long way to making sure you stay safe with family. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. Somehow he’d turned it around on her and she felt horrible for blowing up. Uncle Ryan was trying to keep things together. Tomorrow if she did well, she’d be going to see Daddy at least.