Chapter 4

Day 37 - Saturday

Girls’ day. I feel like I’ve been a bad friend. Here I’ve been writing about every little bit of drama in my life and I’ve never once mentioned Marcie’s troubles. She’s had an online romance with a boy, Zeke, for almost a year. He was supposed to fly out to meet her face to face for the first time two weeks ago, but he canceled for no good reason. Since then he’s barely been talking to Marcie and when he has he’s been prickly. She knows it’s over but she hasn’t gotten through to confront him yet.

Today has been about baking brownies, watching John Hughes movies, eating sushi, and making pejorative generalizations about boys.

After a couple of wine coolers, I let slip the secret about the St. Frances Photo Club. I was trying to reassure her that boys really do like her and when she pressed me for details I had to tell her about the bike photo. Naturally she wanted to see it for herself, so we logged on.

“Three out of ten? Lexi, that doesn’t sound like they like me!” she exclaimed.

“That’s just because they can’t see your crotch. The raunchier the photo the higher the rating. The comments are mostly pretty nice”, I retorted.

“This one says I’m probably giving syphilis to my bike seat...” she frowned.

“Did Owen write that one? I know a lot of the comments are piggish, but trust me, compared to others these are very flattering.”

Marcie clicked on the link to the main gallery. “Ooh! Who’s the skank?” she said, clicking on the thumbnail with the most skin. Soon she was watching the video clip of me jacking off Ethan and taking a cumshot in my face.

“Oh my god, Lexi, is that you?!?” So I told her about the webcam video and soon we were watching that. She almost choked on her wine cooler at the part where I winked at the camera. I told her about Ethan’s browser history, and his anal obsession and his denial.

“But why haven’t you taken the photo down?” Marcie asked. “Sooner or later that’s going to get out onto the Internet, and that’ll be a disaster for you. You could be expelled!”

“It already has. Google shows it hosted on 34 different sites. But it’s not that big of a deal - if you didn’t know it was me, you wouldn’t recognize me. And I don’t think they can expel me: our uniforms aren’t visible, and it was taken without my permission. Besides, if I pull the picture, Ethan will change his password, and then I’ll lose access to the photo club.”

Marcie puzzled. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to blackmail Ethan, of course!”

“This sure is a messed up world you’ve fallen into,” Marcie said cautiously.

“I know. Isn’t it fun?!”

Marcie promised not to say anything. We tried to think of ways to hack Zeke’s computer, but without physical access or at least a site password or two, there wasn’t much hope. Maybe when I’m done with all the boys at St. Frances, Marcie and I can take a road trip.

Day 39 - Monday

I went to Ethan’s house after school. Becca answered the door. “He doesn’t want to talk to you,” she told me.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? He does nothing but talk about how much he hates you. It’s so annoying. Did you like break his dick or something?”

“Please tell him that we need to talk about that picture he posted of me.” Her eyebrows arched inquisitively at that, but when I didn’t say anything else she fetched him.

“Hello Alexis!” Ethan’s manner was smug and sarcastic. “What brings you by?” He stood in the front doorway. Becca was just inside.

“May I come in? This is something we should talk about in private.” I was very business-like with my request.

“No.”

“Fine. I know about the picture. That’s kind of a violation, don’t you think? A betrayal of the trust we shared?”

Becca chimed in: “What picture?”

I couldn’t see her, but I spoke to Becca. “Becca, hon, I know you’re curious, but this really is a private matter between me and your brother.”

She replied, “How private can it be if it’s about a picture he posted of you?”

Ethan told her to get lost in an angry older-brother voice. I heard her muttering that she’ll just go search for it herself as she disappeared.

Ethan resumed talking to me. “I just wanted to show everyone what type of girl you are, Lexi.” Still smug.

I spoke more aggressively. “I told you to call me Miss Green. So why didn’t you release the whole video? Maybe everyone should see what type of boy you are - a deviant who likes taking it up the ass.” I felt bad saying it - I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. But he does, and that’s my leverage.

Ethan dropped the pretenses. “Well that’s never going to happen. And anyway, I would just tell people I was humoring a psycho whore to try to get some pussy.”

“They might believe you,” I said. “At least until they learned what porn sites you visit.” I handed him a best-of list from his browser history. “And see what sorts of shopping you do.” I handed him a printout of the anal sex toys he had browsed. “But really, seeing is believing, don’t you think?”

The final paper I handed him was an image capture from the webcam video. I had managed to find a frame where the flashlight could clearly be seen sticking out from his butt, and his face was showing unmistakable pleasure. I had cropped myself out of the picture, except my hand and my knee.

Ethan’s face was ashen. I pressed the point. “You don’t have to like me, but you do have to obey me. If you don’t, I’ll distribute this not just to the kids at school, but the dean, pastor Geoff, your dad’s partners, the cashiers at the grocery store, and the entire damned Internet. When you go to college, I’ll make sure that everyone in your dorm sees this picture. When prospective employers search for your name, this will be the first thing they find. Right now, you and I are the only ones who know about this. It can stay that way, as long as you do what I say. Now, are you ready for your instructions?”

“Yes Miss Green.”

I shook the thumb drive out of the baggy into his hands. “You’re going to plug this in to Owen’s computer and run the program that’s on it, from Owen’s login. It’ll ask you if you want to allow administrative privileges - click yes. Then you’re going to give it back to me. You will not be caught, or even suspected. You will not say a word of this to anyone. You will not plug the thumb drive into any other computer; if you do I’ll know. If I don’t get the results I expect in ten days, I go nuclear.”

“How am I supposed to get to Owen’s computer?” he asked.

“You guys are friends, right? You have your video game parties? You’ll figure something out. But hey, if all else fails, you can try distracting him by shoving a rigid object up his butt.”

Day 40 - Tuesday

I guess people outside of the Photo Club have seen the clip. A couple bitchy girls made handjob motions at me and laughed. One freshman girl - Ryoko, I think? - told me that her 7th grade brother had seen it on some video game message board. She and I don’t really know each other but she thought it was important enough to tell me. I thanked her.

Marcie and Zeke finally officially broke up. She’s feeling down.

Day 41 - Wednesday

Now there’s another photo of me, being passed around through email. This one is a fantasy drawing of a demon bird woman standing over two disemboweled men. My head was photoshopped on to the bird woman, and Ethan’s and Martin’s faces were on the dead men. The caption reads, “Who’s next?”

Anna asked if I wanted to spend the long weekend with her, her parents, and Lynn at their house on the lake. I said I’d love to, but I can’t leave Marcie alone; so then she invited Marcie too.

Day 42 - Thursday

Ethan must have changed his password for the St. Frances Photo Club, because I can’t get in any more. He probably changed it for his computer, too, but I have my own login. I still have the credentials for the Rivers household WiFi, including admin rights to the firewall, so I can still spy on Ethan.

Ethan seems to be watching mostly dominatrix porn.

There were some searches from somewhere in the house for “Lexi Green picture”. I guess that was Becca. It would be almost impossible for her to find it with such a broad search. Still, I wonder what she would think if she did?

Day 45 - Sunday

Driving to the lake house took much of Friday. The place is big - lots of bedrooms and all sorts of amenities. The Internet connection sucked, but that’s okay. We girls went for a walk on the beach and then cooked stir-fry while Mr. and Mrs. Gardner did old people stuff like read newspapers. After dinner we watched Bluerays of old movies. Casa Blanca is so good! We went to bed fairly early, but I didn’t have any trouble sleeping. Marcie and I shared a room with a king sized bed.