Chapter 92

Mary returned to Allie's computer and clicked a few buttons.

"Whoa!" Leslie said. "That's awesome."

The screen showed Ashley Malibu in a series of different outfits and poses – all clothed and tasteful – flashing periodically on the screen. The color scheme was vibrant and the layout wasn't cluttered. It simply gave the option of entering if the user was older than 18 and returning to a different site if he or she was younger. It had the specific government warnings in a type face a little larger than the law required.

When Mary clicked the enter button, the scene didn't change abruptly. Instead it was a gradual change from the home page to the content page. There were only three or four photos on the page and there were two buttons to the right – Member or Free Content.

"The member button doesn't work obviously," Mary said. "If I click it a window will appear and ask for name and password. Right now, you go to the member page no matter what you click. I'll explain why in a moment."

Mary clicked on the free content and a series of pictures appeared. Ashley in a miniskirt and a cardigan. Ashley in a one-piece jumper. Ashley in a string bikini. Ashley in her Wally Walrus suit. All had different backgrounds. One was in the forest. One was at the beach. One was in a bedroom. One was in a living room.

"The reason the members button doesn't work is because I had to input the background for all of these," Mary said reasonably. "If you look carefully, you'll see the background is repeated periodically. Also, there is only one full set – Ashley Schoolgirl. The others were just shots for later updates. Sean and Walt, you need to leave the room. The adults are going to be talking about grown-up stuff."

Adam was surprised when Walt and Sean stood to leave.

"I'm kidding," Mary said. "But, seriously, the pictures show Allie nude. I'm not sure if you are comfortable seeing that or if she is comfortable with you seeing it."

"It shows Ashley nude," Walt said. "And I've already seen that. But if it bothers her, I'll go outside."

"I'm OK with it," Allie said with a genuine smile. "After the wet swimsuit, you probably already have seen everything. Anything you missed is on the videos I've done. I just didn't want you to be embarrassed."

Walt and Sean sat down and Mary clicked on the Photos button. A single thumbnail popped up showing Ashley in a tartan miniskirt and a cardigan sweater.

"Remnants from my dancing days," she lamented.

"It's standard fare on all sites for any female younger than 30," Leslie told her. "At least you got it out of the way early. The site looks amazing. Can you do that with mine?"

"I'm glad you asked," Mary said with a bright smile. She clicked on a link on Allie's homepage that took them to a Cassie Charms site. Allie's site was gone before Walt and Sean even got to see her in a bra.

"Oh, wow!" Leslie said, standing up to look closer. "Hey, you've got all my picture sets."

Mary gave another sheepish smile.

"I have a program called a Site Raper," she admitted. "Basically, I point it to a web site and it goes through and downloads all the content. Rebecca, for obvious reasons, I did not do this with your site."

Rebecca frowned slightly but nodded.

"So all you need are my videos and I'm up and running!" Leslie said. "Too cool."

"Well, I have your videos, too," Mary said. "But I didn't have time to upload them. I set the color scheme differently for yours. Ashley's is mostly lightened earth tones. I think your personality warrants something a little more neon."

Leslie joined Rebecca in the nod queue.

"This is really awesome," Leslie intoned. "I bought the design for my last site mostly for the security features. It's good to know I pissed my money away there."

"You probably got what you paid for," Mary cautioned. "The tech industry has gotten better in the last couple of years. What I used to get into your site wasn't available commercially until about four months ago. Again, Rebecca, I can't really comment on your protocol because getting in was much easier than I expected. If you paid for security, you got ripped off."

"I didn't," she admitted. "I let Patrick do the set up. He had been writing code for a few years. I trusted him to do it right."

"It is likely the flaws were intentional," Mary mentioned. "The Spoof thing isn't something just anyone will look for. Even if they did, it is unlikely they would expect to find your source content in a folder they could access. I've had some success with the Spoof method and by changing the name of the target. Once I found out where your source files were located, I simply looked to see if I could get there. I was surprised when I found that I could get to so many other folders. So, Leslie, is this something along the lines of what you are looking for?"

"I like it," Leslie answered immediately. "My site hasn't seen a real change in almost five years. I've added content but I was happy enough to leave it looking like a relic from the disco era. I hope we can work something out to where I can use this."

"Leslie, even if Subarctic doesn't host your site, if you want it to look this way, you can have it," Mary said. "This is not a pitch for your business. I will make your site look however you want it to look no matter our business arrangement. I'll do it because we're friends."

Leslie smiled broadly and gave Mary a hug. Adam got the impression that Leslie wasn't used to friends who did something without asking for something in return – the gay guy who took her first topless pictures obviously excepted.

"What will your security be like?" Rebecca asked.

"A couple of steps below the Pentagon," Mary said. "But it will take someone with some serious skill to get in without a password. Even if they did get in, they couldn't change anything. I can promise you that without hesitation. We will double protect your source code. I'll set it up so even your webmaster cannot access it without your participation to put in the second code."

"So you can't show me what my site would look like on this format?" Rebecca wondered.

"I can if you don't get pissed off at me for how I did it," Mary said with a smile. "I told you about the torrent file I found. Well, I hit a couple of others and I have about a half dozen of your shoots I put up. Do you want to see it?"

"I do," Rebecca said, "but I don't."

She smiled warmly at Mary but shook her head. Every torrent file and illegal upload was a little money out of her pocketbook.

"The torrent was already there," Mary protested when she saw the head shake. "I didn't create it and I didn't post it. I just used it to grab a few sample files since I didn't want to risk using the originals."

"It's no problem," Rebecca said with resignation. "By the way, does Polar Power work against torrent makers?"

"The same way it works against file splitting," Mary assured her. "You can't do it. Well, you can do it but the content is ruined. I can give you a demonstration later if you want."

"I trust you," Rebecca said. "If you say it works, it works. Lord knows you could hold me hostage just for upgrading my security and for the work you've already done in safe-guarding my site."

"But I wouldn't," Mary said. "The same reason applies to you as it does to Leslie. If you choose to host your own server or to go with someone else, I will still help to make sure everything you want on that server is on there. I'll also do whatever you want me to do to make sure no one but you have control over it."

"And we will still help you post your old content," Shelly assured her. "That, too, is not contingent upon any deal we might make. Well, at least I will help. I shouldn't speak for anyone else."

"But you could have," Walt said, "because it's true for all of us. We're all nodding like bobble heads."

In the interim, Mary had moved the browser to Rebecca's mock site. She had kept the color scheme from Rebecca's original site but it had a less-cluttered look.

"That's really nice," Rebecca said. "I'm glad you kept the colors. It will make some of my long-term members less uncomfortable with the change. I'm like Leslie. I've kept my site stagnant for many years. It has the same look as when I started mostly because I know the majority of my members don't like change. I mean, they're 50 year old men still gazing at teenagers. What does that tell you?"

The group gave a sad laugh as Mary moved forward.

"Adam, do you want to discuss our billing ideas?" Sean asked. The whole group was there so it was 'open season' for business topics.

Adam was still pondering his answer when Trinity came in, fresh off a two-hour nap.

"Hey, that's cool," she said when she saw the screen. "Is that what your new site is going to look like, Rebecca? That's fantastic looking. It looks so much easier to navigate than your old one. I thought the links along the side took up too much space and it didn't leave enough for promos."

"You should put her on payroll," Rebecca said dryly. "I was going to ask to see what others might think but now I have my answer. Did you spend much time on my old site?"

"Only the last week or so," Trinity said, looking bewildered. "I took a look at it when they told me why they were going to Las Vegas. I mean, I don't own a membership or anything but I've gone through a lot of free pictures."

Rebecca smiled sweetly.

"What was your opinion of my old site?" she asked.

"Limited," Trinity said after thinking for a moment. "I thought it lacked a lot of the things people expect on a site. I mean, I understand it was probably easy to maintain. But honestly, my sister's web site looks more professional than yours does. I don't mean that to sound mean. Yours just looks, I don't know, forgotten."

"Like the world moved on and left us in the past," Leslie put forth. "Mine was manufactured basically using commercial software from the early 2000s. I never really gave much thought to updating the look until I saw some of the other sites. Have you seen Gloria Glamorous? That is what this reminds me of, only this one is easy to look at – and it doesn't have that awful music attached."

"It can if you want it to," Mary added quickly.

"No!" Rebecca and Leslie said in unison.

"If they want to listen to music while looking at my ass, let them buy an iPod like the rest of the world," Leslie giggled. Rebecca turned to Trinity.

"Did you download anything from my site?" she asked.

"No," Trinity replied. "Oh, wait, yeah. My brother downloaded one of the screensavers from your free section. That was why he was so quiet on Saturday. I asked him why he wasn't his usually annoying self and he told me. He was afraid you would recognize his name and see that he was only 16 and not 18 like he promised."

Rebecca chuckled and rolled her eyes before glancing at Mary. Trinity continued speaking before Mary could reply to the unspoken question.

"I told him you were pretty cool and I'd smooth things over with you – if he promised not to go surfing porn sites until he turned 18," Trinity said with a giggle of her own. "Like that will stop the little pervert. I'm missing two pairs of my panties and I bet I know just where they are."

"Walt," Adam said firmly, "Give Trinity back her Polly Pocket Under-roos."

"Damn you," Trinity said, making a face at Adam. "I've proven to you that I do not wear Polly Pocket Under-roos. Do I have to prove it to everyone?"

"I think you should," Sean said, peering around Shelly just in case Trinity decided she would. "I mean, it would put an end to the debate. But just to be sure, you'll have to do it every day for, say, two weeks. Yeah, two weeks should work."

Trinity dropped her head – and not her pants this time.

"I would suggest you let them do your laundry for you," Rachelle put in. "But then you'd be out more than two pairs of undies."

"Ahem," Mary said. "I think Rebecca wanted to know if there is any possibility of Spenser's computer being corrupted. The answer is no. I found nothing on the free side. All the problems were on the pay area."

"What did I miss?" Trinity asked, looking around at the harsh faces that held such mirth a moment before. Mary filled her in and Trinity's face lost its exuberance, too.

"That sucks!" she decided. "Well, I have no life. I can help you upload anything you need. Just let me know what I can do."

The rest of the group laughed and Trinity turned her head to each of them to see why.

"We already promised our help – which includes your help," Adam said, putting his arm around the girl. "But thanks for your offer. Just for being a sweetie, I'll put a moratorium on all Polly Pocket jokes for two weeks."

"You're a fucking prince," Trinity muttered.

Adam forgot about Sean's billing query until he posed it again.

"Well, I haven't talked to Peoples Bank yet," he said. "But if they give us a decent deal for handling credit card transactions, I think we can cut your costs significantly, maybe by as much as 20 percent."

"So you'll charge us 22 percent instead of 28?" Leslie asked.

Adam shook his head to clear it.

"Uh, no," he clarified. "We'll charge you between 8 and 12 percent. Depending upon the deal Peoples offers and the cost of acquiring any equipment it might be as low as 6 percent but I don't want to quote that. Whatever it is, I will provide the price quote from Peoples along with our offer."

"We don't really need to make a profit on this," Mary said. Adam was surprised because Mary was usually all about making a profit. "Since we're going to have so many group members involved in the same project, it just makes sense to offer it at cost, at least to the initial group."

"She's right," Rachelle chimed in. "Ashley, Sahara and whoever else are going to gain a lot from having Rita and Cassie hosted at the same place. I think we'd have to charge Allie, Sarah and whoever else the same rate as we charge Rebecca and Leslie. Why should the business make money off the efforts of its core group? I can't see letting Shelly use the billing service for nothing if we're making a profit off Rebecca and Leslie. There, Shelly, I said it. I saw the look when I said 'whoever' so now you know I mean you and Karlie."