Chapter Two: Web Cam
(Note: Originally, this Chapter was to be called "This is SO much more than just wrong. Ignore that; you haven't missed a chapter.)
"What the hell's wrong with you?"
I didn't hear Vic's question and only realized he was there when he rapped a fist on my desk.
I quickly clicked the mouse button, minimizing the muted video playing before me. With the guilty tone of a caught man, I asked, "What? What's wrong?"
"Everything, apparently."
I checked the hall outside my office for other co-workers but saw none. Vic caught the gesture and must have sensed this was something I didn't want anyone but my good friend knowing, if even him. He went to the door and closed it, then sat in the chair across from my desk and asked, "What the fuck?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "What?"
"You were an hour late for work. You blew off the staff meeting, which DIDN'T go unnoticed, by the way. And for most of the past three hours you've been staring at your computer screen, but none of the reports that you are SUPPOSED to be routing to me for review are getting to me."
He looked back to the hallway again, then said a bit quieter, "That means that either my duties have been shifted to someone else, which would mean they're gonna fire me, WHICH would be JUST fine with me because I have a hell of a severance package waiting with my last paycheck. Or..."
He waited for me to fill in the next sentence. I honestly had no idea of how to respond. Vic was my good friend, and I trusted that anything I told him would stay between the two of us. But ... this was just mind blowing. What had happened this morning, and what Ally had offered me for a later date, were simply life changing events. And I had never once in my life had a LIFE CHANGING EVENT occur to me.
"It's nothing. Really."
"Greg, c'mon. I'm your friend. Is it trouble with Lori? You and the Missus not jiving anymore, 'cause it happens."
"No. It's not that. Really, it's nothing I want to talk about."
"Beth's messing around with the wrong boys...? Do you want me to go knock some heads?" He punched a fist into an open palm as he bared his teeth in a comically fierce expression.
"Really, Vic. It's ... personal."
He stared at me for a moment, then said with a sincere tone, "Greg, c'mon. I'm your friend. If I can't help you with your problems, what good am I? You helped me with that chick in Receiving, remember. And my car. Hell, you made a payment for me so I wouldn't lose it to the bank."
Vic was right. I'd been there anytime he'd needed me, and -- due to my until-this-morning unusually ordinary life -- he'd never had to bail me out of a situation or give me advice ... or make a three thousand dollar car payment that had only been half paid back, I suddenly remembered.
But this? Could I share this with Vic. Why not? I mean, it was just a blow job. Maybe I was blowing it out of proportion. I mean, men cheated on their wives all the time; women cheated on their husbands all the time. Hell, I knew a woman in the office with a husband and a girl friend, and she was cheating on BOTH of them with the married couple who owned the coffee shop down stairs!
"My teenage daughter's sleep over friend deep-throated me this morning," I was saying almost before I knew it, "and now she wants me to watch her have sex with her girlfriend."
For a long moment, Vic just stared at me. Suddenly, he erupted in raucous laughter, slapping the desk so hard that my pencil jar leaped and almost fell over.
I looked to the hall again and found several of what Vic called the 'slaves' looking up from their monitors or thick files. I felt my face flush with red and smiled, giving them a dismissive 'all's fine' wave that sent them, one at a time, back to their work.
"Oh ... my ... god!" he managed between continuing laughs. "That's a good one, Greggy. I mean it. If you ever wanted something that would tell me 'I don't wanna talk about it', that was the one."
He continued laughing for a long moment, tears beginning to trail down his cheeks. His laughter began to fade as he realized that I was not laughing with him. He checked the door and then leaned over my desk closer to me and asked with total shock, "You're kidding right? Pulling me leg? This ... this didn't really happen ... did it?"
Again, I checked my co-workers, finding them all absorbed with their own work, then gestured him around to my side of the desk. He didn't waste time, turning and scooting the rolling chair around until it collided with mine. I handed him a Blue Tooth head set, turned the volume back on, and clicked the video icon.
"Oh, god," he murmured. "Oh my fucking god."
Ally's image was frozen on the computer, staring directly into the camera she'd used to record the video. She was in a deep, thick cushioned chair, naked with her hands in her crotch.
"Is that her?"
I answered him by clicking replay, then scooting my chair away to let him move directly in front of the monitor. "I'm going to go refill my coffee cup. I'll ... ACCIDENTALLY lock the door behind me."
I don't think Vic even heard me, not because he had the headset on but because his full attention was on Ally. I exited my office, clicking the lock behind me and casually closing the door behind me. I chatted for a moment with my Assistant, telling her that Vic needed to review a new Corporate Training video in private and asking her to divert my calls to my cell.
I gave one last look to Vic, who was totally entranced and wouldn't have felt a 9 magnitude earthquake, and headed for the Employees Lounge, to try to decide what the hell I was going to do about Ally...
ON THE COMPUTER