Bailey sat in the basement room looking at the wall of photos of women engaged in various sex acts, but not actually seeing it specifically. Periodically her eyes would find one image or another and she would feel a swell of emotions; rage, despair, nausea, horror. Yet for long, hollow moments she felt nothing at all as her overwhelmed mind attempted to reconfigure everything she knew about her boyfriend and his friends.
Sitting on an old wing-back leather chair her grandfather once decorated his study with, Bailey glanced at the horrifying images displayed on the wall in four defined groups. One group of pictures under the name of each guy; Todd, her boyfriend, Chad her brother and the other two members of their posse Richard and Stuart. Beside each photo was a recipe card with a number, beside each guy's name was written a total that equalled the numbers beside each photo of a girl. Bailey had done the math a few times to confirm what she as seeing. It seemed pretty obvious that this was a score board with a points awarded for the sex acts in the photos.
Beneath the names of her brother, boyfriend and their pals the pornographic images were displayed and the more outrageous the activity the higher the points beside it. There were dates, times, names of the women and details written beside the photos on the recipe cards. The woman were mostly students from their shared university, but some were women she knew from their social scene, the neighbourhood, their old high school and some of her closest friends.
And there were many photos of Bailey herself.
Every new position, every different way to have sex, each unusual location she and Todd had ever tried was exhibited on that wall under his name. The details on the recipe cards detailed the same memories she had of those intimate moments, but finding them on that filthy wall sullied them utterly and Bailey was reeling as she tried to understand how she could have been so wrong about her boyfriend.
Beyond the humiliation of having her nudity revealed to his friends, her own brother would have seen them. Clearly the exciting sexual adventure she and Todd had been on together discovering new positions had actually been a means for him to garner more points for the disgusting wall. The final mortification was seeing the newer dates under Todd's name where he had been having sex with other women.
Part of the numbness Bailey was feeling stemmed from the recent struggles she'd been going through regarding her relationship. For many months she'd been yearning for change, considering breaking up with Todd, but they had been dating since high school, she worried he would be devastated. Todd was very close to her brother Chad and she'd been reluctant to rock the boat. Seeing evidence of his infidelity changed everything.
Before she'd wanted freedom, now she wanted revenge.
Taking photos of the wall with her phone she documented it and left the horrible man-cave. The family home had a carriage house just behind the main house and for Bailey's whole life it had been a sanctuary from the world, except one space. The basement had always been terrifying to her and when Chad, who was two years older, adopted it as his private space when he reached his teens she didn't argue. Since then the boys had all begun spending a lot of time down there and she hadn't bothered to even venture down for a peek. Even after she started dating Todd in university, much to the loud protestations of her brother Chad, she still hadn't had any urge to sneak down to see.
The only reason she'd gone down there that day was because Todd couldn't find his phone when he rushed off to school that morning. Bailey had a later class and she'd offered to find his phone using the app they shared to track each other's phones and bring it to him when she arrived later. She'd never had a reason to go in the basement of the carriage house before, but the tracker told her it was someplace in the building. In frustration she had finally looked in the basement and entered the inner sanctum of her brother's crew.
The phone had been on a table next to one of four wing-back chairs in a semi-circle around the wall of photos. It seemed as though the men sat and looked at the wall from these chairs. The same chair Bailey had stumbled into as she'd nearly fainted upon discovering what the photos on the wall were of.
In a state of shock Bailey rode her bike to school and put Todd's phone in the locker they shared. Looking at his coat hanging in the usual spot felt surreal. How could things be so normal now that she knew everything. After one class she understood she was in no mental state for higher learning and she skipped the next class, heading for her bike.
Before she got to the bike rack she'd left her bicycle at she saw Todd in a heated argument with a guy named Sebastian Todd had always disliked. Ducking back around the corner she'd just come around Bailey felt an intense flight impulse. No part of her wanted to see Todd at that moment. The sound of raised voices made her curious though that she peered around the corner to test if she could hear better.
"... don't want to face the consequences of your bullshit!" Sebastian gritted through clenched teeth.
"I didn't do anything. You're making a mistake. I'm with Bailey." Todd saying her name jolted Bailey and she wanted to know what the fight was about.
"Does she know about you two?" Sebastian sneered.
"Of course not. There's nothing to know." Todd sounded so sincere, but Bailey knew better now.
"Not everyone lies as well as you do Todd. Jenna confessed. That's why we broke up. She told me everything."
To Bailey's eyes, from twenty feet away, it looked like Todd grew pale.
"I'm sorry you two didn't work out, but it has nothing to do with me." Todd sounded sympathetic.
A pause followed while Sebastian scanned Todd's face with a sneer of contempt on his own lip.
"You are really something Chambers." Sebastian assessed with derision. "There will be consequences for your actions. Trust me." The furious man stalked off clearly unwilling to make it physical even though they were very similar in build.
Still hiding Bailey watched Todd track Sebastian's retreat then pull out his phone, which he'd clearly retrieved from the locker, then text someone. Was it Sebastian's ex Jenna? It wasn't Bailey because her phone didn't vibrate. Todd walked away and Bailey wondered who he really was given that she'd been completely blind to his behaviour.
Bailey followed Sebastian.
"Sebastian, wait!"
Catching up to him as he left campus she saw him look confused as she jogged up.
"Bailey?" Anger lingered, but he also looked worried seeing her approaching.
"Can we talk?" She asked catching her breath.
Glancing around seeking the trap, Sebastian looked everywhere but at her for a moment.
"I want to talk about Todd and Jenna." She told him and suddenly had his undivided attention.
"You know?"
"I found out this morning."
"Did he tell you?" Sebastian's skepticism spilled into his tone of voice.
"I found evidence."
The distressed young man clearly wanted to know more but he said nothing.
"Let's go someplace and I'll show you."
"My car is this way."
