It was sitting on her bedside table when Lindsay woke up Monday morning. A black flash drive with WATCH ME printed in white letters on one side. The first thing she did was run around the house, checking for intruders, but all the windows and doors were still locked. She lived alone, and she didn't remember having this flash drive before she went to bed.
Worried about potential viruses, Lindsay dug in the back of her coat closet until she found a torn high school bookbag. She pulled out an old Dell she hadn't used since her first year of college, and that she only held onto in case her photo library fell apart. It took 20 minutes for the laptop to update and boot up, which Lindsay used to try to go about her day normally. She made coffee, took a shower, checked email on her functioning computer, and tried not to think about the mysterious drive. Was someone playing a prank on her? Had she forgotten that it was her birthday? It wouldn't surprise her as hard as she had been working lately.
When the computer was finally ready, Lindsay plugged in the flash drive, careful to make sure she wasn't connected to her home network in case something spread. There was only one file, a video, labeled Friday.mp4. She opened it.
A title card, white text on a black screen read "Thanks for the memories." Then cut to a high shot of a room Lindsay thought she recognized, but couldn't place. There was a bed, neatly made with a few throw pillows, two lamps glowed on end tables flanking the bed. A normal, empty bedroom.
The door opened and a woman entered backward, entwined with a man who guided her back into the room. His hands were all over her, running down her back, through her hair, spending a good amount of time on her butt. Lindsay now knew exactly why she recognized the room: it was from a one night stand she'd had a week before. She was watching herself.
"What a fucking creep," she said aloud and went to shut the laptop. She stopped herself with her hand on the lid. "Maybe I should watch it," she thought. "Maybe he's cut in what he wants from me. God, I can't have this go public."
On the screen she was now only wearing her bra and underwear, the man, Jeff, pulled his shirt over his head while Lindsay worked on the buttons of his pants. He was naked now, and she trailed kisses down his chest, getting herself to her knees and preparing to take him into her mouth.
Here, the footage cut to a side shot. Lindsay guessed it was from a camera hidden in the dresser. It was nearly even with Jeff's waist and perfectly captured Lindsay taking his penis into her mouth.
"Jesus," Lindsay said to the computer as she watched herself bob back and forth on Jeff's penis, his hands were on her head, guiding her to stay with him as he sat on the bed, then moved down to unlatch her bra. After a few minutes of sucking, she moved up his body, rubbing her breasts along him as she kissed up his chest to his mouth. His hands were on her ass, now in the band of her panties, now stripping them off of her, now back on her ass, now moving around her thighs, now finding their way between their legs.
To this point, Lindsay thought the film was video only, but as Jeff's fingers entered, she heard a low "Mmmmmmmm" escape her lips.
The angle changed again to the high shot of the bed as she pushed him back against the pillows and rolled over to lay beside him. Jeff rolled onto one arm and began sucking gently on her breasts. She heard herself moan again. His hand was back between her legs and it didn't take long before the moans became more frequent, louder, and her fingers began tightening around the bedcover.
She watched Jeff move from her breast to her mouth, still moving his hand between her legs. She watched him kiss her deeply, her hand on the back of his head. He rolled her gently to the side, kissing down her neck. He spread her legs slightly and wiggled in behind her. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and then a deep "ohhhhhh" as he entered her.
The angle now looked like it came from one of the banisters at the foot of the bed, a low shot that looked up the bed toward her legs. She could clearly see Jeff moving in and out of her, could hear the wetness between them, could see Jeff's hands massaging her breasts. Suddenly, she rolled, moving so that she was on top of Jeff, reverse cowgirl. She leaned forward and rode him hard, the bed cam catching her breasts jumping up and down while Jeff focused his hands on her butt.
"Oh yes, yes, yessss god yes," she screamed as she accelerated her movements.
Lindsay could hear his grunts through the camera as well, she watched herself shake a little as the moans subsided, and she rolled next to him, kissing his chest and snuggling in close. The screen faded to black.
"Thanks for the memories," the title card said again, and the video ended.
She grabbed her phone, and found her text exchange with Jeff. She hadn't sent him anything since they met the past Friday.
"Creep," she texted him. Then threw her phone across the room.
--
She tried to put the video, and Jeff, that pig, out of her head the entire day, but Kelsey wouldn't let her.
Kelsey was her "work sister" and probably the best friend Lindsay had these days. As soon as Lindsay walked through the door, she pounced.
"So, did you call that guy from the other weekend back yet," Kelsey asked.
"No," said Lindsay, "And I don't think I'm going to, I think he's kind of a creep."
Kelsey's face fell. "I hope I didn't do that to you, I was asking the cards about it last night."
Lindsay laughed. Kelsey was an amateur spiritualist. What that meant more often than not was that she was downing a bottle of wine, lighting some candles, and flipping through an old Tarot deck.
"Yeah, and what did it say about my future love life?"
"You know it doesn't work that way," said Kelsey, slapping her on the ass. "It just gives me insights, and I think it's going to be a good year for both of us. Speaking of good years, did you hear about Mr. Eno's new comp structure? I think It's going to make it easier for us to..."
Lindsay stopped paying attention, she struggled to think about work when there was some creep with that video of her out there. What did he want? Money? To see her again? Just to let her know that he could do what he wanted? She determined that she'd give it another day, see what, if anything, he wanted from her, then figure out what to do next.
--
She woke early Tuesday morning, surprised that she slept so well. Mr. Eno's new comp structure actually had been pretty interesting, and she was positive it would mean a big end of year bonus if she kept tracking well over the next few months. She'd worked hard to understand the new system and keep up with her accounts, and was dead to the world by the time she crawled into bed, barely thinking about Jeff and his cameras.
Lindsay stretched and looked at her phone, there was a message from Jeff waiting for her. She hesitated briefly, then opened the message.
Jeff: "What are you talking about?"
What was his game? Did he just want to hear her say that she'd found it before he jumped into whatever he was doing? She'd have to think about what to do next. She put her phone down on her bedside table and heard something go clattering to the floor. She looked over the edge of the bed, it was a flash drive, bright red this time, with WATCH ME printed in white letters on the side.
She scooped it off the floor and flew to the old Dell that was still sitting on her kitchen table. She plugged in the flash drive. This one contained two files, Friday.mp4, the video from yesterday, and Heights.mp4. She opened Heights and waited for the struggling computer to load the video.
"Thanks for the Memories" written in white text once again flashed on the screen.
The video then faded in on another high shot of an empty apartment living room with mismatched furniture and a stained rug. A bottle of Capitan Morgan was sitting, half full, on one of the end tables.
This room Lindsay recognized immediately. It was the place her best friend, Cat, lived while they were in college. The apartment had been called Hudson Heights, which explained the filename, at least. Cat had gone to a different school from Lindsay, but they still saw each other every few weekends in those days, and still kept in touch. She was married and had a young daughter now. This was bizarre.
