Carol hadn't heard the name Norman Baugher in over twelve years.
She met him in Pasadena, California, back when she was working for Ninja Jump.
She moved to Pasadena from Orlando to take on the new job. Unfortunately it rained for days and she was alone in that city. The at dinner one evening at the bar she met Norman.
Norman was handsome, charismatic, and effortlessly persuasive, the kind of man who could make anything sound like a good idea, even when it wasn't.
Norman was candid at first, admitting he was still married. His wife, a flight attendant for a major airline, was rarely home, always in the air. Norman insisted they were separated, and though Carol had her doubts, the loneliness of Pasadena, and her quiet longing for connection, made it easy to suspend disbelief.
The last time she spoke to Norman was more than a decade before she met her husband, George.
After more than a year in Pasadena, she finally changed jobs and returned to Florida. It felt like a release. She was leaving behind a version of herself that had always teetered on the edge, reckless, alluring, and dangerously free. Norman was the embodiment of that past: wild, untethered, erotic. It was purely sexual with Norman no emotional attachment.
Carol explored her sexual boundaries with Norman and Norman had quite a number of kinky fantasies that he lived out with Carol.
For example, Norman was the only man to have had anal sex with Carol. Although anal sex did nothing for her, she felt compelled to give into Norman's desires for fear of losing the only relationship she had at the time, albeit one dimensional.
But it was Norman's financial advice, specifically, his enthusiastic push toward adjustable-rate mortgages when she was preparing her move back to Florida, that nearly led to her financial ruin. The market shifted, interest rates soared, and Carol found herself drowning in unexpected payments, scrambling to stay afloat. That was the breaking point. She severed all ties with him, no drama, no long goodbyes, just silence.
Norman became a closed chapter, a cautionary tale in her personal history, best left unread.
Or so she thought.
Twelve years later, without warning, a message appeared in her Facebook inbox. The sender: Norman Baugher. The message was short, jarring, and oddly accusatory:
"You're married???" As if in disbelief.
Carol stared at the screen, stunned. Then, without hesitation, she showed it to her husband George.
He shrugged it off but thought it odd after all this time he should send her a message of any kind.
After a few minutes of silence, she blocked Norman and unfriended him, thinking, hoping, that would be the end of it.
She was wrong.
The first message arrived days latter in her email, anonymous, just a couple photo attachments and a short message with no subject line. She nearly choked on her drink when she opened the first attachment.
It was a compromising photo of her.
Naked. Bound. Blindfolded. Legs spread; wrists tied above her head with silk rope. The image left nothing to the imagination.
She recognized the scenery immediately, Norman's old condo in Pasadena.
A rush of shame, fear, dread, and unwanted arousal hit her all at once.
She opened the second image, her face visible this time, clear and expressive, lips parted mid-moan.
Then a short message:
"I've missed seeing this version of you. I need to see you again. If you tell your husband about me, I will make sure he sees all the photos I have of you in various compromising positions. I'll let you know what I want you to do next, stay tuned. -N
Blackmail Begins
Over the following days, the demands from Norman came in slowly, one step at a time and Carol was forced to make up excuses to George in order to comply with Norman's demands or else.
For his first demand, Carol was instructed to wear nothing beneath a long beige trench coat and go to a hotel bar in the city, alone. Norman wanted a photo of her there, sitting at the bar, with several buttons strategically undone.
The next instruction made her stomach turn, she was to meet him at a specific time in a high-end hotel lobby, go into the unisex restroom, and kneel. There, through a cracked stall door, she'd perform a blowjob on him. Silent. Anonymous. She knew the consequences if she failed to deliver.
Norman didn't just want Carol's body; he wanted her shame. Her thrill. He made her send voice notes after each task, whispering how it turned her on, how it made her wet, what George would think if he ever found out. Whether she genuinely felt that was or not. She felt helpless to protest.
Carol was furious. Humiliated. But also, horrified to admit, a part of her was somewhat turned on in a way she hadn't felt in years.
Not because she wanted Norman, she didn't, but because the secret version of herself, the one who craved risk, surrender, taboo, was being forced back into the light.
But George... her husband. Loving. Trusting. He knew none of this. And that's what Norman was counting on.
Each threat ended the same:
"Tell George, and he gets the Dropbox link. 87 photos. 4 videos. You remember what you let me record, don't you?"
The Voice Message
Carol stood in her car in the underground parking garage of the Hyatt, trembling with her phone in her hand. Her trench coat was still buttoned tight, one of Norman's rules. No changing until she got home. No wiping off her lipstick. No calling George.
Her lips were swollen from performing long blowjobs for Norman, her knees still aching from kneeling on the cold tile of the hotel bathroom. She hated herself for submitting herself to Norman but she felt helpless.
Her phone buzzed again.
Norman Baugher:
"Well done, my pet. You still know how to serve me. You always were my best little sex kitten."
Another message came seconds later--audio this time.
She hesitated, then tapped play.
