One

Wynn

 

 

 

 

"What do you mean there were cameras?" I asked, carefully cutting into the unicorn-colored bagel filled with confetti cake frosting—little pieces of flower-shaped sprinkles that were almost cheerful enough to give us both some hope.

We'd made a habit of eating fun, trendy treats when we got together. It made our otherwise underwhelming lives feel mildly more interesting.

Except for the pickle ice cream.

We don't talk about the pickle ice cream.

It was a bright but cold Tuesday morning—the kind of cool that sank into your skin, into your bones, no matter how many layers you piled on.

We were sitting in our favorite coffee shop with its farmhouse-chic decor—painted white hardwood floors with just enough scuffs from high heels and impatient children's sneakers to give it a little character and history, ship-lapped walls in a variety of different rustic stains, and mismatched tables and chairs—at our favorite spot near the window.

We waited an hour to get in, but in our opinion, it was worth the wait. We liked to park for a while, chase away the blues that came with the most useless day of the week, while being able to watch the foot traffic, window shopping off of moving mannequins because we both knew we couldn't afford to buy anything as frivolous as new wardrobe items when neither of us had chosen degrees that guaranteed financial freedom. We found ourselves both recently graduated with crippling student loan debts and very few prospects for paying them off without ending up in some soul-sucking dead-end type situation.

Perry had it worse than I did. What with her track record of never staying at any one job for longer than a few weeks and all. Though, if I were being honest, I was steadily catching up to her, finding that my dozen or so side gigs were simply not going to cut it long term. Hell, it wasn't really even cutting it now.

I loved my mother more than words for always encouraging me to follow my passions in life, but with the cold hand of grown-up responsibilities holding me in its unyielding grip, I was starting to wish she'd maybe told me that yeah, it was great for me to fiddle around with art in my free time, but that it would be wise to get a degree in accounting or law or freaking library sciences. Something, anything that made me any kind of money.

Bless her hippie heart.

Unlike her, I didn't have a stable, sensible sort of man who worshipped the ground I walked on, who happily let me fiddle around in my craft room while he lovingly took care of all the less fun parts of life.

Like paying the light bill that had started calling four times a day. And when they went past three, they were about a week away from blanketing your world in darkness. The fact that I knew this—and had a cheap candle collection at hand for the possibility—really just showed where I was existing, socio-economically speaking.

I was half-tempted to take pictures of my feet doing weird things and selling them to the foot fetishists on Instagram.

And I was only half-joking about that.

"I mean there were cameras. Like... everywhere."

Perry, well, she was one for dramatics. Which was fitting, since she had majored in it, spent her weekends clutching her chest in Shakespeare plays on off-off-off Broadway shows or screaming in D-horror movies made on a shoestring budget that made shaky-cam found footage films seem high quality.

To people like Perry, very little didn't require big eyes or stunned gasps or, well, very overblown embellishments.

"Everywhere... where?" I asked, figuring she simply meant on the perimeter of the house to deter criminals. Or mailmen from tossing your packages from the window without getting out of their little trucks.

"Well, there was one in the kitchen, the dining room, the den, the study, the billiard room, the conservatory..."

In case it wasn't clear already, Perry had been working in a small ecosystem that dared to call itself a single-family home. Twelve-thousand square feet for one full-time resident, one part-time resident, and a couple house workers who came and went on their own schedules. What one person could do with twelve-thousand square feet was beyond me since I struggled to fill up a very generous nine-hundred square foot apartment.

"You're sure they were cameras? Rich people have those little motion sensor things mounted in the corners of rooms to set off their alarms when they are not around," I reminded her.

"Oh, he has those too!" she told me, bright silver-blue eyes going big.

I really hoped she made it big someday. Or at least landed a steady gig on a popular TV show or something. It would be a real shame if more people didn't get to see her unique face full of sharp angles light up when she was speaking. I'd never met someone with such expressive eyes, or brows that seemed to have conversations all by themselves, or a mouth that pulled off a pout like I hadn't seen outside of old black & white movies, or her long, shining black hair that was practically its own character on her very body.

"But there are cameras too. Hidden cameras."

"Not too well hidden if you found them."

"I used to work as a nanny. I know a hidden camera when I see them. And, you know, when you are literally solely responsible for the life of someone else's offspring, a hidden camera is expected. But what the heck does he need cameras for?"

"He's rich. Rich people have expensive things."

Perry, having grown up in the humblest of humble households, sometimes struggled understanding how the one-percent lived. And, really, who could understand the dick-measuring contest that was buying bigger and bigger yachts just to show up some other guy in the marina?

The rich were as incomprehensible to me as people who willingly gave up carbs.

"I guess. Maybe. I just didn't like it. It freaked me out. I mean, what if he was sitting in his fancy office in the city staring at me while I wiped down his kitchen counters? It was just creepy."

That right there was one way Perry and I differed.

She heard hidden cameras and men watching from behind screens and she thought freaky and creepy, got goosebumps down her arms and across the back of her neck.

I got goosebumps too.

But of a completely different kind.

The kind that positively shivered across my skin, that set my nerve endings up in cold flames, that sank in and warmed up as they moved through flesh and tendon and muscle, as they settled down into my very bones. Burning hot. A blazing inferno. Lighting my whole body on fire.

I'd briefly dated a psych major in my freshmen year who had decided to shrink me. In his case, shrink me down, though he liked to call it 'helping' me.

You're an exhibitionist, Wynnie.

One couldn't argue against that when there was clearly a lot of evidence to support the claim.

It's a disorder. It's a paraphilia.

One could say I was not a fan of being lumped in with pedophiles and people who wanted to fuck animals.

I drew a line in the sand at that. One where I was on one side and that asshole was on the other.

I mean, really, who was he to judge me on my fetish when he got off playing a stern teacher who whipped my ass with a ruler before jerking off on my tits?

People in glass houses shouldn't pull out their BDSM gear then call their furry neighbors 'freaks' at the block party.

I'd maybe gone ahead after that breakup—and a dozen or so drinks with Perry to celebrate my newfound singledom—and looked up my so-called 'disorder.'

It took about two pages before I decided it didn't apply to me. Since I had no childhood trauma or sexual abuse or even hyper-sexuality. I mean, I liked a good tour of the sheets as much as any other healthy, red-blooded, twenty-something, but it wasn't like I was rubbing one out every twenty minutes just to be able to think straight.

I just liked being watched.

I liked the power of that.

I got off on the idea of someone sitting there somewhere private and seeing me bend over, seeing my shirt spill open in the front, and getting off on me.

I liked it.

And I had as long as I could remember.

Way back to my high school days when I had left my curtains open so my next-door neighbor who was a grade higher than me could see me from his desk in front of the window as I slipped out of my clothes and walked around my room in nothing but a barely-there thong.

I could feel his eyes on me as I pretended to innocently move around my room, shifting objects here and there, checking my phone, dancing around to some music.

It had turned my body molten to see his hand slide under the desk, to see his arm jerking up and down.

It was my thing.

And I refused to be ashamed of it.

Even if it wasn't exactly common knowledge about me.

Perry didn't know. Because, well, when it came to sexual preferences, I was a bit old-school in that I thought that was the business of you and your sexual partners only. It was in the vault. Along with cock size and shameful personal confessions. I firmly believed the world would be a better place if more people respected the sanctity of the interpersonal vault.

"Perry, for that kind of money, I would let him sit in the room and watch me as I cooked him dinner bare-ass naked in high heels."

To that, her nose wrinkled up. "I mean, I am going to miss the money," she admitted. "But I stashed a lot of it away to hold me over while I look around. I think Sly's place is hiring."

Sly was her on-again-off-again boyfriend who thought rolling his own cigarettes made him cool, and claimed any music made after the nineties was complete and utter shit. I didn't care for Sly. And by 'didn't care for,' I meant that I had called him a 'useless, unfaithful, dickwad' to his face on more than one occasion. Yes, dickwad. I was bringing out the big guns for that particular animal. Aim, cock, shoot. Unfortunately, he seemed to have nine lives, and Perry loved each one of them.

"Would you be pissed at me if I applied for the position?" I asked, choosing my words carefully.

"Wynn, what if he is like... selling the footage?" she asked, literally placing a hand against her lips as though this was just an all-too-shocking idea.

"Well, at least I would feel like I'd been paid well for it. I mean... Per, I could really use that twenty-five an hour. I am drowning. I can handle a paranoid boss with a security fetish."

To that, her face sank, likely thinking about her own bills piling up on her kitchen counter. They were just going to keep coming. We both understood the grueling pace of this particular hamster wheel.

"I won't be pissed. Of course not. But, like, maybe bring some pepper spray with you to work if they hire you? I just don't like those cameras. They give me the heebie-jeebies."

They gave me the hot-and-bothereds, but I wasn't going to admit that. Even best friends were entitled to their secrets.

"Was it a pain in the ass to get the job?" I asked, even though I figured anyone could be a house manager if they, you know, knew how to manage their own household. How hard was it to make sure toilet paper was ordered before you ran out?

"No, I mean, I never even met with the owner. I talked to Elsbeth, who is the cook. I guess because she's been around for ages, they used her to do the first round of interviews. And from there, she moves you onto Blake. He's the younger brother to Fitzwilliam Buchanan."

When she spoke of him, she always used his full name. Fitzwilliam Buchanan. Like he was some big celebrity. From what I understood, he was just some investment banker guy who was born rich then managed to make himself even richer in the years since his father passed. Maybe that meant he deserved a respectful Mr. Buchanan. But I thought the whole name thing was a little silly. I mean, most people referred to presidents just by their surnames.

This man was no leader of the free world.

He was likely just your run-of-the-mill average old dude with silver hair and the silver spoon shoved up his ass to match.

"Was Blake as pretentious as his brother's name is?" I asked, reaching for my half-cold coffee, grimacing a little as the sugar-free caramel met my tastebuds. Hot, you barely even noticed the artificial flavor of the sugar-free stuff. Cold, though, it stripped everything down to their base notes. And sugar-free caramel's base flavor was, well, chemicals. I tried to convince myself it was a healthier choice to have since we were sharing the frosting bagel. All the while I knew I had a fresh bag of Cool Ranch off-brand Doritos waiting for me on the counter at home, daring to call itself my dinner.

"I think his name is kind of romantic. Like some hero from a bodice-ripper. But, no, Blake is actually nice. Charming."

Nice and charming.

Why she was dating Dickwad Sly and not Blake Buchanan was beyond me. It sure wasn't because Blake wouldn't have wanted her. All guys who liked the fairer sex liked her. It was a law of nature. The sun rose, boobs floated in a pool, and men liked Perry Pearlman.

Maybe Blake was blond.

Perry didn't like blonde.

She quipped it was why the two of us could never be together. That, and not, you know, the fact that both of us were straight.

"Did they need a physical, blood test, and the promise of your firstborn son?" I asked, scraping some frosting off the plate with a pad of my finger.

To that, she gave me one of her brilliant smiles—pearly whites that were somehow all hers without the aid of orthodontia or bleaching sessions at the dentist on full display.

"No, it was an easy interview. I mean, it wasn't like one of those stuffed-shirts interviews we did during our sophomore year." Back when we thought working at a temp agency would be a good way to make cash. Honestly, we'd probably done it because we liked the idea of getting to wear fancy outfits to 'the office' every week. But sitting at a desk all day, answering phones, filing, pretending to know how to draw up a spreadsheet, it all got old pretty quickly. "He mostly just asked questions about multitasking and what kind of manual labor you are willing to do or not."

"What? Did the job require laying bricks or something?"

"Just general cleaning. There is a cleaning service that comes in once a week to do the deep stuff, but, apparently, Fitzwilliam Buchanan is a bit of a neat freak or something. He wants everything swept and mopped, and the surfaces wiped. And, I mean, the only other duties include making sure everything in the house is stocked and that all the staff members are doing their jobs. It was actually kind of nice to be able to move around and actually get something done."

"I can't believe you are leaving such an easy gig."

"I draw the line at spying. Makes me feel all squirrelly. But if it doesn't bother you, then, yeah, it is a sweet job. You can listen to music or audiobooks all day and get paid to do it. Plus, it's a beautiful house. I took maybe like fifty selfies with the soaking tub in the background. My heart aches, knowing it is sitting there, never being used. It should be a crime."

"Do you have the original contact information?"

"Yeah, I'll send it all over. Just... be careful, you know?" she asked, standing, slipping into a massive infinity scarf that had to have taken up four or five skeins of yarn, in a bright mustard yellow color that worked on her and most definitely did not work on me, much to my complete disappointment.

"I'm always careful," I reminded her, slipping into my jacket, bringing our plate and cups over to the mess station.

When it came to friendship dynamics, Perry was the one always kind of following her heart into the oddest of places, often needing to call me to come pluck her up out of a shady situation.

While me, well, I was home using every second of spare time I could find, trying to get more of a following for my art online so that I could eventually make a living doing that.

It was hard, but not impossible. I saw artists strike it big every day. And it wasn't like I was trying to make a fortune or anything. I just wanted to make enough so that I could do it full-time. Or only have to have a very part-time job on the side.

"Text me if you get an interview," she demanded as we moved out onto the sidewalk, the late fall air biting at our heat-accustomed skin.

"Will do. Send me the details to your next show," I told her, smiling as she did a little happy wiggle. It didn't matter to her that it was a very small-time play written by a guy we'd gone to school with, she was as excited as she would be if she landed a leading role in Phantom on Broadway.

That was one of the reasons we had managed all the ups and downs of our college years and beyond. We were both incredibly passionate about our chosen professions. Even though they weren't giving us what we wanted. Yet.

Eternal optimists, despite the often crushing reality.

I had just set up a fresh canvas in my spare room that was too small to have the audacity to call itself a bedroom, but worked rather beautifully for a studio, when my phone rang, bringing with it the links from Perry.

Apparently, whoever posted the ad for help in the first place never bothered to take it down. Whether that was simply a lapse in judgment, or evidence of other people getting the job and getting creeped out about the cameras, and therefore perpetually leaving a position that needed to be filled, I had no idea. It worked in my favor, though, seeing as I couldn't exactly say where I heard about the job in the first place.

Ten minutes later, I had all the information filled out, turned off my phone, and got to work. I never got long between my odd jobs, so when I did have a little span of time, I disconnected from the world, wanting to be able to lose myself for whatever snippet of time I was able to.

I knew artists that got more inspired surrounded by hustle and bustle, who needed to blast music, who needed some other sort of stimuli to get in the zone. I envied them. I needed silence to focus. This was something I could likely blame my mother for. She believed art was a form of meditation. And anyone who ever got their Om on knew that silence was generally recommended or else your mind started to wander.

I figured art school would eventually rid me of finicky habits.

No such luck.

So I had no idea until three hours later while juggling four dog leashes—one belonging to the corkscrew-tailed, severely overweight (and happy about it, therefore completely disinterested in exercise of any sort) bulldog—that there had been a missed call on my phone.

"Shit shit shit. See, Hagrid," I grumbled at the bulldog who looked up at me blankly. "If I didn't have to drag you every step of this walk, I would have checked my phone sooner," I told him, reaching down to give his wide head a pat, something that usually motivated a couple more steps out of him.

I hit the play button, cradling my phone between my ear and shoulder, my heartbeat already skittering around. Some would call this nerves. Interviews of any sort had a way of doing that to you. But I knew better. I knew this feeling all the way back to when I'd casually left my blinds open in my dorm room knowing that the guy standing outside my first-level window was watching me as my hand slid down my body, as it started stoking a fire.

This was the anticipation of getting a chance to fulfill my need to be watched again. It had been so long that I was already fantasizing about what I might wear on my first day to work, what would be professional, but allow things to get a little heated should I find the right camera at the right time.

It wasn't where my head should have been, of course. I was practical—and broke—enough to know I couldn't screw around at work. Not really. I needed the money, which meant I needed to keep the job for a while.

I wasn't going to ruin it for myself.

But if I was supposed to be doing manual labor, I figured it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibilities that I might get hot and fan the air into my shirt, maybe accidentally lifting it a bit too high. Or reaching down to fix the vacuum cord into the little holders when my skirt was just a tad short.

Nothing crazy.

Nothing that would get me fired.

I was just going to tease the lines of propriety.

Just a little game.

Just something to give me a bit of a fix.

If he had cameras, he likely wanted a show.

Who better than me to give it to him?