Lip and Annie Ch. 03

"I didn't think it was possible for someone to have gone through life to your age without going on a date, but you have me convinced that your story is true. It has the ring of truth, and I don't have any questions for you." She laughed a bit and added, "At least you had the pleasure of breaking his nose. I hope it hurt him good. I don't have any sympathy for bullies or people who would pull that kind of stunt." When she finished speaking Annie reached over and patted his forearm in a quick expression of sympathy.

It was obvious to Robert that Annie had definitely made some progress, as she hadn't come that close to him even once in the time they had known each other. In the back of his mind he still realized that her friendship was probably predicated upon her desire to have a more normal relationship with a man than she had been capable of since her attack. He decided that even if the likelihood was that she would want less to do with him once she had regained her confidence, he would enjoy the time that he had with her as his friend.

After taking a deep breath Robert began the rest of his story. "This next part will probably have you thinking a whole lot less of me, but it is what it is. Just after I graduated from university with a degree in computer science, I decided to start a business designing and maintaining websites. I put advertisements all over the Internet trying to generate some customers. One day I got an email from someone called Yvette, who said she was part of a small group that was looking for some website design work to be done."

"My advertisements had my address, and Yvette offered to come over with her three partners the following Sunday to discuss their requirements. It seems that they were also located in Thunder Bay, so I quickly agreed to her suggestion. I never thought any more about it until my doorbell rang at two o'clock the following Sunday afternoon."

"When I answered my door I found four very good looking young women standing there, so I quickly invited them in. To make a long story short, the four of them were involved in an escort service, and they wanted me to design and maintain a website for the four of them to use for advertising and as a pay site for, well, I have to be blunt, pornography that they would produce themselves."

By this point Robert was slightly red in the face, and was clearly a bit embarrassed. He looked over at Annie to try and gauge her reaction to what he had said so far. She was sitting calmly, watching him, and when he didn't say anything further she said, "Go ahead Robert; I'm with you so far." Since he didn't see any sign of disgust or displeasure on her face, Robert continued with his story.

"It was obvious that the four of them had a pretty good idea of what they wanted their site to be like. They directed me to several other sites of a similar nature, and commented on changes and additions that they would like to have included in their own version of the pages. I made a lot of notes and a number of suggestions that they seemed to agree with, and before they left we had a signed contract for $1200 plus or minus 10%."

"In spite of the nature and content of the website, nothing they were asking me to do was in any way illegal, and frankly I needed the experience. They left me a DVD with a number of short videos that they had produced themselves."

"The four girls were Yvette, Denise, Tiffany and Blanche. Don't for one second think that any of those were their real names. They regularly advertised in the local newspaper, and those were the names they listed in their ads."

Robert glanced over at Annie to see whether he had lost her yet, and when she nodded at him he continued, "It took me a week to put together a website that was pretty close to what we had discussed, with a section devoted to advertising their services, and a pay for entry portal set up so that interested parties could use a credit card to subscribe for monthly access to the videos and photos spreads that they had provided me with, and others that they would produce in the future."

Robert glanced over at Annie, who was still sitting there impassively. He continued, "I contacted Yvette and we made an arrangement that they would come by on Sunday afternoon. This was a week after their first visit. The job had taken me longer than I had expected, but because I didn't have much other work, and I was quite happy to work more than eight hours a day, I had managed to get quite a bit done in a week. It was actually a fully functional website incorporating everything that we had discussed on their first visit."

"All four of them were very happy with the results, and made only half a dozen change requests. I knew that they wouldn't take long to incorporate, so I left my price at $1200. In case you're wondering, the content wasn't over-the-top at all. There was nothing that was degrading or suggesting acts that weren't consensual. Yvette and Tiffany are a couple, so they did have a number of girl-girl scenes."

After he finished saying that, Robert happened to glance over to Annie, and could see her cringe and pull her coat tightly around her. He immediately realized that some of his comments weren't at all thoughtful, considering that he knew she had been raped.

"Oh God, Annie. I'm so sorry to have been so thoughtless. Here I was, going on and on without thinking about how you may be affected by what I was saying." Annie quickly glanced at Robert and could tell immediately that he was sincere. He almost looked close to tears.

"Please Robert, you don't have to apologize. I have to be able to learn to accept language like that. There was nothing you said that I haven't heard others say in the past. Sometimes just a word will bring back terrible memories, and I have to be able to get past that." Once again she reached over and gave Robert a pat on the arm. "Carry on with your story, Robert, and don't censor it for me."

Robert, of course, said okay, but chastised himself for his remarks, and decided to be more cautious with what he said in the future. Annie might have told him to say it like it was, but he had no intention of being careless again. After a few moments of thought he continued, "I explained to them that I would be able to host their website on my servers, and explained the monthly charges that would be applicable, and what they would cover. They were very quick to accept my prices and terms."

"They talked amongst themselves and came up with an offer that I guess I would be able to safely say, I couldn't refuse. They wanted to pay the $1200 fee for designing and creating their site by the barter system. Since they were equal members of their little service, and would share in the profits or losses of their website, they made me the offer of three 1-hour sessions with each of them in trade for my work."

He thought briefly about adding more details before saying, "I'll skip to the end and just say that's how I was able to lose my virginity, even without a date. The four of them referred to our times together as appointments, and that was precisely how they handled them."

When he finished his explanation, he looked back at Annie, and could see an amused smile on her face. After a moment she said, "Well, I see now how you can say that you never had a date, but were not a virgin. I can't imagine any man in his mid-20s turning down an offer like that." When she finished talking she laughed, adding, "I imagine you're still collecting payments from them for the monthly charges."

Now it was time for Robert to get very serious, and she could tell by the look on his face that she had stumbled upon a part of the story that perhaps wouldn't have been included in Robert's explanation. They had reached the off ramp for Hinckley, and as they pulled up at a stop light Robert said, "Actually, I've been accepting all of their payments for monthly charges and maintenance on a credit card account that they share in. The story of my arrangement with their escort service has a dark side that I wasn't going to bring up, but it deserves to be told."

"I had just completed my 'collection' of their original $1200 bill when I went to Toronto for a month to visit my sister and have a bit of a vacation. While I was there I got an email asking me to remove Blanche from the website completely; the escort service was now comprised of the three remaining girls only. I asked Yvette what had happened, but I never did get a response to my email. I did the work necessary to make the changes they wanted, and then I sort of forgot about the whole thing."

"About a month after I got back home from Toronto I went into a McDonald's for lunch, and it was one of those ones with a kids' play area. I had just sat down when I happened to notice a woman with a young girl two tables away from me. It was the woman I knew as Blanche. She had been the nicest of the four of them, and so I picked up my meal and walked over to her table. She was watching the girl, her daughter it turns out, playing, and she didn't notice me sitting down until I said 'Hello, Blanche'. To say she was shocked would be an understatement, and she quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard me."

"She let me know that she wasn't too happy that I had called her Blanche, as her daughter didn't know her by that name. I told her I was sorry that I had caused her concern, but she quickly let me know that no harm was done as she could now see that her daughter was out of earshot."

"We talked for a few minutes, and I asked her why she had left her partners. She finally told me she had left the business, and was leaving the next day for Kingston, where she had enrolled in an MBA program at Queen's University. She said the others planned on making the escort service their careers for the foreseeable future, but she had always intended to get out of it when she had enough money to finish her education. Then she let it slip that she had been diagnosed with... an STD, and was leaving a little sooner than she had planned."

Robert looked over quickly at Annie, and could see that she was deep in thought. He continued, "I asked her how that could be, as all four of them had been religious about the use of condoms. She explained that occasionally a condom would break, and she had been... coerced in one instance to engage in... behavior she had normally avoided. Anyway, after I found out that she had contracted something, I decided that any more 'bartering' with the remaining girls was just asking for trouble."

"In fact for the next year I had myself repeatedly tested for STDs, in case I had been infected by Blanche, or one of the others. Fortunately, I was in good health, but I did accept the whole incident as a warning."

He took another glance at Annie before finishing with, "And that's the end of my story."

They were just pulling into the driveway leading to the main entrance of the Casino Hotel when Annie said, "Blanche has HIV, doesn't she." She looked over at Robert, waiting for his confirmation of her statement. When he nodded his head she continued, "I can't imagine how devastating that must be to her, wondering if she'll be around for her daughter as she grows up. I had those tests too, and it was months before they could guarantee I wasn't infected. The waiting was terrible, as I'm sure you realize."

Robert was suddenly very somber, as he remembered his own concerns. "Yeah, that wasn't any fun, but at least I didn't have a specific serious incident to give me cause for concern."

Annie didn't respond to his statement which caused Robert to wonder if he had seriously damaged their budding relationship.

To be continued