Julia, Ben and Lisa Ch. 13

She reached over and took my hand, got up and kissed me on the cheek.

"I do love you Ben. The fact you'd get involved in this mess for me...you're just amazing."

"But you're not sold?" Julia sat back down with a thump.

"Well, I wanna be, but maybe not completely yet. I agree with you that Louise is the key, that she's our leverage. But the idea...I don't know. Like first, would he really give us everything? I mean what proof would we have? He's got it all backed up for sure. So he tells us it's everything and meanwhile every Tuesday night he's up in some den jerking off to me and James on the carpet."

"Oh, right...but the texting to you would stop."

"Probably, yeah it probably would. Still, knowing he'd still have the video...that he's using me that way...I can't stomach it. I mean it literally. Makes me wanna puke. Plus those nanny-cams? He's gives us the ones he's got? Right back to the store to get more for the next girl."

I wasn't crazy about my plan getting shot down, but there was something to what she'd said. It had been too easy to focus just on his abusive texts, and forget the reality behind them. I thought for a bit, mentally arranging my deer-stalker cap at a jaunty angle. And I got it again.

"Then what if we don't threaten him? Skip that part. We...I mean I would still do it...I go right to Louise and blow the whistle on him. She'd have to find the cameras once she knew where to look. Boom. Find the videos too, finds everything. Boom. She divorces him. Boom. He's no longer rich."

Julia smiled. "Well, I do like that one more, love to see that little worm suffer. But see, he's still got the videos, right? Now he has even more reason to hold them over me, cause I ruined his marriage and his job. I don't see the texts stopping then, I see more of them. More like I'd have to go to the police, and you know I don't want that."

"Or a lawyer. I could pay. Like, a whatchamacallit, like cease-and-desist thing."

"Which means a judge, which means lawyers and the police, which means, cease-and-desist what?"

"Oh." She had me stumped.

"What I wish, I wish we could get some dirt on him that wasn't about me and James, some information where we threaten to tell Louise and give her evidence, but it doesn't involve me. I know it's selfish. Some other poor girl? But I just can't..."

"I know. I understand." And I really did understand. Julia had gone through enough with this guy already.

"But it's more than being selfish," she went on. "It really is. Ever since that night Mrs. Anderson hates me. I just know it. If you had seen her face. It was frightening. She hates me, hates my guts. What if she gets her hands on them, on the videos? What would she do? Would she watch them? Would she keep quiet about it? Or maybe accidentally on purpose lets the world know about what I did? Starting with my parents."

"She already could do that. She saw you."

"Yeah. But that was once. This is like I don't know how many. I worry about it. What if she's just barely controlled the anger up till now? Remember Mr. Anderson said a bunch of times to avoid her? No problem with that one. But we add these videos of me to the mix and I feel like she'd freak, that she'd flip out big time."

"Umm, yeah. But even if we had evidence like with some other girl, won't we still have the problem of his backups? And him buying new cameras?"

"Yeah. We do. Unless we can somehow get him to prove the backups are deleted too. Unless we put the fear of God into him about buying new equipment. And unless we make no more texts or contact with me part of the deal."

"We could hack into his computer."

"We could?"

"Well, I didn't mean me. I don't know that stuff. And not you I guess. But someone could."

"Maybe."

And we were back to the start. We sat glumly, looking at the pool and the big elm trees that bordered her yard. Bobo wandered over towards the house for a drink from his bowl and then came back to position beneath us.

Julia checked her watch. "Oh crap. It's 6:30 already. We can't just sit here forever." She looked over at me and took my hand. "Let's get something to eat and call it a day. I mean you've been so good to me to talk this through. I don't know what I'd do without my man to help guide me in this. You're just so good to me." I leaned in and kissed her cheek.

Now she smiled, "And don't think I've forgotten about tomorrow either, about you and Angela."

"No, I should cancel, be here with..."

She glared at me. "Don't you dare. I'd never forgive either one of us if we let that poor girl down." She slumped back in her chair and said, "Let's not argue about it. I'm bushed. This stuff takes it out of me. You too I bet. But the date is sooooo on. So let's eat, get a little brain dead time in front of the TV and then an early night. I want you to have all sails unfurled for this girl tomorrow."

So we did just that.

I got to bed in my own room around 9:30. I realized that I was well past my masturbation cut off time, the one Julia had given me earlier. But to tell the truth that wasn't a problem for me. All I could think about was Julia, about the horrible man who was hurting her, about our conversation. And about how much I loved her. Of course I thought about Angela too, and how exciting that was. But in the end I kept coming back to my cousin.

I was falling asleep around 10:15, all of it swirling in my head despite how tired I was. And miraculously a lightbulb went off. My brain had gone back to her saying, "If only we had something with another girl." As soon as the words flitted through my brain I bolted upright in bed. It hit me. I let it sit. It hit me again. It was right. I was right. I actually said it out-loud to myself. I was going to be the other girl.