Kasey's Confession Ch. 17

It felt like nothing had happened. I had no memory of that night and it seemed as if no one else did either. One guy who had been on the tape with me casually asked me, when we saw each other while getting coffee in the break room, "Did you see the game this weekend? Hell of a way to lose a game, eh?"

"Didn't see it," I confessed.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, you're not much of a sports fan."

That conversation, like every other one I had at the office, betrayed no knowledge or reference to my "other life" as Kasey the crossdresser who liked to go down on men.

As I walked out to the parking lot at the end of the work day, I felt as if maybe it could be like this. Maybe it really was as if it never happened.

Then I saw one of my co-workers, a guy named Tom, standing beside my car in the parking lot. I greeted him casually, asked him "What's up?" as I got out my keys. He had been one of the men I'd gone down on at the Halloween party.

"Let's take a ride," he said very plainly.

"A ride to where?" I asked.

"Just a little drive, so we can talk," he said.

I let him in the car and we started driving around the block. He was quiet for a moment, looking as if he were searching for the right words before finally breaking the silence.

"We all got a copy of the tape," he told me while looking out the window. "It was part of the arrangement, that way no one could edit themselves out of the tape and use it against the rest of us. That was a crazy night, and Chris was a real dick about not destroying the tape. It got kind of ugly and we came to this stupid deal."

"So, everyone kept a copy? What about Jeff?"

"Yeah, all of us guys who were there got a copy. Marci and Lisa got copies. There were some other people there, two chicks I think, but they didn't get a copy because they weren't in that, um, part of the movie, well, you know what I mean."

"So, just the party?" I asked, concerned about whether or not the additional footage of the birthday party stripper was part of the shared copy of the tape. The fact that Jeff had a copy without mentioning it when he helped me move was another issue altogether.

"Yeah, isn't that bad enough?"

I laughed nervously. "Yeah, that's bad enough. So, why are you telling me this now?"

"I know Lisa got killed Saturday, and Marci called me after it happened. We dated on and off for a while, you know, Marci and me. Anyway, she thought we should get together and destroy the tapes, which is fine if no one made another copy. The guys here at work agree with me, but the problem is Chris. No one trusts that motherfucker. And word is he put it on some amateur porn site on the web, although we've looked for it and no one has ever found it."

"Look, Tom, no one wants to make those tapes go away more than I do. Lisa gave me her copy just before she died. Then she told me about how there were other copies, but the thing is, if everyone destroys their copies, then according to your story, what keeps Chris from editing a cut that takes him out of it and makes everyone else look bad?"

"That's the problem, and it is a big problem, because we can't trust him. We know what he wants, and we're pretty sure he'll destroy his copies and let the whole thing die, but only if he gets what he wants."

"Which is?"

"All you have to do is stay away from his girlfriend, like completely. Marci said Chris proposed to her and the only reason she hasn't accepted is because of you. If you don't back off, and if she turns him down or breaks up with him, then he's going to make sure she sees the tape and who knows who else. None of us want that. We all want to pretend that shit never went down, you get what I'm saying?"

"I get what you're saying, but no deal. It sounds easy, but it isn't. I'm in love with Erica and it is very mutual. How can you ask me to walk away from her just so she can marry someone as twisted and evil as Chris? No way. We need to find another way."

"Erica might say she's in love with you, Keith, but what is she going to say if he shows her that tape?"

"I'm working on that."

"So, let me ask you something. Was that just a kind of a one-time thing for you? What I mean is, for the guys it was just a crazy, stupid, wild spur of the moment thing, but for you it seemed to be, I don't know, something more than that. I mean, you seemed to know what you were doing and all, and the way your legs looked and the way you walked in heels at the party..."

"Are you asking me if I dress up and go down on men all the time?"

"Well, not like all the time," Tom said, talking so fast that he started tripping over his words. "I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything, I'm just curious about whether or not you've... what I mean to say is, it seemed like you'd done that kind of thing before is all."

"And with if I have? And what if I do it all the time? Is that a problem for you?"

Tom got flustered by my response. "No, that's cool. I've got no problem with that or anything. Whatever you do is cool, I'm not judging you or anything. I just... I don't know how to put this... I just wondered if maybe I could come over some time and, well, maybe you could dress up kind of like you did that night and you know, we could just take it from there or whatever... you know, if that's cool with you and everything. I wouldn't tell anyone."

I smiled and told him, "Are you doing anything later tonight?"