Leverage - Distraught

Sitting in my chair, staring at the screens of my computer, I was fighting that sleepy feeling as I tested a fail over sequence for one of our servers. We were in that period of the year where a lot of folks went on vacation, as a result there were no interesting projects and I was simply going through the motions, preferring to be on some desert island rather than were I was.

My name is Garret and simply said, I am an older fella, fighting the feeling that I was over the hill, fast approaching my 50th year of existence...and a little depressed about it. It was not like I was out of shape as I worked out like a fiend, nor was my hair turning grey (short cropped as it was), but I could not quite get away from the feeling of knowing my best years were probably behind me. Sigh.

I have a nice family, and a steady job that I enjoyed, but variety had somewhat left the building as my wife was rather...disinterested. Sex had become almost non-existent over the last decade, kids having killed the fire that used to burn very bright, and when it did happen it was the same position, same length of time, and identical foreplay. Any attempts at spicing things up had met with my sleeping downstairs, so I simply gave up even trying. I almost dreaded it at times, preferring to use my hand and imagination to take me to a blissful conclusion.

I had even used recreational sports like softball and basketball to fill my evenings, staying out late, to avoid the obligation as she seemed to feel it was these days. I missed the coed softball teams most of all, as there were many fine looking fillies out there, seeming to wear less and less as the years rolled by. My bad knees and other sore joints had recently stolen that pleasure away from me, the price too high on my body to continue, which only piled on to my current doom and gloom mood.

The phone buzzed at me, abruptly jerking me out of my cup half empty moment, with a call from the reception area. Huh? Did I have a visitor? Probably just a sale person looking to get a meeting with anyone in the IT department, wonder if it was too late to hide? I answered the phone anyway.

"This is Garret"

"There is someone here to see you sweetie!" our overly cheerful receptionist and general busy body informed me. Candice was sweet, but with her around, there were no secrets. She was THE information pipeline here at work, gossip extraordinaire.

"Who did they say they were if I might ask?" I inquired as nicely as I could.

"She did not say who she was, just that she would like to speak with you if at all possible. She looks to be around your daughters age." She said in a disapproving tone.

What did I do to deserve that attitude? And since when did I have young women visiting me at work. Huh.

I stood, made sure everything was tucked in, and prepared to head to the reception area. I wondered if I would have to suck my stomach in...that was kinda juvenile of me to even think of. Old habits die hard.

Okay, off I go...

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Upon entering the reception area I didn't see anyone waiting for me. I looked questioningly at Candice, who simply pointed a finger out the front doors towards a woman sitting with her back turned towards are building. All I could see was long black hair and what looked like colorful hospital scrubs.

"Did she say who she was or what she wanted?"

"No, she seemed very antsy and nervous, like she would up and bolt at any moment. She's a pretty young thing, but that skittishness is not an attractive trait in my opinion"

"Okay then, guess I will head out and see what she wants?" That question was more for myself as I wondered who this woman was. Is this a paternity suite in the making and this is a long lost daughter? Maybe the government finally needed my skills as a computer nerd in some top secret assignment to save the world! Ya, right.

I pushed the door open and walked towards her, scuffing my feet a couple of times so she could hear me coming.

"Uh...hi?" Wow I am smooth, so smooth.

As she turned, the first thing to strike me were her eyes, a green so startlingly brilliant it was hard to imagine they were real. They seemed to peer right through you and into your own deepest, most personal thoughts...whoa, I hope not or I am gonna be real embarrassed. They were framed in a beautiful dark skinned face surrounded by black, gently curled hair that spilled over her shoulders. She was currently chewing on a strand nervously as she turned towards me. I was looking at a modern day gypsy, straight out of the hunchback of Notre Dame, or some caravan in Romania, a fortuneteller's hot daughter.

And wow, even with scrubs on, she was mouth wateringly gorgeous. It was then that she smiled, which lit up her face as she recognized me.

"Garret, been a long time, still playing ball?" She looked at me questioningly.

Holy crap, I knew this Goddess?!? "Anna? I did not recognize you with your hair down like that, it was always in a braid"

"Ya, that is how I wear it normally, especially at work because it gets in the way, but I let it down as soon as I leave."

"Well, what brings you by? Looking for a tour of the place? Or are you looking for a player for a tourney? I might be able to brush some of the rust off, but I have to warn you, I am semi retired"

Her face fell at that point, returning to the earlier look of nervousness, eyes glistening with the beginnings of tears.

"I need your help. Is there some place we could go to talk in private?" she asked, voice quivering slightly. Whatever it was was really chewing her up inside.

I glanced at my watch. It was late in the day, another couple of hours and I would be heading home anyway.

"Give me a few minutes" I said as I turned to head back inside. "You want to come in with me?"

"No, that's okay, I'll wait here."

I hurried back into the office, ignoring Candice's questioning, and non approving, look as I turned the corner towards my work space. I let the other guys know I was leaving early, but would check back in later. I told them I had a "code blue", which means I needed to go help someone with a computer issue that did not work here. Management did not approve of that kind of thing, nor did I want my wife to know I was spending time with a pretty lady, so this was a bro-code alert to cover all my bases.

I closed everything down, texted my wife that I had a work issue to deal with and that I would be home late, then grabbed my things and headed out the back entrance. I caught Anna's attention so that she would come around and meet me...less prying eyes to see us as well. Once she got over there, I recommended a small Italian place in town a few miles away. The place had small booths with old fashioned wood wings that provided a nice amount of privacy, plus with all the white noise in the place, . It was out of the way in a darker, seedier side of town that nobody I knew frequented. I liked to go there for a drink so I could read and be alone from time to time.

She thought that was an excellent suggestion, and that she would follow me there. I was careful on the drive over that I did not lose her in traffic, so it took us a bit to get there. Once we arrived, I requested a booth in the back from an older waitress that raised her eyebrow at me after checking us out, but otherwise made no other comment. Once we were safely ensconced in the booth, which was quite private, Anna seemed to relax a bit. Her smile, somewhat shy, now had returned, though she still looked on the verge of tears. It was hard for me to see her like this, my previous memories of her were very different...

...Anna had joined the coed softball team I played for about 4 years previously, where I was nicknamed "Dad"...little bastards. Anyway, she was a looker, not burly or beefy like a lot of female softball players are, but definitely curvy. She was almost comic book curvy...almost. She was a great athlete, very aggressive and spirited, and of course very fun to watch for a lecher like me. Even then she had had a gypsy wildness quality to her when she played and I am sure I was not the only one distracted by her.

One game in particular, she showed up just before game time and was hurrying to get ready. I had already warmed up, so was sitting on the bench chatting with team members, just shooting the breeze. I glanced over to my left and saw her standing there. She had pulled her shorts up, showing a considerable amount of shapely thigh, then bent over at the waist to begin applying mosquito lotion to her legs. I was frozen, staring at her hands as she applied the lotion to her legs, watching as her hands moved up to the bottom of her ass on one leg, before bending over again to apply lotion to the leg closest to me. About half way up on the second leg, her hands stopped, so I looked up at her face and realized that she was staring at me. Busted. She grinned at me with a wry little smile, winked, then finished applying the lotion. I proceeded to pick up my jaw and wipe the drool off of my face. It took me a year to get that image out of my head, if I ever really had.

Okay, back to reality.

"Garret, I got your number from our coach. I remembered that you were into the computer thing and I hope you can, or will, help me." She was wringing her hands and not quite meeting my eyes. "I am being blackmailed" She blurted.

"What?!? Seriously?"

"Yes, started a month back with an anonymous email to me and the guy I was sorta seeing at the time. They threatened to release some pictures if we did not meet their demands"

"So I take it these pictures are sensitive in nature?"

"Ya, particularly because he is a married man and a doctor where I work" she said miserably.

Okay, that made this pretty clear for me. Married guy, huh.

"They wanted money from him, which he gave them, and they have left him alone since. Of course now he will not have anything to do with me as a result, like it is my fault. I thought that would be the end of it, but then they sent me another note and this one had nude pictures of me which they threatened to send to the hospital management if I did not do what they wanted."

She continued to tell me that they must have hacked her computer to get those, but she could not figure out how they had done it. She was not as worried about those, as they were more like modelling pictures, but when she had shown up with money to give them, they changed their demands. One of the guys made her do something for him right there and then, promising that that would be the end of it. To make matters worse, while she was complying with the first guys demands, another guy then joined in, further humiliating her.

The two men had then pretty much had their way with her, afterwords telling her they would be in contact. A week later, a DVD had shown up in the mail without a return address, currently in her laptop, but she had been able to get herself to see what it contained. This whole story had been delivered to me with her head down, tears falling into her lap, barely holding it together. When she looked up, I realized that it had all taken quite a toll on her, as her cheeks were sunken in with a hollow look to her eyes I had not noticed before. It was a long way from that full of life softball player I knew from before.

I already knew I was going to help her, but I had some ground rules.

"I will help you get these assholes, but you have to promise me a few things."

It almost broke my heart to see the glimmer of hope in her eyes as she listened to me.

"I will do everything I can, but if this looks like it might get dangerous or violent, we will have to go to the police, no exceptions. I know what they have threatened and that they seem to know your every movement, but we will try to break that hold on you. Would you be okay if I asked someone I know to help? "

"If you trust them, then I will trust them" she replied, sniffling and trying to wipe away the tears.

"Okay, if you have that laptop with you, lets take a look at what these bastards have done and how they did it"

-----------

A quick scan of her laptop made a few things pretty obvious: for one she was not security conscious. The bad guys did not have to be master hackers to get into her laptop, which they had done through an "unsecured" admin account (the password was indeed...password), adding an additional back door account as well. With those they could control her laptop at will.

I quickly scanned the emails that had been sent to her via a random gmail account, most likely spoofed rather than created. They were pretty tame at the beginning, but got bolder with repeated success. That was when I saw the first of her modelling pictures. Oh my word, she was one of those rare women that looks even better naked than you expect, her body nearly perfect in every way. It was all I could do to close them, knowing full well she was closely watching my reaction to the pictures, probably thinking I was judging her. Inside I was yelling "Damn!" and "Wow, look at those...!" but I had to keep that bottled up...Joe Cool man, Joe Cool.

Trying to keep myself from blushing, I reached for my tool kit and brought out a few items. First a low tech fix: some black electrical tape over the camera.

"They were activating your camera remotely, watching you over the internet basically"

"Oh shit, I have that open in my bedroom all the time?!?"

"Sorry, little late but at least you know. They also compromised your admin account, but I have fixed that, plus disabled another backdoor account they were using. Now I need to do a couple of scans for bots"

"Backdoor? That sounds a little kinky...and what is a bot?" She asked.

Oh man, a sudden vision popped into my head, now supplemented by the pictures I had just seen, of me bending her naked form over a chair and...down boy down! Even in the muted light of the restaurant booth, I was sure she could see my face flush with sudden heat. Aware she was probably staring at me and my reaction, I tried to hide it by plugging in the flash drive I had brought out with the tape.

"Okay, my next step is to back up your stuff to this drive before we open that DVD, just to be sure it does not contain any malware or the like. Bots, by the way, are sneaky little programs that can be placed on your system by hackers to do all kinds of things, from as mundane as watching where you browse and reporting back to the mothership, to the really bad ones that allow remote control of your system, or even worse. Some can log your keystrokes so they can steal passwords...needless to say they are all bad."

"Holy crap, you computer people are a little scary"

"Now now, don't lump me in with them, I'm one of the good guys. Makes for a pretty interesting work spending time fighting these things to be honest."

Because we were on opposite sides of the table, it was a little awkward working the computer keyboard so we could both see the screen. Abruptly Anna slid out of her side of the booth, stretching for a moment (wow), before sliding into the booth next to me.

"Better?" She asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Much!" I grinned.

She watched curiously as I ran the backup program to protect her files, then copied the backup file to the flash drive. I then pulled the flash drive out and set it next to the system, before reaching for my bag again for another flash drive.

"Okay, this one has basically the computer version of 409, cleaner and anti-virus software."

I rebooted her system, booted to the flash drive and scanned both her system and the DVD. Her system had some malware, one of which was a keylogger...probably how they got her passwords. Satisfied that the system was clean, I started her laptop up normally this time.

"Do you ever use this at work?"

"Not really, only sometimes to check email or download my schedule, but I do that from home"

"Hmmmm"

As Anna watched what I was doing, she had scooted closer to me so that our thighs were touching, leaning against me slightly as she watched. I could smell the shampoo in her hair and some other exotic scent I did not recognize. Wow she smelled good. Focus Garret, focus man!

"Okay, time to look at this DVD. Sure you want to do this? And more importantly, do you want me to see it? I don't want to embarrass you or make you feel uncomfortable" I said.

Anna blushed, looking down at the table for a moment before replying.

"Garret, I have always known you to be a gentlemen, both when we played softball together and the few times we ran into each other at the bars. Besides, you have now seen me naked, so what is the point of trying to hide anything? So, I guess I am saying that I trust you and appreciate the fact you are trying to help me here. Lets get this over with, so we see what we are up against."

"Okay, here goes"

As I opened up a file browser to look at the DVD's contents, I felt her hand on my leg, gripping it hard, and her other hand link into my arm, pulling herself closer. Before I had even done anything, she had positioned herself so that she was peeking at the screen from behind my shoulder, acting afraid of what we might see. I stopped and looked down at her, raising an eyebrow. She looked a little sheepish, but did not let go, instead pressing her lips together and nodding her head. To be honest, the fella downstairs had definitely woken up. I now had a beautiful, voluptuous woman with her breasts pressed up against my arm, her scent filling my senses. How the hell could a man concentrate?

Not trusting myself to speak, I instead clicked on the DVD. It spun a moment, then the contents were displayed. A folder labeled pictures and a single video file called "Anna part 1" and a single text file named "For Anna". I decided to open the text file first. Reading it quickly, I realized it was pretty much the same wording as the emails, containing threats to not tell anyone else, go to the authorities, etc. I glanced at Anna and noticed her eyes were glistening again. I am gonna get these assholes I silently vowed to myself.

I made sure the sound was turned way down, before I went ahead and opened the video file. Anna's hand on my thigh dug in as she clenched her hand, fearful of what the video might contain.

The video opened, showing a small, nearly empty room, one light shining from the ceiling, illuminating the only furnishing there: a mattress. From the angle dark blurs at the edge of the screen, it seemed as if the camera was looking out from a closet or something, maybe a hole in the wall perhaps. After about 30 seconds of no action, a person walked past the camera from the left and into the room, followed by another person, a woman...Anna. While you could tell that both of them were arguing, there was no sound.

The video jerked a few times, pretty obvious that it had been edited, until the Anna in the movie lowered her head and began to strip. She continued until she was completely naked, then stood there, trying in vain to cover herself up. Still no sound, I watched as she lowered herself down on the bed, spread her legs, then haltingly began playing with herself. The sound from the video abruptly came on at that point.

"Yes, I am a slut." she said meekly on the film. There was a pause and a muffled command from the right.

"Yes, I am a slut and I want to suck your cock, please?" she said plaintively, though in a robotic fashion, still playing with herself.

The man came back into the camera's view this time, naked, but his head was blurred. He then got down on the mattress with her, down on his knees. He then reached over and grabbed a handful of Anna's hair, pulling her up onto all fours in front of him, stroking his cock with the other hand. A brief look at Anna's face as she tried to turn away, showed her disgust at what she was being forced to do, no matter what words they had made her use earlier.