The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

"Fuck you. Those pictures were fake, she's traumatized, and that's your first thought? 'What about me?' You fucking make me sick. Calling your own daughter a slut without even hearing her side."

"Your father --"

"My father what? I bet he's looking for them right now so he can jerk off --"

"Stop saying things like that. We didn't raise you that way."

"You barely raised us at all. Why are you calling me anyway?"

"Tell your sister she needs to have those pictures taken off the internet before people see them."

"Yeah, if they're on the internet, it's a little late for that now. Now, unless you have any other unrealistic requests, I've got things to do. Goodbye and never call me or Julie again. You're getting blocked. 'What about me' my ass."

She was yelling as I disconnected. I immediately blocked all the numbers for my parents. Turning around, Julie was standing in the doorway, phone in hand.

I had her unlock it and I blocked all the necessary numbers on her phone. She still had tears running down her face.

I just held her for a while. She stopped crying after a few minutes and just held on to me.

"I don't know if I can do this, Sonny. I don't think I can."

I didn't know what to say to that. "I'm here and we'll get through this, I promise. You're not going through this by yourself."

She just hugged me tighter. "She's right, people will think I'm a slut."

"Not the ones who know you. Everybody else can go fuck themselves."

"That's not how it works --"

"It kinda is, Jules. Look at it this way. There are eight billion people on this planet. Almost all of them will never know those pictures even exist, if they actually get put on the internet in the first place. Harlan doesn't have the balls to do that. What happened on Valentine's is one thing, he could call that a prank that went wrong somehow. Putting it on the web is deliberate. He's not going there, it's too hard to talk his way out of." I tried to sound confident.

"I'm scared. I don't know what to do."

"I can't imagine how you feel, Jules. But I'm here, I'll always be here."

"Thank you. I mean that."

"You're welcome and I mean that too."

The rest of the day was spent quietly. She ate surprisingly well. For the first time since Valentine's, she watched TV while I read.

It took a while for me to realize that the way she acted toward me had changed. Pre-breakup, she had been snarky, sarcastic, and sometimes totally dismissive. After the split, I thought she was just heartbroken and trying not to be ungrateful for letting her stay with me.

It wasn't just that, though. We were looking after each other again. It was a side of my sister I hadn't seen in a very long time.

The police closed their active investigation, saying there wasn't conclusive evidence to charge anybody. The letter the company sent Julie said basically the same thing. There were too many people around the computer to determine who was responsible. They were working on policies to avoid such events in the future. That's what they called it, an event.

The two people Harlan tried to blame, Elliott and Herman, were cleared. Neither of them were near the computer at the time. Unfortunately, blaming an innocent person is not an admission of guilt so they couldn't do anything to him.

Julie elected to take one last week of her PTO before going back to work. The therapist went over some things she could try if she felt overwhelmed. I made her practice them every day until she was doing them on her own when she felt an episode coming on.

In what had to be a first, Herman stopped by to see how she was doing and talk about her return. The company was anxious to have her return, probably to avoid liability issues.

When the day of reckoning came, Julie was a wreck from the time she got up. She locked herself out of her computer twice in the first hour. She slowly started to get back in her groove though.

Harlan and what friends he had left steered clear of us. There was a distinct change in the atmosphere on the floor, he wasn't as cocky as he had been. I was surprised at the number of people who made it a point to stop by Julie's desk and tell her they were glad to see her back. I think she was surprised too.

By Wednesday, things were as normal as they were going to get. Julie avoided the breakroom, she told me she couldn't bring herself to go in there. Most of the time, we ate by ourselves in the small conference room. Nobody complained.

We settled back into a routine at home. She had slowly relaxed her dress standards until it was not unusual for her to wander around in an extra-large T-shirt and underwear, usually without a bra. Even with the extra space, she would still gravitate toward the couch at night, watching TV either leaning against me or laying with her head on my leg while I read. I would sometimes watch TV with her, too.

For the next month, things stayed the same. We would go to work during the week, come home, eat, then stay in. On weekends, we cleaned, did laundry, went to the store, and ran other errands. There were no more nighttime visits.

It all changed in May. One of the district managers retired and Herman finally received his coveted promotion. He lobbied hard for Julie to get his job. She interviewed for it and thought she had done well. Herman was optimistic too.

Unfortunately, so did Harlan. He had to have known he didn't have a chance in hell, but it didn't stop him from trying.

The hiring committee went with an outside candidate. Ronald, "not Ron", started shortly thereafter. He waited until Herman officially left before showing his true colors. It was, to say the least, disappointing.

He became best buddies with Harlan. It wasn't long before the word got out that he liked dating his subordinates. He didn't let a little thing like being married stop him. He asked Julie out a couple of times, I suspected at Harlan's suggestion, and she somehow politely and respectfully declined. I managed to let him know, without crossing the line into insubordination, that I was not impressed. This did not endear either one of us to him.

Harlan became a little more bold with Ronald in charge. He had apparently learned his lesson from Valentine's Day as far as what he could safely get away with. He began strutting around like he was king of the floor, since Ronald would usually take his side in any disagreements that arose.

The turnover rate at our call center was generally on the high side. It's not for everyone and some people only did it while looking for a better job. Ronald quickly assumed the primary responsibility for the hiring process and his hires were the people he liked. Whether they were a good fit or not didn't matter. Most of them were young, female and single.

By Thanksgiving, we were a fucking mess. Most teams lost their best performers, either through attrition or transfer to one of his favored supervisors. The replacements we were getting were all over the place in quality. Most of us were struggling to meet the baseline KPI numbers now but he didn't seem to care as long as his friends were still friendly and Corporate wasn't breathing down his neck.

Leading up to the week of Thanksgiving, Ronald was on edge. Corporate was coming for their usual catered feast that week. A lot of the district managers would be in attendance, including Herman. There were almost always questions about the whys and hows. The drop in the KPI numbers was sure to invite even more.

Harlan and his friends now spent most of their time hanging out in the breakroom. I didn't realize the significance of this until Elliott caught up to me the Monday of Thanksgiving.

"Hey, Sonny. You might find this interesting." He then told me and Julie what he had overheard them discussing while he was calling his wife while on his break. It seems that Harlan was banging one of his CSR's girlfriends on the side.

Elliott's comment that "I wish I had recorded it so you could hear the shit he said." made Julie pull out her phone. She typed some notes and seemed a little distracted all afternoon.

That night, Julie spent a lot of time on her phone, doing searches. I let her be, sensing that she was on a mission.

During the visit by Corporate, everyone was on their best behavior. The following Monday, a quick visit to the breakroom netted overhearing Harlan talking shit about one of his "friends", the whole group having a good laugh about it. When I mentioned what I had heard to Julie, she perked up.

She explained to me that Elliott had given her the idea of setting up a hidden spy camera. Her research had indicated that Wisconsin had no laws against recording in a public place, such as a hotel lobby. Since the breakroom was open to all employees, it could be argued that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy and it met the requirement of a public place. I wasn't too sure about that interpretation but I also knew it wasn't going to stop her at this point. Her mood had improved since that initial conversation with Elliott and I was happy with that.

During our next trip to the store, we bought a cheap black lunchbag. Ordering from everyone's favorite online retailer brought a nice high definition spy cam and a small external battery.

After a little surgery on the bag, we had a workable spy cam. The mesh on the side of the bag hid the camera lens so that it couldn't be seen from a distance. The camera would store 36 hours of audio and video, which was more than enough for what we needed, since it would be pulled for download every night when we went home.

I lucked out on figuring out the perfect placement. The bag was noticed by Harlan's crew but it wasn't messed with because they saw me put it there. We didn't get anything usable the first day. However, we did get great video and audio, though.

The bag went back in the same spot the next day. We caught Harlan bragging about banging the guy's girlfriend again. Julie was ecstatic at the quality of the recording. I felt kind of bad about what we were doing. Harlan and his friend had it coming but she hadn't done anything to us. Hell, we didn't even know her. Julie justified it as bad decisions have consequences. She had to know what her boyfriend and his friends were like.

We also eventually found out that he still held a grudge against Julie, me, and Herman. He hated Ronald because he wouldn't get rid of us, and he had a lot of shit to say about Corporate because he felt he should have been promoted.

That was on top of all the talking he did about his "friends" when they weren't around. Most of his badmouthing centered around Amanda, Julie's former friend. I felt no guilt whatsoever over what this would do to her. They were apparently friends with benefits, as he put it, although she seemed to think they were exclusive.

Julie also let slip that Herman had confided in her that Corporate was less than impressed with Ronald. If it bothered him in any way, he didn't show it. Harlan still strutted around like he owned the place, his buddies still hung out with him in the breakroom, and our struggle to meet baseline still continued.

Once again, Ronald didn't get antsy until Corporate announced they were coming in for Christmas again. Herman wouldn't be in attendance this time, he was headed to another facility, but he let Julie know the schedule before Ronald knew.

By this time, we had serious dirt on everybody in Harlan's friend group and harem. Harlan's friends were just as enamored of him as he was of them, which is to say not much. Turns out, Amanda got around, too. Julie laughed at me when I admitted I had no idea girls were just as nasty as guys were, if not more so. Some of these people were about to get their ego murdered. I knew things about people's private parts I definitely never needed to know.

Corporate's Christmas catering was uneventful. We didn't get much in the way of incriminating footage.

The facility Christmas party was held off-site. Julie bought a cheap clutch purse which we modified for a camera. All in all, the party was a definite success, in more ways than one.

While we knew Ronald was married, he didn't have any pictures of his family in his office. We had no idea what his wife looked like until the party. Truth be told, she was actually kind of pretty, a little on the heavy side for some guys but nothing extreme. It didn't take long before she and Harlan were friendly with each other.

By the end of the evening, they were the best of friends. Ronald was too busy flirting with all the single girls to notice how much time those two were spending with each other. Amanda obviously wasn't thrilled but she did more than her fair share of flirting with the boss. We had it on video, all four hours worth of it. We couldn't get much audio, between all the ambient talking going on and the music, it was too noisy to get anything useful. The video more than made up for it.

I had planned on staying in for the week between Christmas and New Year's, I don't like drunks in public, but Julie coerced me to go to a party some of the people from work were throwing. I was a little concerned about Julie, since this was the time of the year when she found out about Harlan and all of her troubles started. She was really upbeat about the party though, again going all out in preparation.

The night of the party, she looked incredible. We had started going to the gym shortly after moving into the new place so she had toned up in a lot of the right places. I noticed it because I lived with her. The rest of the guys had no idea what she was hiding under her work outfits.

When we walked in, jaws literally dropped. Harlan did not look happy for a while, since his buddies seemed to be giving him a lot of shit about it. Ronald took his shot a couple of times and got nowhere. A lot of guys took their shot, come to think of it. They also struck out.

I spent a lot of time turning down invitations to dance. I was never a fan of it and I was too preoccupied with looking for video opportunities to spend time on the dance floor. We sat with Elliott and a couple of other married supervisors after a while. It was a great vantage point.

As the party was winding down, Julie and Elliott spent some time talking quietly. His wife was also privy to most of the conversation, so I wasn't worried that they were hooking up. Whatever it was they were talking about, it seemed to make everybody happy so I left it alone. If I was supposed to know, Julie would tell me.

Neither one of us had any alcohol at the party, although it was available. When we returned to the apartment, we went to our rooms to get ready for bed. I had just turned out my light and gotten settled when my bedroom door opened and she quietly entered. She invited herself to lay down next to me, nestling her head on my chest.

"Sorry, felt lonely." She did not sound either sorry or lonely. She felt nice and warm, and obviously braless.

"It's okay." It was, really. It had been almost two years since my ex left and the only sex I was having was with my right hand. Any company in bed was good company. Even if it was my sister.

Despite having a top quality mattress and box spring set, I was still stiff and sore when I woke up the next morning. We were spooned, my hand being held to her now bare stomach by her hand. There was no mistaking the fact that my erection was securely jammed in between her ass cheeks. At least, we were both wearing underwear.

The only thing she said was, "Good morning," as she got up. She smoothed the T-shirt she was wearing but not before I managed a really up close and personal look at her ass in the smallest pair of panties I'd ever seen. Compared to the view of it in her underwear the previous New Year's, this was infinitely more aesthetic.

For some reason, it made me incredibly horny. I was aware that we had grown emotionally closer over the last year. We no longer baited each other verbally like we used to, we hugged frequently now and were generally much more physical when expressing ourselves. I didn't think anything of it. This morning was the first morning I had stroked one out while thinking of Julie. The orgasm was amazing, the guilt aftewards not so much. I blamed the celibacy.

I don't know if it was just me or it was the both of us, but we kept a little bit of distance from each other for a couple of days after that. Slowly but surely, by New Year's Eve, we were right back to our usual behavior.

Again, I had planned to stay home but a call Julie received at about four in the afternoon called for a change in plans. She wouldn't tell me what was going on, only that we had to dress up and play nice for another evening. I suspected I wasn't going to like it when she gave me a big hug and promised to make it up to me later.

I was right, I didn't like it at all. We had been invited to Ronald's New Year's Eve party, along with Harlan, Amanda, his crew, and some other people from work. Even Elliott showed up, which was kind of unusual. He usually avoided these things because he preferred to spend his New Year's Eve with family.

Once again, we spent the evening hanging around with the older married couples, watching the young guys try to get laid, the girls avoiding certain disaster, Ronald hitting on single females, and Harlan and Mrs. Ronald getting very friendly whenever Ronald wasn't around. Amanda appeared to be having a lot of fun, disappearing for a few minutes with at least three different guys. Judging from the length of time they were gone, they won a blowjob for their dancing prowess. They seemed happy with their prize, anyway.

I also spent quite a bit of time avoiding having to dance. Julie thought it was really funny for a while, until Amanda started bugging me. Then it pissed her off.

For a day I thought would cause her some emotional discomfort, she didn't seem all that upset by it. Harlan stayed away from us, he knew we were there but he ignored us for the most part. His friends generally stayed away from us. All in all, I had had worse times on New Year's Eve.

While walking back to the car, Julie grabbed my hand. It wasn't like there was treacherous footing or anything like that. She again took my hand when we walked back up to our apartment, even though it wasn't necessary for personal safety.

Once inside, she gave me a long hug and a kiss on the cheek before thanking me for going with her. All of a sudden, I felt like a teenager again. I felt myself blush as I started getting hard, she blushed and stammered out a "Goodnight, Sonny," before disappearing into her room. I ended up stroking one out so I could go to sleep, I was so wound up.

We were awkward around each other the next morning. It took a day for us to get back to our usual level of comfort around each other. I noticed that she was much more relaxed now about her comfort wear around the apartment. On several occasions, I suspected she wasn't wearing anything at all under her T-shirt.

Slowly but surely, I realized that her leaning up against me had gone from occasionally to nightly, many times my arm finding its way around her while we sat on the couch. Her hand started making its way to my leg while we sat there, sometimes uncomfortably close to my little friend, who was more than happy at the prospect of some attention.

I suppose if I had thought about it long enough, I would have realized there was something going on with Julie. While her therapy had been going well, the sudden uptick in her mood was due to something else going on in her life.

The reality was that I was just glad we had made it through the holidays without a meltdown of any sort. Our parents left us alone. No surprise there.

After the visits from Corporate over the holidays, Ronald had been alternately upbeat and depressed, especially after conference calls from Corporate. He had started getting a little hardcore about some procedural things, pissing Harlan off in the process because it affected him the most.