Whatever Happened to Claire?

Brenda sat on the edge of the bed and watched with fascination as Derek slowly thrust into her friend. True to his reputation, he didn't last long. Vanessa was grateful for that. When he was finished, Brenda quickly ushered him out of the room. Vanessa lay in her bed staring at the ceiling.

"So? How was it?" Brenda asked excitedly.

"It hurt," Vanessa replied.

Brenda laughed. "I told you, it gets better. But hey, you did it! You're no longer a virgin! How does that feel?"

Vanessa smiled. "Dirty."

That first experience seemed to unleash something inside of Vanessa that she didn't know existed. She quickly earned a reputation as the campus slut. She lost count of the number of boys she brought back to her dorm room. For a time, it seemed like there was a competition between the two roommates.

She particularly enjoyed giving head. She found it fun to have such power over a boy's pleasure, and doing it made her feel dirty. She discovered she liked feeling dirty. After so many years of repression, she felt liberated, as though she were finally becoming herself.

When Brenda returned from Spring Break, she reported that she had an interesting experience in Las Vegas. She met a man who owned a pornographic website. After a bit of negotiation, he convinced her to perform on camera.

"You're kidding me!" Vanessa exclaimed. "You did porn? Why?"

Brenda laughed. "Because it was fun. It was something I've always fantasized about doing. And it paid really, really, well!"

"How much?"

"Two grand!"

Vanessa's eyes widened. To a poor college student, two thousand dollars seemed like a million. "So you had sex...with some random guy...on camera."

"Guys," Brenda corrected. "Eight of them, in fact."

"Holy shit! You did a gang bang?"

"Well," Brenda said, "not exactly. I just sucked them off. They put their dicks through a hole in the wall and I sucked them off."

"You're kidding me!" Vanessa exclaimed. "So you didn't even see their faces?"

"Oh, no, I got to meet them all beforehand. See, they make it look like it's just some random hole in the wall somewhere, but it's all staged. All the men are paid actors. Granted, they're not paid much, but then how much do you need to pay a guy to get his dick sucked?"

Vanessa scrunched her face. "Were they skeevy?"

"No, not all all," Brenda said. "They were all pretty cool. Very polite. Not bad-looking. And clean. They were all tested for STD's beforehand. I saw all the paperwork."

Vanessa shook her head. "That is so wild! And, I have to admit, kind of exciting! I can't imagine doing that!"

Brenda thought for a moment. "I could totally set you up if you'd like. Oh, man, they would love you! I have the guy's number who runs the website. His name is Roger."

Vanessa took a deep breath before continuing her story. She rested her head on his chest as she spoke. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, even in the darkness.

"Brenda and I ditched classes on a Friday and drove out to Vegas to meet him," she said. "She went for moral support, but he insisted she wait while he interviewed me. I was so nervous. You know how I giggle when I'm nervous. Throughout his interview, I couldn't stop giggling. Apparently, he thought it was endearing. He said his viewers would see me as a sweet and innocent 'girl next door.' He was charming and flattering. I was so stupid. I never gave a thought as to how it could all backfire. I just lived in the moment with no care whatsoever about the future."

"You were young," he said. "We all do foolish things when we're young."

"He said the name 'Vanessa' was too slutty for a girl-next-door type, so he called me Claire. I didn't really care, so I went along with it and played my part."

"So you did the shoot?"

She nodded, tickling his chest with her silky hair. They were silent for a long while before he spoke again.

"How many...guys?"

"Nine," she said. "I wanted to one-up my roommate, I guess."

He sighed heavily and continued raking his fingers through her hair. Nine? It didn't seem possible. The woman he knew was as sweet and innocent as she appeared. "It's okay, honey. We all do things we regret. It doesn't define who you are today."

"That's not all," she interrupted. "It didn't end there. It turned out that Roger was right about his viewers. They loved me. They called me the 'Giggliest Girl in Porn.' They wanted more. Roger offered me more money for a second shoot. I figured why not? So I went again. And again. And again. Each time, he offered more and more money to return."

"You were a poor college student. You needed the money, just like my partner did. People do crazy things for money."

"I didn't just do it for the money. I liked it. I thought it was fun. An adventure. Then, one day, shortly after my fourth shoot, a kid at my school recognized me. He called me Claire. And shortly after that, everyone at the school knew what I had done and had passed the videos around. Being rumored to be the campus slut was one thing; having video evidence was completely different."

"And that's why you transferred to U.M."

She nodded and sniffled. "But that came later, after Roger ruined my life."

"What happened?"

"He insisted that I return for a fifth visit. I said no, and that I was done doing porn. He threatened me. He somehow found out the names and addresses of my mother, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and even my pastor back home. He said he would contact all of them, tell them what I had done, and give them video proof unless I worked for him one last time. I called his bluff. But it wasn't a bluff."

"My god..."

"My mother disowned me immediately. Said I wasn't welcomed back home. That's why I told you when you proposed not to expect any family at our ceremony. As far as they're all concerned, I'm dead."

"Jesus, Vanessa. I had no idea."

"I never wanted you to know this, Hank. I thought I could bury my past forever. I moved out here to start my life over again with a clean slate. I had my last name legally changed. I changed my appearance. I did everything I could to bury the past, but now it's back."

"What did Roger want?"

"What do you think? He says his viewers are still obsessed with me - who I was. He thinks if I do another shoot it would set a record for his site. He says I have until the end of the month to decide."

"Or what?"

"History will repeat itself. He will ruin my life, just the way he did ten years ago. He somehow has the names of my co-workers, my boss, some people from our church, women from the PTA..."

She began to sob again. He squeezed her tightly and kissed her forehead. "We'll figure out what to do - together."

Hank poured himself a glass of whiskey and settled into his favorite chair. With Vanessa at work and the kids in school, the house was eerily quiet. It had been three days since his wife dropped the bombshell on him that she had been a porn star in her youth. He had assured her again and again that this revelation changed nothing about the way he felt about her, but that wasn't entirely true.

Vanessa had always enjoyed sex from the first time they were together. Although he assumed she had an active sex life before they met, he had no idea just how active it was. It was difficult to wrap his head around it. What she did before they met should be irrelevant, just as the ghosts of his past were irrelevant to the man he had become. Yet, he couldn't stop thinking about his wife being in a small room sucking off one strange dick after another.

He reached out to his old connections from the force in Los Angeles. He also used his connections at the casino to see if anyone knew of this Roger Bentley from Las Vegas. He wanted to learn as much as he could about this guy before making his next move. They only had three weeks before the deadline. Roger threatened to go public with his information on Vanessa if she went to the police or mentioned their arrangement to anyone. He seemed particularly amused that she hadn't even told her husband about her past.

She made Hank swear to her that he would not search for the videos online, but how could he not watch them? This was a rare opportunity to glimpse a part of his wife's past. He had never seen so much as a photo of her from any age younger than when they met. Although she insisted she was now nothing like the young girl in those videos, he knew that there must be some part of that girl remaining in the woman he married who became the mother of his children.

He opened his laptop and typed the search phrase "gloryhole Claire" into his web browser. Sure enough, the page filled with links to videos of the apparently famous "Claire," the "Giggliest Girl in Porn." He hesitated for a moment and took a sip of whiskey before he clicked on the link that read "Claire's First Visit."

There she was. She looked so different with her long chestnut-colored hair, dark eyes, and without her glasses, but it was undoubtedly her. She looked so young and innocent. It was no wonder she was such a hit with the viewers.

"You made it!" the cameraman exclaimed. It must have been the voice of Roger.

"Yes I did," she said with a nervous giggle. There it was: the famous giggle.

She was seated behind the wheel of a vehicle. She was modestly dressed in a simple white tee shirt and denim pants.

"So, what, you just left class?" the interviewer asked.

"Uh, yeah, I did," she said with another giggle. "I ditched class."

"What do you study?"

"I'm studying nursing."

Evidently, the point of these videos wasn't merely to show young women sucking random dicks through a gloryhole, but also to showcase the women's personalities, allowing the viewers to get to know them before the action began.

"So, umm, how do you feel about doing this?" Roger asked.

"It's exciting," she said with a familiar bright smile.

"Have you ever done anything like this before?"

"No."

"Have you ever given more than one blowjob in a single day to different guys?"

"Yes I have. Two guys." Another giggle.

"What happened? Tell me about it."

"Umm...so, like, the first guy it was on the band bus. One guy, like, took me to the back of the bus and wanted me to do that for him, so I was, like, okay I will." Another giggle. Hank shook his head in disbelief.

"Was anyone else on the bus?"

"Uh, yeah. Everybody was there."

"Wow, okay. So what happened with the second guy?"

"Well, then I went home and I had another friend that I was meeting that night. And...uh...yeah, it just happened. In the car."

The interview continued for several more minutes before the scene changed. Vanessa was now seated in a small and dark room. Her face was lit by the light on the camera. A hand emerged from the darkness from the left side of the screen and tried to touch her. Then a large cock protruded from the hole. Vanessa leaned over and immediately took it in her mouth.

Hank cringed and took another sip from his rapidly-depleting glass. He had watched his wife suck his own cock countless times through the years, but this was a completely alien experience. He sat in contemplative silence as he watched her work her mouth and hand over this strange cock attached to a complete stranger on the other side of the wall.

Every now and then she would pause to lick his balls. Hank recognized her technique all too well. He had deluded himself into believing he had taught her some of her tricks. After only a few minutes, the cock disappeared and a hand emerged from the hole to grope her breasts. One of her small breasts popped out of her shirt. She didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, he recognized the expression on her face. She was highly aroused.

Suddenly, he heard the man on the other side of the wall whisper, "I want to fuck that tight little pussy."

Hank stared at the screen, captivated. Would she seriously let this stranger fuck her? She had said nothing about fucking any of these guys. Vanessa stood from her chair, unbuttoned her jeans, and pushed them to the floor. She was really going to do this.

With the direction of the cameraman, she removed her shirt as well, and then her bra. Her breasts were so much smaller then. They swelled during pregnancy and remained that size. Her breasts in the video looked as though they were barely A-cups, like a couple of pale Hershey's kisses.

There was a cut in the video and suddenly the man on the other side of the wall was now in the room with her. She bent over to suck his cock and then turned around to face the other wall, where another hand emerged from the other hole to fondle her tits. She stood and bent over while the first man wore a condom before taking her from behind. Hank recognized her soft moaning as this stranger entered her.

He didn't last more than ten seconds before he instructed her to turn around so he could cum on her face. She dutifully followed his direction and kneeled in front of him with her eyes closed and mouth open as he stroked himself. He splashed her forehead with a stream of cum before inserting his cock into her mouth so she could finish the job.

Hank paused the video. He rose from his chair and hobbled into the bathroom. He quickly lowered his pants, stood in front of the sink, and stroked his rock-hard cock. Within seconds, he felt a powerful orgasm erupt, nearly coating the mirror on the other side of the sink.

The drinkers and diners in the bar created a cacophony that helped mask the serious conversation taking place in the corner booth. Hank and Vanessa sat side-by-side at one side of the table. On the other side sat Jimmy Nelson, one of Hank's co-workers at the casino - and also a former Vegas cop. Hank had invited him to have dinner with the two of them to discuss their situation. Naturally, he didn't go into detail about the exact nature of their predicament. He valued Jimmy's advice, however, and needed his objective third-party point of view.

"What you're talking about here is blackmail, plain and simple," Jimmy stated. He popped a French fry in his mouth and chewed while he contemplated his words. "Or extortion, depending on the state's definition. Either way, it's basically the same thing. This guy is forcing Vanessa to do something against her will, right? And if she doesn't, he's threatened some sort of consequence."

"That's right," Hank said. "I'm sorry, but that's as much as we can tell you."

Jimmy held up his hand. "I get it. It's your private business." He swiped another fry through a pool of ketchup on his plate and fed it to himself. "Can I ask: how bad is this threat? I mean, if he goes through with it, is it the end of the world?"

Hank glanced at Vanessa for a moment before responding. If he had answered that same question before watching the videos, he would have responded completely differently. Seeing the actual videos changed everything. If Roger carried through with his threat and exposed Vanessa's past to their circle of friends, neighbors, employers, and associates, her life - their life - would be ruined.

"Yeah," Hank nodded. "It would be bad if that happened."

"Okay," Jimmy said. "Then let's take that option off the table. And doing this thing he wants her to do...?"

"Not an option," Hank interrupted.

"Okay, fair enough," Jimmy said. "Then we gotta neutralize this guy somehow, right? Take away his leverage. Blackmail is a crime. You get law enforcement involved and lock this guy up. Then he and your problem go away, right?"

"The nature of the threat makes that...problematic," Hank said. "Besides, we have no proof of the threat at this point."

"Then get proof," Jimmy said. "Get him on camera making the threat. Get his voice on tape. You know the drill, Hank."

Hank and Vanessa exchanged an uncomfortable glance. Roger had told her he had a stash of envelopes filled with a letter explaining the situation and a DVD containing all four of Vanessa's visits to his studio. If he received any hint of police involvement, he threatened, those letters would be dropped into the nearest mailbox and her reputation, her job, and her social life would be destroyed.

"Even if we got him on tape restating his threat," Hank said, "and that was enough to get him arrested, this particular problem might not go away. There is a chance the threat would still be carried out."

Jimmy shook his head and sighed. "This is a tough one, Hank."

"Tell me about it," Hank said with a smirk.

Jimmy raised his beer mug and emptied it. He looked across the table at Vanessa, and then to Hank. His eyes darkened as he leaned across the table. "Maybe there's only one way to make this problem go away permanently."

Hank stared at him for a moment. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't considered it. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," he said. He looked at Vanessa, who looked as though she were nauseous. She had barely touched her plate. "We'll figure something out. Something that won't scar our souls for life."

Hank finished installing the app and then handed the cellphone back to Vanessa. "This will record both sides of your conversation," he said. "Just speak naturally and remember what I told you."

"There isn't anything natural about this," she noted. Her hands quivered as she dialed the number and waited. She winced when he answered. "Roger," she said, "it's Claire."

"Well, well, well!" Roger said at the other end of the line. "I was wondering if you'd call. You made it just under the wire. Good girl. I assume you've decided to come for a visit?"

"I have," she said, "but first, I need some assurance that if I do this, I will never see you again."

"It's a one-time offer, honey," he said with some annoyance. "You do this, and you'll never see my face again, I promise."

"And why should I believe you? You're a lying piece of shit."

"Uh-uh-uh, now don't piss me off. I've never lied to you. In fact, you should know better than anyone I am a man of my word. If I say I'll do something, I'll do it."

"And if I do this, what's to stop you from blackmailing me again?"

"Whoa, Claire! That's a very nasty word you just threw at me! You are performing a service for me for which you will be very well-compensated. That isn't blackmail. It's a business transaction."

"And if I don't perform that service?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone for an uncomfortably long moment. Claire looked at Hank, panic-stricken. "Roger?" she said.

Roger laughed. It was a grotesque, phlegm-filled, chortle that turned her stomach. "I know what you're trying to do, Claire. I really, really, hope that I'm wrong about that. You still have the address I gave you, right? I expect to see you there on the first. If not..."

The call ended. Vanessa looked in horror at her husband. Her eyes glistened. "He knew," she said. "He knew he was being recorded. Dammit, Hank! Now what do we do?"

Hank took her in his arms and stroked her hair, letting her sob into his shoulder. "Don't worry. I have a few more ideas up my sleeve. I promise it will all be okay in the end."

Although he made that promise, Hank had little idea how he would make good on it. He stayed up late that night reaching out to all of his various contacts, trying desperately to come up with a plan of action. He tapped out an email to a friend of a friend in Vegas, hoping for a miracle. He was about to close the laptop for the night when he paused to listen. Vanessa had gone to bed more than an hour earlier and the kids were fast asleep as well.

He hated himself for watching the videos, but he really hated himself for enjoying them. When he clicked the play button on that very first video, he expected to be revolted and angered. Instead, he found himself aroused like never before. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't supposed to be watching them. It was the same thrill he received when he would sneak out of his room in the middle of the night as an adolescent and watch the porn video his friend had given to him. On the screen were things he wasn't supposed to see. Naughty things. Filthy things. It made him feel filthy just watching it. It also made him feel alive.