She clicked the mouse and the screen in front of her came to life. Not a video as she’d expected, but something that looked more like a spreadsheet. She scanned it, scrolled down, then went back to the top of the page, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The headings across the top read: Client, Location, Date, Fee – but the clients had numbers instead of names, so that wasn’t too helpful. However, the location was very familiar – it was the hotel she’d stayed at with James.
Her jaw dropped, appalled at what she was seeing; her worst fears, that Matt was involved, now confirmed. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and took screen shots before turning her attention to the second computer. Tentatively she clicked the mouse, and a page appeared with two headings: Sleeping Princesses and Voyeurs.
When she clicked on Sleeping Princesses, a list of options came up: Meet a Princess; Book a Princess; Buy a Video; Chat Room.
She turned to Matt, still not completely clear what she was looking at. ‘What exactly is a Sleeping Princess? What does that even mean?’
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, but he didn’t respond until Hailey gave his arm another twist. ‘Answer the question. We’re intrigued, aren’t we, Sara?’
His face contorted with pain. ‘Only if you ease off,’ he gasped. ‘You’re going to break my bloody arm.’
Hailey gave his wrist another tweak, making him scream again, before she relaxed her grip a little. ‘There you go. Come on, enlighten us.’
He ran his tongue round his lips, eyes on the floor when he started to speak. ‘As far as I’m aware, it’s women who get a kick out of seeing themselves being… well… fondled while they’re unconscious. Bit like a rape fantasy sort of thing.’ Sara saw him wince.
She snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! It must be the other way round. Men getting a kick out of molesting unconscious women.’ Her eyes scoured his face for evidence he was lying. ‘I was unconscious when those men abused me. I didn’t give them permission.’ She jabbed a finger at him to make her point. ‘I didn’t even know it had happened until you showed me that video.’
He wouldn’t look at her. ‘It’s… it’s just a fetish site. For people who want to act out their fantasies. It’s all between consenting adults, and although it may seem weird, they’re not doing any harm.’
Sara was so incensed she couldn’t speak.
Fortunately, Hailey didn’t have the same problem. ‘Oh come on! You don’t believe that, do you?’ The scorn in her voice would have stripped paint. ‘That makes it all sound okay, doesn’t it? Instead of your wife being sexually abused for money – a business transaction that you were involved in facilitating – you’re saying she made herself unconscious after inviting two strange men to molest her?’ Her voice finished an octave higher and a few decibels louder than when she’d started.
As usual, Hailey had gone straight to the heart of the matter, and hearing it summarised so clearly turned it from a theory into reality. But it was a hollow victory. Hurt and shame and disbelief surged through Sara in quick succession, an almost overwhelming blast of emotions that exploded in a fury like she’d never known before.
‘You make me sick!’ she yelled, hands flying in the air. ‘How the hell did you get involved in this? And how can you not see what’s really going on here? Talk about deluded!’
Hailey put more pressure on Matt’s arm, and he squealed. ‘Answer her,’ she said, teeth gritted, ‘because I’d really like to know too.’
There were tears in his eyes now, but Sara didn’t care how much Hailey was hurting him. It was nothing compared to the damage he’d allowed to be done to her, his own wife.
‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell you everything I know. Just… let’s calm down.’ He whimpered until Hailey loosened her grip a little, then began to speak. ‘It was just after I’d lost my job. I got an email asking if I’d like to help design a secret erotic website for a closed group of friends.’ He swallowed, eyes on the floor. ‘It sounded okay – maybe a little dodgy – but they assured me it wasn’t illegal, just a fetish they shared that they wanted to keep private. They were all in high-calibre jobs, and if it went public, their reputations and careers would suffer. I honestly took it at face value. I didn’t need to know what they were going to put on the site, and they assured me it was only between consenting adults. Like a dating site for people with matching fetishes.’ He ran his tongue round his lips again, a nervous habit Sara knew well. ‘I thought it was, you know, a bit weird, but whatever floats your boat. Who am I to judge? I’m just the tech guy, the architect. And I needed the work, didn’t I? To keep our family going. So I agreed.’
He shook his head, his eyes meeting Sara’s for the first time. She glared at him until he looked away. ‘I honestly thought everything was consensual. You’ve got to believe me. When I saw the video of you, I thought you must be into the fetish as well. It was only when they wanted to develop the site that I got a bit twitchy.’
Sara gasped. ‘You are kidding me? We’ve been together eighteen years; don’t you think you would have known by now if I was into stuff like that?’
He hung his head. ‘Looks like I jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ he mumbled. He looked up then, eyes brimming with tears. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off on one like that. I know it was jealousy speaking and I know I didn’t listen to you.’
An apology from Matt was a rare thing, and she gazed at him, at the tears, but made herself stand her ground, hands clenched by her sides. His emotion might not be real. I can’t trust him. There was more, she knew there was, and this could be a ploy to get her sympathy, prevent him having to tell her everything. She folded her arms across her chest, a hard edge to her voice. ‘Carry on, you were saying?’
‘When they asked for the Voyeurs section to be added, I wanted to stop.’ His eyes pleaded with her. ‘I said I couldn’t be involved any more, but they wouldn’t let me out of the contract. They put… they put that video of Milly in the shower all over social media and said if I didn’t carry on working for them they had other videos I wouldn’t want to be made public.’ His eyes glistened, pain in his voice. ‘Can’t you see? I had no choice.’
‘You bastard,’ Hailey hissed. ‘Exposing your own family to these filthy animals, not to mention all the other victims. I bet most of them don’t even know they’ve been filmed, do they?’
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. The truth was obvious as soon as his eyes dropped to the floor and stayed there.
‘Who are they, Matt? Who’s behind all this?’ Sara stood in front of him and grabbed his chin, made him look at her.
‘I don’t know, honestly I don’t.’ His voice sounded convincing but his eyes told another story. Sara fought the urge to lash out. Instead, she backed away, needing time to think.
‘So what happens now?’ Matt asked, grimacing as Hailey gave his arm another twist.
‘I want any videos of me destroyed. And any of the girls. Take the site down, get rid of the content.’ Sara glowered at him. ‘That’s the least you can do.’