The King Tides

Chapter 22 Cassandra Plays Coy!

A naked teenage girl of no more than fifteen years of age lay beneath a filmy sheet, fondling herself while talking to the camera, inviting the viewer to come visit her. Sensual music played in the background like a siren’s song, the setting a cheap hotel room. The furniture gave it away. Queen-size bed, flat screen TV, coffeepot on a shelf above the minifridge — all of life’s essentials crammed into four hundred square feet of living space.

The video had been shot in the early morning. Rays of sunlight fought their way through the blinds. On the TV, Family Guy was playing, the baby cartoon character named Stewie spouting politically incorrect things to the screen. The teenage girl pulled down the filmy sheet and exposed her breasts. She pinched one of her nipples and let out a little laugh. Her skin was olive-colored, and her eyes were big and innocent. It was hard not to get aroused, and he turned away.

“Jesus Christ,” he said again.

The girl in the video was Nicki Pearl.

She didn’t look exactly the same as the teenager he knew. The girl in the video wore makeup and heavy eyeliner and had her hair styled. But there was no doubt it was her. Same wide eyes, same high cheekbones, same bee-stung lips. It was Nicki.

Her hand dropped, and she started to masturbate. Her moans were low and harsh.

Leaving the cell phone on the arm of his chair, he went to the balcony, and stared into the darkness. He heard her reach orgasm, and he shook his head. She had pulled the wool over his eyes and her parents’ as well. Fooled them into thinking that nothing out of the ordinary was going on when in fact she was making porno videos on the sly.

He didn’t think Nicki was involved on her own. He guessed Tyler Steeves, the boy from her school, was a better videographer than he seemed because he didn’t want to get caught making and posting pornography. It would have been easy to blame him, but the sad fact was, Nicki appeared to be enjoying herself.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe Tyler was a Svengali who’d cast a spell over Nicki. It was not uncommon for charming boys to persuade impressionable girls into doing things that they would never consider doing on their own. Maybe Tyler had slipped her drugs at a party and taken control of her.

He told himself that Nicki was a victim. She was a sweet, innocent kid, and would never have gotten involved in making porn on her own.

He went to his chair and retrieved the cell phone. The video was over, the screen dark, and he scrolled to the next entry. He needed to watch all the Cassandra videos, and find evidence of Nicki being drugged or coerced. Then he’d go to see her parents, get them to press charges against Tyler Steeves, and force him to take the videos down from the porno sites where he’d posted them. Tyler was responsible for predators like Zack Kenny stalking Nicki, and he was going to pay for his crimes.

The greatest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. He was convinced that Nicki was a victim. The facts didn’t support it, but sometimes the facts were wrong. He’d been around her enough times to form an opinion, and his opinion was a positive one.

The third video was titled CASSANDRA TAKES A SHOWER! and watching it changed that opinion. To say that he’d been deceived was an understatement. He’d been thoroughly conned. Nicki was a willing participant in the video, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. The video was exactly as the title suggested. It showed the teenager taking a hot shower while recording a video of herself with a cell phone on a selfie stick. While steaming water sprayed her naked body, she sensually rubbed soap suds across her breasts and crotch while talking obscenely to the camera.

“Want to fuck me?” she asked. “I bet you do. I’m waiting here for you.”

The shower lasted for a few minutes, and so did the teasing. When she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower stall, her cell phone briefly scanned the bathroom. The door was closed, and she was alone. There was no teenage boy egging her on. It was just Nicki and her cell phone.

Nicki took the cell phone off the stick and propped it against a soap dispenser on the sink. The move was practiced, like she’d done it before. Standing naked in front of the vanity, she dried herself off with a fluffy towel and continued to taunt.

“What’s taking you so long? Can’t you see how horny I am?”

She was good. Her delivery was smooth, without an ounce of self-consciousness. Like she’d done it a hundred times before. She dried her hair with a blow dryer and brushed it out. Picking up her cell phone, she reattached it to the stick.

“Bedtime,” she said. “Are you ready?”

She walked into an adjacent bedroom. She turned the stick and used the phone to lead the way. There was no one else in the picture. The bedroom was dimly lit, and he stared at the shadows, desperate to find an accomplice. There was none.

A shaded lamp sat on the bedside table. It was the room’s only source of light. She turned it on and off a few times with her free hand and finally left it on. The bed was a king with a wooden frame. Attached to the frame was a metal contraption similar to a fishing rod holder on a boat. She slipped the selfie stick into the holder and clamped it into place so the cell phone was pointed at the bed. Pulling back the bedcover, she lay down on the top sheet so her body was exposed to the screen.

She started to play with herself. A door opened, and a dark-skinned man of Middle Eastern descent made his entrance. He was in his midthirties and trim, with the body of a runner. He climbed on top of Nicki and they began to have intercourse. It made Lancaster’s stomach churn, but he continued to watch, hoping an accomplice would pop up in the shadows and save him.

No luck. This was a solo effort.

He watched the remaining Cassandra videos. Each video ended with the same Middle Eastern man coming into a hotel room and having sex with Nicki.

He rubbed his face with his hands. He tried to imagine her parents’ reaction when he showed these videos to them. It was going to be awful.

He went inside and found his charger. The Droid was running low on juice, so he plugged it into an outlet in the kitchen and then fixed a rum and coke. He rarely drank to get drunk, but this was one of those special occasions. His reality had been shattered, and he needed to calm down. He took a long gulp of his drink and shut his eyes.

This was going to end badly. The Pearls had hired him to save their daughter, when in reality there was no way to save her. The Cassandra videos were out there in cyberspace, and any twisted soul could get his hands on them and fantasize over having sex with Nicki. He supposed the Pearls could sell their house and go into hiding and wait a few years for Nicki to grow up, but what kind of life was that? It would be like being in the witness protection program, only the Pearls wouldn’t have the government watching their back. They’d be on their own and always fearful.

He supposed there were other options. The Pearls could pay to change Nicki’s appearance through plastic surgery. She could be given a new face and would be able to go out in public and not be stalked. South Florida was a haven for cosmetic surgery, and her parents would have no problem finding a qualified surgeon to do the job.

But what if Nicki said no? What if she refused to go into hiding or let a plastic surgeon cut her? Nicki had a dark side, and there was no telling how she’d react. Confronting her in front of her parents was going to be hard.

He topped his glass off and went into the bathroom and washed his face with hot water. He was no stranger to porn — it was hard to surf the internet and not see a naked woman — but watching the Cassandra videos had made him feel dirty, and he guessed it was because he knew the performer. He cared about Nicki and wanted her problems to go away, but the damage had been done, and there was no going back.

He was startled to see that he’d emptied his glass, and he returned to the kitchen and fixed himself another drink. The cell phone sat on the counter still plugged in. It was 75 percent charged, so he disconnected it and went into his study. He needed to download the videos to his laptop for safekeeping.

He connected the Droid to his laptop with a USB connector. The VideoVault app on the Droid had timed out. He typed in the password, hit “Enter,” and was taken to Zack Kenny’s account. He decided to start from the top, and download each video in the chronological order that they were stored on the app.

His eyes grew wide. The screen was blank. He used his finger to move around the page, thinking he had been taken to another landing page. No such luck. Kenny’s account was empty. The Cassandra videos had been erased.