I rest both palms on Navid’s desk and catch my breath. The whirring fan at the back of the room cools my mood, its sound adding further distraction.
Right, do we have everything? Runner asks. Just make sure, but be quick. We’ve got to get a move on.
I scan the room.
What about his pockets? Runner points, Navid’s suit jacket hanging on the back of the door. I quickly check but there is nothing. Just a handful of toothpicks and two sticks of gum.
You need to stop all of this and get us away from here, Anna says.
Quiet, Runner orders.
You be quiet, Anna argues. You should have protected Alexa from this.
Runner ignores her, pointing to the back of the office. Check the cabinet, Alexa.
I open the doors and find inside a huge plasma TV, a DVD player, and a library of catalogued DVDs—
Abbie. Abbie. Amy. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Becky. Becky. Becky. Bella. Bella. Bella&AmyXXX. Bella&Amy. Beth. Beth. Britney. Britney. Britney. Britney. BritneyXXX—
My stomach flips—
Candi&Amy&AnnabelleXXX. Candi. Candi. Candi. Chantel. Chantel. Chantel. Chloé. Chloé. Chloé. Chloé&Annabelle. Charlize. Charlize. Charlize. Dana. Dana. Dana. Dana. Danielle. Danielle. Deena. Deena. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. Elisa. Elisa. Ella. Ella. Ella. Ella&Shaun&JaneXXX—
Ella?
Ella&Shaun&JaneXXX?
I pull out the case, retrieve the disc, and place it in the DVD player.
We need to go, Runner says. There’s no time.
Let her watch it, the Fouls insist.
The moment I press play on the remote control, I feel myself leave the Body—fear completely taken over.
I stare at the screen.
The back of a girl’s head.
A shiny black bob.
Tanned jutting shoulder blades.
I know those shoulders; I’ve placed my arms around them enough times in moments of comfort, and happiness, fun and despair.
The camera pans out slowly to show a dark room. My Reason lying on a double bed.
Her slim waist and perfect bottom are defined by gentle lighting. A slow soundtrack heavy on the chords. I recognize the shape of her body and the way it moves, the familiarity of the curve of her back, seen so many times as we were growing up—swapping clothes, skinny-dipping, showering after gym class.
The camera closes in on her black G-string, stockings, and three-inch heels—a pornographic cliché. Smooth in its glide, it follows in another girl with long red hair. Jane, Oneiroi says.
The camera pulls back. Slides around so that Ella’s body fills the entire screen, her face out of view. She touches herself and the camera zooms in: first on the circling of her hand, and then on her thighs. Jane leans against a dresser made of pine that I immediately recognize as the one back at the Groom House. There, she watches Ella pleasure herself. Jane, the voyeur.
A man enters—
Alexa, we need to go, Runner warns.
“Wait,” I shout from the ceiling, the Body still standing in front of the huge plasma TV.
—and walks across to the bed. I look away for a moment. The reality of what Ella’s been doing for the last six months feeling like an axe splitting open my chest. The man drops his trousers and enters her while Jane watches. Ella drives her ass high in the air, a panned-out shot of one of her red-heeled shoes, while he tilts his head back and slaps her, hard. All the while pulling tightly on her hair.
“Good girl,” I hear Shaun say.
Ella releases a moan.
“You like that?” he whispers. “You like me fucking you?”
Another moan.
“Turn around, baby, come and suck me,” he says. “That’s it. Let me see your beautiful face.”
Ella releases Shaun, and as she turns, still on her hands and knees—I drop the TV controls.
There, staring back on the forty-nine-inch screen, I realize, is me.