I wrote on the back of the sheet:
"Dear Ann. These photos will enjoy a wide distribution to the police, your parents, and the shool population at large unless we can reach an agreement. Imagine hundreds of copies of the picture with Bill Arnold's dick in your mouth or Bill Arnold coming on your face, distributed all over campus. Imagine pictures of you snorting coke being sent to the cops. Imagine a copy of this contact sheet finding its way to your father's office, or to your home and your mother. If you wish to avoid all these things, meet me at the Fish and Chips shop in the Sanderson Mall today after school. We can discuss my terms. Don't worry, I can be reasonable, but don't imagine I am bluffing. I have nothing to lose by publishing these as 8 x 10 glossies."
I folded the sheet into four and put it in an envelope marked "Open in Private!". I went back to school, cut another class, and, when I was sure I was not being observed, slipped the envelope into her locker through the vent. At first it stuck, and I paniced a little, but a little back-and-forth action made it slip right through.
I waited until the next bell rang, then stood across the quad looking through a telephoto lens at Ann's locker. The hubub of the betweenclass activity hid me perfectly, and after two minutes or so I spied her heading toward her locker. She looked just as she always did, aloof and superior. I could not believe that such a debasing scene did nothing to change her attitude, but she clearly still held herself "above it all."
Just for a few moments longer, Ann, I thought.
She opened her locker and the envelop fell to the ground. I must have gasped a little when another girl picked it up, looked at it, and handed it to her. She said something, probably intended to be witty, but Ann frosted her with a snooty look and the girl walked away. Ann read the envelope, closed her locker, and walked over to sit on the planter that surrounded the flagpole. Checking to see that no one was near, she opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet.
She must have opened it to the photo side first, because her face went white, her eyes grew large as saucers, and she clasped the sheet immediately to her chest to hide the side where the photos where. She looked around again, frantic, then noticed the writing on the reverse side. She stuffed the sheet back into the envelope without reading it, then ran off to the girls room, looking a little ill.
I chuckled to myself. Ann looked about as un-superior as a person could, stumbling frantically off to the bathroom clutching sex photos of herself. I knew she was going there to read the note, to scan the photos again in disbelief. I knew she was scared and suffering, and in the darkest reaches of my heart I felt great. She was, I guess, a symbol for all the elite people of the world, to me. She was the embodiment of all the things a normal person never gets to have.
Well, this time it was going to be different. Very, very different.
Chapter 3 – Modus Vivendi
I sat down in a back booth and ordered a bowl of red chowder. I was a bit nerv
ous – confrontation has never been my strong suit – but something about the quality of this event had brought out my ruthless side. Under normal circumstances I would have been tongue tied around a girl like her. Now I was in charge, and there was nothing that could change that.
She entered the shop about 5 minutes after the final bell would have rung – I had cut all my afternoon classes too. I was amused to think that she must have hurried indeed to get here so soon after school had let out.
She looked around the shop, but most of the tables were empty. It was primarily a lunch and dinner place, and I knew it would be pretty empty for at least two hours.
She finally spotted me, and I held my camera up and winked. I could not tell if she recognized me, but I doubt it. She'd done such a good job of ignoring me, I doubted she was even sure that I went to her school.
She strode up purposefully and sat down angrily in my booth, facing me.
"Are you the guy who left those pictures?" Her voice was a furious whipser, but there was a lot of fear there. The anger was clearly intended to give her courage and perhaps bully me into giving in. No chance…
I smiled. "Photography is my life, 'Annie.' Of course, I don't usually take those kinds of pictures…"
"Sure!" she spat. "I'll bet you creep all night long spying on people like that, you pervert!"
"I'm a pervert? Maybe you better look at those snapshots again."
"Oh, fuck off!" Her voice was a high, nervous squeak.
"Take care, now, Annie. You don't want to get on my bad side, now DO YOU?" I pointed my finger at her and stared her down.
She looked at me with a stunned horror. Our voices were low, but I imagine no one (except maybe Bill Arnold) had ever talked to her in such a tone, especially no one from the great unwashed masses, like me.
She was beginning to realize that I had her and I knew it.
She looked down at her expensive leather shoes. "Um, no. I guess I don't. OK, OK, I'm sorry." She was silent for a moment. "What is this all about?"
"That's better. Now, I have the negatives to those photos and I can make all the prints I want. What can you offer me to make it worth my while not to do that? I mean, imagine how fun it would be to see a fucking little princess like you get dragged through the shit." She looked up at this, her eyes sad and shocked, but her face as lovely as always. "If I'm going to deny myself that pleasure, I have to have something to replace it."
"What kind of something?" Her voice was a whisper, her eyes locked onto mine.
"A better something. Something very, very pleasant. Something like you gave Bill Arnold."
She bit her lip and shook her head.
"Something even better, perhaps." I smiled the smile of the cat who ate the canary.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then suddenly opened them and smiled.
The smile was the sort of familar, cosy smile she usually reserved for her fellow elite, and she beamed it at me with all the energy she could muster. "Oh, come on, be a sweetheart. You saw what that slime made me do. Haven't I been through enough? Besides, you look like a nice guy – you don't want it like that, you know, forcing me to, do you?"
She batted her eyes and tilted her head. A curl of honey brown hair drifted over one eye and her face assumed a look that was at once innocent, friendly, sexy, and strong. Looking back, it is of course obvious that she was trying to manipulate me through those same charms that had kept her on top of the pyramid for four years. But at the time I was only 16, and very suceptible.
She saw the hesistation in my face, and tried to press the advantage.
"There's no reason we can't be friends, is there? I mean, do a girl one little favor… uh…. um…."
Her smile faded a bit, and I realized that she was trying to remember my name. We'd been in school together since the second grade, had even been lab partners, and she had never taken even enough interest to remember my name. The spell broke.
"Forget it, Annie," my voice was strong and I could see that she knew I was not going to play. "No, this is going to be business." Her espression fell into one of complete despair.
I recognized the look – it was very much like the one she had given Bill Arnold when he threatened to rape her if she did not come across with a blowjob – but there was a difference. Though she was defeated, she was not disgusted, or at least not as disgusted as she had been then.
I spread my hands out on the table and sat back in my seat. "Now," began, businesslike and firm, "you're a rich kid. Your parents probably own a summerhouse or some rental properties or something, right?"
"What?" She was visibly shaken. Shocked at her failure to charm me, she was beginning to see the reality of the situation.